Panionios, Greek Football Pioneers Part 2

Panionios, Greek Football Pioneers Part 2

Music, Athletics and Humble Beginnings 

By Stephen Kountourou

Panionios, or Orpheus Music and Sports Club as it was formerly known, was formed by the Greeks of Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire, now known as Ismir, in 1890. Before football came to Greece and its wider communities, the primary activity of the club originally was music, having been named after the legendary musician of ancient Greece, Orpheus. 

Later however, club members who wanted the focus to be more on sport and athletics, withdrew from the organisation. Some formed a new club named Gymnasium while others formed what would become Panionios oldest rival Apollon Smyrni. Gymnasium organised the first Panionian Games in 1896 and the next year in 1897 they competed in the foundation of SEGAS, Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association, along with 25 athletics clubs from Greece and two from neighbouring Cyprus. 

While it was not the most popular sport at the time, football was introduced and slowly started to gain popularity in mainland Greece and especially in Asian Minor. By 1895 Gymnasium and Orpheus reformed to create Panionios GSS with members of the Athletics team representing Greece for track and field games like the Panhellenic Games, which replaced the Panionian Games, and when the first modern Olympic Games was developed. 

With it came the first official football team, Panionios FC. Not much is said about the football team this early in their history other than they competed with other teams in Smyrna, particularly Apollon, to claim supremacy as the best team in the region, which is where their age old rivalry originates from.

From the end of the 19th century and the early 20th Century, Panionios competed in 19 Panhellenic games and organised the first poetry competition in 1900. The organisation introduced Volleyball and Basketball into Greek sport in 1913 and 1919 respectively. To this day they are still two of the biggest sports in Greece behind football. By the 1920s however things began to turn sour in Smyrna. 

A year after the end of the first world war, 1919 saw a campaign led by Greece and Western Allies, who promised Greece to regain territories that were previously Greek but were lost to the Ottoman Empire, from the Turkish National Movement. This became known as the Greco-Turkish War. 

Greek forces landed in Smyrna in May 1919 and advanced inland, taking control of western and northwestern part of what is now called Turkey. With material support coming from Italy and the Soviet Union, Turkish forces advanced on the Greek defences. After four years of fighting, in 1922 the Greek front collapsed and Turkey advanced, recapturing Smyrna in the process. 

The Greek government relented and accepted the Turkish demands, leaving eastern Thrace and most of Anatolia to Turkey. After the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate and the recognition of the new Republic of Turkey, both Greece and Turkey agreed to a population exchange between the two nations. This led to the displacement of over one million Greek Orthodox Christians and over 500,000 Muslims with the former settling mostly in the Attica reign of Athens. 

This huge displacement also affected sports clubs, who were forced to leave their original homes and resettle elsewhere in Greece. Former Smyrna athletics teams, like Panionios and Apollon Smyrni, were transplanted to Athens, with the settlement being renamed Nea Smyrna, after the displaced communities former home. Constantinople sports club Pera, was also displaced after the city became Istanbul, and formed two new organisations that would later become Greek football giants AEK Athens from the capital, and PAOK from Thessaloniki, Northern Greece's biggest football club. 

For Panionios, the threat to be dissolved seemed impending, if it was not for their president, Dimitrios Dallas, who regrouped the club and surviving athletes together, eventually finding them temporary sports accommodation at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens. It would not be until 1937, after the reestablishment of the Panionion Games in Athens, Panionios finally found its new home in the municipality of Nea Smyrni and by then football fever had already well and truly arrived on the shores of Greece and for Panionios. 

Hellas Football.