Ceilândia Esporte Clube (Brazil)

Ceilândia Esporte Clube - or CEC to the locals - are from the relatively new city of Ceilândia in the Distrito Federal, some sixteen miles from the capital Brasília. Despite having only been formed in 1979, they are one of the oldest clubs in the region. They play their football in the Campeonato Brasiliense, the equivilent of a state league for team from within 200km from Brasília. It's not a state as such, but you know what kind of geographical confusement these Federal Districts can cause!

The team were founded out of the ashes of the Don Bosco Sports Clube, an outfit formed in 1963 which was based in what was then a shanty village (or Favella) on the outskirts of the country's new capital. But in 1971 the Governor of the Distrito Federal started to get a bit nervy about all these undisirables flocking to the rims of his nice new city, so he set up a spartan new town for these migrants - mostly from the North Eastern part of the country, and called it Ceilândia - the Cei standing for Centro de Erradicação de Invasões or Squatters Eradication Centre! 

What sounded a little like nothing more than a refugee camp soon built itself up into a town bigger than Brasília itself, and it was to here that Don Bosco moved - gradually becoming the best team in the city. When professional football came to the District in 1977, it was clear that the club would have to go full time. But up to that point they existed on the pitch only as a raggle taggle confederation of players, rather than an official club with directors, rules and a constitution. So they kept their black and white strip, but changed their name to the rather more cumbersome Dom Bosco Esporte Clube para Ceilândia Esporte Clube - which in time became shortened to CEC.

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.