Top photo: Marcelo Martins
Created to recover, witness and preserve the sports history of Santos – considered the sportiest municipality in Brazil since 1955 – the De Vaney Sports Memorial Center boasts a collection of more than 500 trophies won from 1939.
The museum also houses photographic and personal collections with more than a thousand images, library and sports newspaper collection with journalistic material organized according to subject and sport. There are also records of veteran athletes, CDs and DVDs, research material, statements, auditorium for talks and small events. The museum offers guided tours, publishes information and has a choir of veteran athletes, which meets weekly.
Trophies
The exhibit displays trophies from the Open and Regional Games in 16 separate showcases organized by sport. The collection grows every year when the museum receives trophies won by Santos teams at the Open Games. Renata Agondi, Benedita de Souza, and Daniele Zangrando are some of the athletes whose trophies and medals are on display in the museum.
Photo: Marcelo Martins
Archive
Opened on October 7, 1991, the museum has a Sports Documentary Archive, which, started in 1997, now has 2,165 names of participants in Official Games for the municipality, in all modalities, between 1939 and 1988.
There are also summaries of Peixe's games from 1920 onwards, archives on Pelé, Ayrton Senna and athletes from Santos, information on modalities not yet introduced in Brazil, and videos about World Cups and Olympics.
Photo: Marcelo Martins.
The Most Sporty Municipality in Brazil
Santos participated in the Open Games for the first time in 1939, a time when all Brazilian municipalities were involved, not just those in São Paulo. It won the championship in athletics and swimming. The city obtained permanent possession of the Ademar de Barros Trophy (the official trophy of the Open Games) in 1941, after its second-place finish in 1939 and victories in the following two years. It is the oldest trophy in the De Vaney Museum's gallery.
Thus began a period of glory, which earned Santos the title of 'Most Sporting Municipality in Brazil' in 1956. This recognition was only possible thanks to the journalist Adriano Neiva da Motta e Silva, known as De Vaney. His research helped prove that Santos had the largest number of clubs, courts, swimming pools, and football fields in the country. With this, the city won the challenge launched by the Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo in 1956.
Photo: Ademar de Barros Trophy / Santos Memory Website.
De Vaney
The museum's collection began to be formed in 1991, with the archives of De Vaney, who died on January 29, 1990. Known as the 'poet of Brazilian sports journalism', he began in journalism at the age of 17, a profession to which he dedicated himself for the next 63 years – he spoke and wrote about all sports, at all levels.
The museum also houses the journalist's sports chronicles and typewriter.
Photo: Marcelo Martins