Saudações de Portugal

Posted on 16 January, 2017 • Category News

As you may have already seen, now that planning permission has been granted for the Cambridge Rules 1848 sculpture on Parker’s Piece, we can get on with the business of actually making it.

And the first step, obviously, is to get the stone. Alan and Neville are in Portugal this week watching the granite being extracted and worked on, as well as exploring the football stories in the area around the quarry in Lamego, about 90 minutes east of Porto. Alan will report back when the trip is over, but for now, here’s the story so far as told via Twitter…

So, first of all, we had to make sure we travelled past FC Porto’s fantastic ground.

Then it was off to see the old quarry’s abandoned football ground where Penafiel, a second division team, once played. As we’ve all also been involved in the story of Bradford Park Avenue’s abandoned old ground, it held particular resonances.

More pictures here, complete with Alan’s shadow…

It was time to take a deep breath and see the stone for the first time at Granitos. Everyone there was so friendly and helpful, and, naturally, football fans…

You might have already seen the man who cut our stone on Cambridge Rules 1848 – Nelson has posted to say he’s a Benfica fan.

But there are plenty of sporting rivalries at the factory. Belarmino is the boss and supports Sporting Clube De Portugal, while Elena follows Celta De Vigo, just across the border in Spain. She’s so keen, the badge is on her hard hat.

There was just enough time to walk the 365 steps up to Estádio dos Remédios, home of Sporting Clube de Lamego. The President, Delfim Duarte Santiago, told us all about their 80 year history.

And we got a scarf!