Radium Football Team (Soccer)

Radium Futebol Clube (Radium Soccer Team) is one of the oldest clubs of soccer from the state of São Paulo, founded in 1919 (the union of Operario F.C. and Mocoquense – a coalition of the working class with the elite) in the city of Mococa, located in the boundary with Minas Gerais (map below).

The progress of the soccer in Mococa in that time was powerfull. However, some idealistic sportsmen longed for more. They wanted the foundation of a sporting society to catalyze and fraternize all “mocoquense” (citizen of Mococa) with a single ideal, to elevate the city in the sporting plan and to extend her name for the whole area and State. Operário F.C.(Worker Football Club) and Mocoquense F.C. (Citizen of Mococa Football Club), existent clubs at that time, joined to create a third association with a different name. That way, in 1st May of 1919, the people came to a great meeting in the Theater “Teatro Variedades”. In that memorable meeting was born the new sporting entity, that it received Radium F.C name, name predestined to increase Mococa, to transcend the limits of the municipal district and own State.

Radium disputed important championships in the first half of the century XX, to become champion of the series B of the championship from São Paulo (1950), until today the largest fact in the history of the club. The fabled team of the match of 1950, was composed by the players Olegário, Aguinaldo, Jorge, Brazão, Stacis, Baia, Bagunça, James, Alípio, Silas and Ary; commanded by the coach Florindo. Those names were immortalized in the memory of the whole Mococa's people, becoming legends of a time of many battles and conquests.

Above the 1950'champions.

Curious name this for a soccer club and fact worthy of registration is its origin. The present people in the meeting of 1 May, they solved of common agreement, that in none hypothesis some the new club would receive a name same to anyone had existed already in Mococa. That decision maybe has been the magic key that opened the doors of the future to the sport of Mococa. Several people suggested names and all was refused. Pedro Daniel (brother-in-law of Edgar de Freitas), was asked about a name, and he suggested Radium Football Club's name, explaining to the presents that he had read in the newspapers extraordinary things about that new chemical element, recently discovered by the french scientist Madame Curie. The name Radium presupposed force, potency, energy and the name was received with total approval. Like this, the element chemical radium symbol RA 225,97 – but in Mococa Radium became synonymous of a powerful sporting association.

Above Radium Team 2006.

On that XXI century Radium worked with partnerships, in an arduous fight for financial resources, since the government doesn't give the due value to the base categories of the Brazilian soccer, receiving little government support. The team had a short partnership with the centennial team of “Campinas” “Ponte Preta”, but it didn't last a lot. The team stays alive today thanks to the pledge, work and dedication of the leaders' of the entity, that fights in every round for the beaultiful Radium's green shirt.

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