An institution from a different era, the Easter Cup has for many years been something more than a celebratory event conditioned by the days.

It was created against a lot of opposition as it started and turned into a social event with thousands of fans watching as if they were going to… a concert hall, not just a stadium.

There were times when football was not just a 90-minute match, but a secular event, which, especially on Easter days, acquired a special dimension. People did not go to the stadium in casual clothes, but in Sunday clothesthe best he had, and which he wore to church or to big celebrations, such as Lambri.

The establishment of the Easter Cup began under wartime conditions in 1928 and thus ended 36 years later, in 1964, with turbulent episodes that led to the decision to do away with it forever before it collapsed. In these nearly four decades of its life, it has been an organization that has won fans and helped football grow from its infancy to the most popular sport in a spirit of reciprocity that is completely foreign to today’s rivalries.

first Easter Cup organized in 1928, of three teams that started hand in hand then but ended up in the trenches over the years, battling each other even behind the lines of the playing field. It was a time when football was trying to organize itself and get away from the narrow local character imposed by the difficulties of movement.

To become a championship with the participation of teams from all geographical regions of the country was a utopia. It cost a lot of time and money to travel from Athens to Kavala or Crete in the middle of the era, to the point that amateur football players were forbidden to stop work and run from one end to the other across the fields. country, for a sport that could not support them financially.

The newly created (since 1926) EPO tried to impose its own rules and gain financial independence, it demanded a percentage of the little money that the teams received from their only source of income – tickets. The first reaction came from Olympiacos, who refused to give a percentage of his earnings and threatened the Federation that he would not participate in the Panhellenic Championship in September 1927, with the teams that won the title in the local championships of Athens. , Piraeus and Thessaloniki.

To show its strength, the newly created EPO punished Olympiacos with a long-term exclusion from the rosters and a ban from participation in matches, even friendly ones. Panathinaikos was on the side of the “red-whites” from the first moment and the split turned into an abyss when AEK pulled the strings even further by refusing to play on October 29 in a friendly match against Apollo, the proceeds of which were intended for the EPO fund.

Characteristic of the climate was an article in the newspaper “Embros” on the eve of the AJC “mutiny” (28/10), signed by Dimitris Karabatis, a Balkan athlete from Panioni and later a journalist:

“Last night there were rumors about the explosion … of the football movement of the three collaborating associations, Panathinaikos, Olympiakos and Union of Constantinople, which became official from the form sent to our offices, and they admitted to us that the Union Match Con / Polis – Apollonos has been postponed indefinitely and instead another match will be played at Panathinaikos Stadium between two mixed teams made up of footballers from collaborating POK clubs.It is known that today’s match will be played with the financial support of the federation.Anyway, this is the position of the Union of Constantinople who agrees not to stoop to today’s struggle, and especially on the night of her stay, is not at all honorable for her.

The EPO did not add fuel to the fire and decided, instead of negotiations, to strike (first for four months and then for an indefinite period) three teams from their rosters and organize local championships without them. But there was one subtle point: these three teams were the most popular at the time, having won the love of most football fans since then. Their three historical leaders, Apostolos Nikolaidis of Panathinaikos, Thanasis Mermigas of Olympiacos and Kostas Constantaras of AEK, uncle of the actor Lambros Constantaras, decided to unite their groups and oppose the EPO, signing an agreement that gave birth to the famous POK, which quickly gained power far beyond at the Federation.

“They signed an agreement on friendship and cooperation to serve the interests of these associations, at the same time setting a penalty point of 50,000 drams. QAPthat is, the football club “Center” from the acronyms of the names “Panathinaikos”, “Olympiacos” and “AEK” (“Constantinopolitans”).

The coalition of these three teams spawned three competitions that immediately caught the attention of the fans and offered the “allies” a significant income from thousands of tickets: the Easter Cup, the September Cup and the Christmas Cup. The first event took place on Easter 1928 and was completely successful, as two foreign teams were also invited, Belgradski from Yugoslavia and a mixed team from Romania with players from Sparta and Venus Bucharest, who were a “magnet” for Greek fans.

The matches were played in avenue, the stadium in those years was ahead of its time. In its first edition, it had a capacity of 6,000 standing spectators and was packed to capacity on all days of games that began at the start of Holy Week and ended on Easter Sunday. This huge interest, which culminated the following year with the invitation of two well-known Hungarian teams, Ferencváros and Újpest, led to the transformation of the stadium into the most modern stadium in existence in the following decades.

First, in 1928, a wooden tribune with a capacity of 1200 spectators was built from the side of Alexander Avenue, then followed the first concrete platform in Greece with a capacity of 1500 spectators (under it there were rooms for other sports), in 1933 it was covered with a canopy and subsequently the capacity was gradually increased to 18 thousand spectators, with lawn and electric lightingalways a first time in Greece.

The philanthropy of the three members of the POC, combined with the arrival of foreign teams, gave these events a special character. much more important than the EPO championships which was played with smaller teams and few fans. Other teams were also invited to participate in the tournament, such as Apollo and Athenaikos. mixed POC who traveled to Istanbul in the autumn of 1931 for two friendly matches at Taksim with a mixed Galata and Fener which ended in a draw.

Three months later, the Turks came to Greece for the second leg and suffered a heavy 4-1 defeat in the first match at Leoforos, before drawing 2-2 in the second. More than 10,000 fans followed the Fener-Galata mixed doubles matches with great enthusiasm , such a number that they could not even think of collecting all the games of the championships organized by the EPO without the participation of the POC teams.

The Federation stepped back and embraced the defectors, but this development did not cancel their events, especially the Easter Cup, which was held in the spring in a festive atmosphere and always gathered a lot of fans, bringing great income to the teams. OUR National in 1937 they were the first and only Greek team outside the POK to win the title on the playing fields.

There was a second one, Aris in 1948, but the title was given formally because it was the visiting team from the POK, as the final was not finished due to incidents. The first foreign team to win the trophy was the German Cologne in 1956, and the second in 1957 was the Romanian Progressul, when an attempt was made to revive an institution that had suffered from war, occupation, civil unrest and poverty.

The Easter Cup gradually lost its romantic character and began to turn into a tournament of hard-fought fights, very often with unsportsmanlike markings and incidents, such as a rematch of championship matches that decided titles. Any civil strife that arose there was transferred to the POK organization and the situation began to get out of control, ending episodically.

Reject

The creation of the first national team and the participation of Greek teams in European competitions since the late 50s limited the interest of fans in the Easter Cup. The countdown has begun. Many games were not completed due to incidents, relations between the three teams were no longer harmonious, and rivalry led to the inevitable dissolution of the POKin 1963.

The next year’s event was also the last in the organization. The 1964 Easter Cup was organized in memory of Giorgos Kalafatis, the founder of Panathinaikos, who passed away on February 19 of that year but was never completed. At 2:2, AEK’s Kostas Nestoridis’ goal in the final match against Olympiacos was disallowed on the instructions of an observer, resulting in a serious defeat both inside and outside the pitch!

The game was not finished and thus episodically brought the end credits to a contest that has been writing its own special story for almost four decades…