Constituição, the first iconic ground in Porto | OneFootball

In 1906, FC Porto, who had been asleep for more than a decade, according to those who believe the club was originally founded in 1893, was brought back to life. They needed a place to play, and the club quickly found one in the Campo da Rainha, the first grass-pitch ground in Portugal. It wouldn’t last long, though. Only six years later, the club was evicted so that a factory could be built on the same grounds as the 600-seater venue.

It was then and there that the board looked north and found in the Constituição field what would become the club’s home for almost four decades. A ground that still belongs to the club on this day and has been the place where many of Porto’s academy graduates first took their steps as Dragons. As part of PortuGOAL’s “stadiums gone and missed” series, Miguel Lourenço Pereira brings us the history of the Estádio da Constituição.

Replaced and immediately missed

FC Porto’s famous Antas stadium was inaugurated in 1952. It was the first big ground to open in a decade, where Portuguese football was included in Salazar’s policy of ambitious architectural projects that would project an idea of a country that was moving forward. The Jamor stadium, following the Nazi and Fascist template, was opened in the late 1940s, and the Blue and Whites would soon follow, before SL Benfica, Sporting CP and Sporting Braga opened their new homes during the decade. It was a pompous affair, as expected, as the stadium looked immense relative to the city’s size at the time, even if the east stand had not yet been built.

Some, however, already felt some nostalgia for what had been the club’s main ground in the previous decades. Porto had played in both the Lima stadium and the Constituição. The former was not the club’s property. It was a ground they shared with the local side Académico, with whom they shared a fierce rivalry in their first years of their existence, but the Constituição was something else.

Shared stadium

Located on the street of the same name, which connects the east side of the city to the borough of Boavista, it was built in a place that almost served as the northern border of the town at first. With the city quickly expanding in all directions, it soon became part of the downtown neighbourhoods but never lost that feeling of being between two worlds. Initially, the club only rented the location, paying 350 escudos on an annual basis, but most of that money came from sub-renting it themselves to other local sides if they needed somewhere bigger to play. Clubs like Salgueiros, Boavista or even the distant Espinho or Vilanovense, from Vila Nova de Gaia, used the facilities on more than one occasion.

The ground was officially opened in January of 1913, with a local event that attracted a big crowd as the city dwellers became increasingly curious about the popularity of this sport called football. A three-city tournament was hosted, pitting Porto against Benfica from Lisbon and Fortuna from Vigo (the Eagles would also be invited to the das Antas inauguration, a match the Lisbon side rather rudely won 8-2). The area around the Constituição stadium later included a roller hockey pitch and tennis courts, but the football ground was the main attraction, with wooden and cement seated stands, two of them covered.

The iconic FOOT-BALL CLUB DO PORTO lettering on the wall of the Constituição stadium. (Source: www.memoriaporto.blogspot.com)

Hosting Real Madrid

For the first decade, it seemed enough to accommodate the club as they rarely played anyone other than regional opponents, but from the 1920s onwards, Porto became a national side. They hosted Real Madrid – whose captain was Santiago Bernabeu – for a friendly that they won 5-0 and Porto were soon playing in the recently formed Campeonato de Portugal, with Porto coming out as winners from the first edition played in 1922 after beating Sporting at home at the Constituição in the first leg.

For the next twenty years, as the club grew to become a nationwide institution, the Constituição began to feel too small for what Porto needed to keep expanding, as they surpassed 10,000 members. Clubs lived essentially from club members’ fees and match ticket sales, and if a stadium wasn’t big enough to accommodate bigger crowds, they would suffer for it.

Capacity increased

From 1933 onwards, the club’s board decided Porto needed a new ground, but it took them almost two decades before das Antas was finally inaugurated, with the construction works beginning only in 1948. In the meantime, while the Constituição remained their official ground – and it was expanded to host up to 20,000 supporters in 1939 – the club played more often than not elsewhere, moving from the Ameal that belonged to Sport Progresso, and where they played the 1926 Campeonato de Portugal final, to the Lima, a stadium that sported a beautiful grass pitch, the first of its kind, alongside an athletics and cycling track that reduced the impact of the roaring local crowds.

Every time Benfica or Sporting were in town, Porto would usually shift from the Constituição to either of the two, but in 1942, a disagreement with the Progresso board regarding the renting fee made it almost mandatory for the side to play at the Lima, despite being a more expensive option. The Lima became famous nationwide not only because Porto played many iconic matches there during the 1930s and 1940s, like when they beat Arsenal, but also because it was used for filming the match portrayed in the O Leão da Estrela blockbuster movie from 1947. It was surrounded by Portugal’s first basketball court, tennis and roller hockey facilities and even hosted sports car events. A proper sports cathedral, it would eventually be abandoned in the 1960s and its location, near the Marques do Pombal square, is almost lost from living memory.

Breeding ground for club icons

The same could have happened to the Constituição. While the Porto first-team played less and less at their old facilities, their academy graduates became used to hosting their matches there. From the 1950s onwards, most of the clubs’ most acclaimed academy graduates, including Pavão, Fernando Gomes, Vitor Baía, Fernando Couto and Jorge Costa, began their careers on a pitch that was always muddy in winter – it was always a dirt pitch since its foundation – and extremely dry in the summer months. From the 1980s onwards, it used to host dozens of training sessions per week for the youth squads while the older age groups would move to the grass training fields around the Das Antas stadium.

The Constituição officially hosted more than 200 matches for the Dragons between the Porto regional league, the Campeonato de Portugal, Portuguese Cup and Primeira Liga competitions for over four decades. And that doesn’t include many friendlies played against national and international opposition. In the 2000s, it got a new lease of life. A partnership with Vitalis allowed Porto to completely revamp the place, install several smaller training pitches in grass and synthetic grass for their academy graduates and the Dragonforce school.

The Constituição continues alive and kicking

The Constituição today accommodates Porto’s Dragonforce football academy (Photo: www.fcporto.pt)

Dozens of cars still park every day at the iconic gates, where the club’s crest and name are fantastically emblazoned in relief, in its English Foot-Ball Club do Porto version, so that kids can attend their training sessions. With only the under-17s and under-19s authorised to train at the Olival centre and before Porto can finally build their football academy, the Constituição will remain a fundamental part of the club’s history. The likes of Rúben Neves, Vitinha or Rodrigo Mora all started playing at the new Dragonforce facilities, echoing the glorious afternoons when Waldemar Mota or Artur de Sousa Pinga delighted the Constituição crowds with their brilliant displays.

A centenary ground that holds in its heart the very soul of football in the city of Porto.