Panionios football team of Athens Greece

Panionios Football Team

Panionios F.C. Foundation: 1890

Panionios F.C. Team Colors: Blue & Red

Panionios F.C. Stadium:
Stadium Nea Smirni (Capacity: 11,700)

History of Panionios Football Team

Ionia, 1890. The first hundred members of the “Orpheus” Music Association decide to extend their activities to Greek culture and sporting events for children and adolescents in the wider Smyrna area. Thus was founded Panionios Smyrnis Football Team, based in the great harbour of Smyrna. A thousand children signed up in the first year.

The football team of the Panionios Gymnastikos Syllogos Smyrnis (the All-Ionian Gymnastic Association of Smyrna), was founded in 1895 and was the greatest breeding-ground for players over the next thirty years.

Along with their musical activities, the Greeks of Ionia and Smyrna trained daily in running, track events, long distance running and every kind of sport. The pioneering sporting spirit of the Smyrnans was copied by the Greeks of Constantinople several years later.

Smyrna, 1922. The beautiful seafront of Smyrna is aflame. The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the uprooting of the Greek population puts a temporary stop to the activities of Panionios.

In early 1937 the Community of Nea Smyrni (New Smyrna) in Athens allocated an area of 10,000 square metres for the construction of the new stadium, which opened in 1939. At last the inhabitants of Nea Smyrni saw their great dream come true.

In the course of time, Panionios Football Team produced at least three squads of international football players whose deeds went down in club history and whose names still sound in the ears of younger generations from Nea Smyrni.

Who could forget the memorable Nikos Pentzaropoulos, Nikos Zarkadis, Fotis Tsolias, Kerdemelidis, Thanasis Saravakos, Staikos and Tsouchnikas from the 1950s, Kyriakos Kazantzidis, Stathis Haitas, Giorgos and Yannis Yannakopoulos, Stelios Sohos and the Papoulidis brothers from the ’60s, Achilleas Athanasoulas, Viktoras Theophilopoulos, Giorgos Skrekis and Giorgos Dedes from the ’70s and dozens of other great players like Thomas Mavros, Nikos Anastasopoulos and Dimitris Saravakos who passed through the most historic team in Greek football

Panionios Football Team has won the Greek Cup Final twice, in 1979 and 1998, beating AEK and Panathinaikos respectively.

Read more about Panionios Football Team:

• Thomas Mavros
• Nikos Anastopoulos
• Dimitris Saravakos

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