Clube União 1919, usually known as União de Coimbra (), is a

sports club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

in the city of

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. The club was founded on 2 June 1919 and has a large array of currently active or temporarily disbanded sports departments which includes

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

futsal Futsal is a variant of association football played between two teams of five players each on a court smaller than a football pitch. Its rules are based on the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game of association football, and i ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art which is split into many different styles including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai, and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practic ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

and

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

. The main men's football team currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal. The club uses a stadium in Coimbra, the Campo da Arregaça, which has 1,500 seats and belongs to the municipality.

History

The club was founded on 2 June 2, 1919 in Coimbra, Portugal, under the name União Foot-Ball Coimbra Club. Its founders were a group of young people linked to commerce and industry, including shop and workshop owners and employees, bricklayers, locksmiths, tinsmiths, shoemakers, etc., who set up their own "foot-ball" club in the heart of the city's downtown. The first talks took place in the shop of shoemaker Afonso Chato, in Largo do Romal, in October 1918. Subsequent meetings were held in Largo de Sansão, now Praça 8 de Maio, in the heart of downtown Coimbra. Later, the board of directors decided to change the name to Clube de Futebol União de Coimbra (CF União de Coimbra). The club's traditional stadium in Coimbra city proper, the Campo da Arregaça, was inaugurated in 1928 and built by the Coimbra City Hall, but in the 21st century the club has also played for some periods of time in the

Estádio Municipal Sérgio Conceição Estádio Municipal Sérgio Conceição (Sérgio Conceição Municipal Stadium) is a football stadium in Taveiro, in the city of Coimbra, Portugal. Built in 2002, it has 2500 seats and was named after Sérgio Conceição, a football player born i ...

, another City Hall-owned 2,500-seat stadium in

Taveiro Taveiro is a former civil parish in the municipality of Coimbra, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,948, in an area of 10.23 km2. On 28 January 2013 it merged with Ameal and Arzila Asilah () is a fortified town on the northwest tip of ...

, a civil parish of Coimbra Municipality located in the outskirts of the city proper, which is a municipal stadium built in 2002 and was named after Coimbra-born football player

Sérgio Conceição Sérgio Paulo Marceneiro da Conceição (; born 15 November 1974) is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who mostly played as a right winger. Throughout his career, he played for ten teams in five countries. After gain ...

. The main football team of União de Coimbra played one single season in the Portuguese First Division, in the 1972-1973 season, among big clubs like

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, Order of Prince Henry, MHIH, Order of Merit (Portugal), OM (), commonly known as FC Porto or simply Porto, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Porto. It is best known for the professional association footbal ...

, Benfica and

Sporting Clube de Portugal Sporting Clube de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting (particularly within Portugal), or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries,

. However this season coincided with hometown big club Académica de Coimbra being in Segunda Divisão as a result of being relegated the previous season, so a top division Coimbra

derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

never took place. In 2016, for legal reasons related ro the club's

financial distress Financial distress is a term in corporate finance used to indicate a condition when promises to creditors of a company are broken or honored with difficulty. If financial distress cannot be relieved, it can lead to bankruptcy. Financial dist ...

and subsequent reorganization after its

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

, the club was forced to change its name to Clube União 1919.

Facilities

The sports club owns an indoor arena, the Pavilhão do Clube de Futebol União de Coimbra (Clube de Futebol União de Coimbra's Pavilion). The club is headquartered in this building in

Santo António dos Olivais Santo António dos Olivais, commonly shortened to Olivais, is an urban freguesia, civil parish in the List of municipalities of Portugal, municipality of Coimbra Municipality, Coimbra in Portugal, making up the eastern part of the historic city of ...

, located nearby the Coimbra City Stadium. It uses City Hall-owned Campo da Arregaça, with 1,500 seats, and

, with 2,500 seats, for football matches. Historically, the Campo da Arregaça is considered the club's traditional stadium and it is operated by the club as its main training ground.

Support

The official organized supporters group (''claque'' in Portuguese) is called "Rambos da Arregaça" (Arregaça's Rambos) and is named after fictional character

Rambo Rambo may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *John Rambo, the main character from the ''Rambo'' franchise * Mary Rambo, female character in '' Invisible Man'' Films * ''Rambo'' (franchise), starring Sylvester St ...

. One of its mottos is "''Vai Tudo''" (everybody/everything/it all goes).

Rivalries

Historically, the Académica de Coimbra football team was considered an

elitist Elitism is the notion that individuals who form an elite — a select group with desirable qualities such as intellect, wealth, power, physical attractiveness, notability, special skills, experience, lineage — are more likely to be construct ...

club because it was made up of and supported by students from the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

during a time when only the wealthiest people used to gain admission into the university, while those who had never attended the local university or any other, colloquially known as ''futricas'', a derogatory term, played for and supported União de Coimbra. This has led to the emergence of a historic rivalry between the two clubs since the beginning of the city's football history.

Football: league history

The club has a single presence at the top level of Portuguese football.

In popular culture

Bruno Aleixo, a fictional character, popular in Portugal and Brazil, created by the comedy group GANA is a supporter of União de Coimbra.

Honours

*Campeão Nacional 2ªDiv.: 1 *Campeão Nacional 3ªDiv.: 1 *Campeão Distrital da Associação de Futebol de Coimbra: 1 *Winner of the Taça da Associação de Futebol de Coimbra: 1

Notable sportspeople

Football

* António José Seabra (1945–2024),

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

over the course of several years who played for the team when it reached top flight football in Portugal at the end of the 1971–72 season, and who was also a medical doctor * Rogério Matias (born 1974), played for the team in the 1996–97 season and would later earn five caps for

Swimming

Diogo Ribeiro Diogo Ribeiro (d. 16 August 1533) was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer who worked most of his life in Spain, where he was known as Diego Ribero. He worked on the official maps of the '' Padrón Real'' (or ''Padrón General'') from 1518 t ...

(born 2004), world champion who as a youth was a swimmer for the club

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Uniao Coimbra Association football clubs established in 1919 Uniao de Coimbra Football clubs in Portugal 1919 establishments in Portugal Primeira Liga clubs