Estádio dos Barreiros
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| Estádio dos Barreiros | |
|---|---|
| O Caldeirão (The Cauldron) |
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| Full name | Estádio dos Barreiros |
| Location | Rua Dr. Pita 9000 Funchal Madeira, Portugal |
| Broke ground | 1925 |
| Opened | June 26, 1927 |
| Renovated | May 5, 1957 |
| Owner | Região Autónoma da Madeira |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction cost | 12,000,000 escudos |
| Architect | Couto Martins |
| Former names | Estádio do Professor Marcelo Caetano (1969-1970) |
| Tenants | Marítimo União |
| Capacity | 9,177 |
| Field dimensions | 105 x 65 metres |
Estadio dos Barreiros is a multi-use stadium in Funchal, Portugal. It is currently used mostly for football matches. It is the home stadium of Marítimo and União da Madeira and although much larger in its hey-day, the stadium is now able to hold just 9,177 people.
The stadium itself is rather distinctive in design and shape. Built into a Funchal hillside, the stadium offers outstanding views of the bay, city and the rising Madeiran mountain's from its two 'banana-shaped' stands that stretch the entire length of the field and curve around most of the running rack, but not entirely. The two stands are both all seated with the bancada nascente being totally uncovered and sufficiently smaller than the main bancada lateral (Pictured). Because it has been built into the ground, the top of the main stand, complete with its roof is actually only at street level, which require walking down several stairways to reach the top of the stand from the main road.
[edit] History
Football has been played on the site of the stadium since 1927, when it was known as the Campo dos Barreiros. The field was purchased in 1925 and used by one of the Funchal's major football teams, Nacional da Madeira as their home ground, officially inaugurating it on June 26, 1927, with a game against Campeonato de Portugal giants Vitória de Setúbal.
In 1938, because of Nacional's precarious financial situation, leading to an overall poor maintenance and decay of the facilities, the club asked for assistance from the regional government in the way of a loan, remortgaging the land to a value of 280,000 escudos.
Funchal's desperation for a major sports venue had been recognised as far back as the 1920s by the local government, and with this in mind, the council purchased the land from the club at a price of 847,000 escudos to avoid the land falling into the hands of creditors, who would most likely have auctioned it off for agriculture use or property development.
The deeds were signed on February 24, 1939, under the condition that the land would be used solely for its original purpose as a sports facility. Plans were drawn up by local architect Couto Martins for a 17,000 capacity stadium, complete with an athletics track, car parks and access roads. Building commenced on March 21, 1951, with local manufacturer João Augusto de Sousa awarded the contract and engineers Félix do Amaral, João Marques de Almeida and Rui Vieira also working on the construction, which cost a total of 12,000,000 escudos.
Estádio dos Barreiros was officially opened on May 5, 1957 by minister Arantes e Oliveira, and with a football match between Madeira and the Portugal B team, who ran out 5-2 winners, in front of over 12,000 fans.
The landmark stadium provided a home for Nacional who were soon joined by the region's most successful and popular sports club, Marítimo. Marítimo's move away from their old Campo do Almirante Reis ground began a long groundshare with Nacional and also União da Madeira, the city's third biggest sports club, who also became tenants.
In 1969, the regional government renamed the stadium, assigning it the name of Professor Marcelo Caetano, however the decision wasn't too popular with local fans and quickly fell into disuse, and was reverted back to Barreiros.
The stadium was home to Madeira’s top three football clubs for many years, and this showed on the poor quality of the pitch, which couldn’t handle three matches a week. During the late 1990s Nacional moved out, and into their own new stadium, the Estádio Eng. Rui Alves (Now called Estádio da Madeira) located in the Choupana district, to the north of Funchal.
Although it has had several facelifts over the years, the unique stadium has remained true to its original structure, with seating and new floodlights the only major evolutions on the site. The aging stadium is known as the ‘Caldeirão’ (Cauldron) throughout Portugal, because of its famous uncomfortable and hostile atmosphere, the stadium has become a fortress for Marítimo, with many big teams struggling to win any points on their visits, notably Benfica who famously took 10 years to secure a win at the stadium, ending the ‘curse’ in 2003.
In 2007 Marítimo unveiled ambitious plans for a new state-of-the-art stadium (see Estádio do Marítimo), placing Barreiros' future as a major football venue in doubt, with União also working towards relocation. However, the club backtracked their plans following an agreement with the local council to donate the stadium land to club for redevelopment of a commercial stadium.
