Althamer and Grabowska: More than just a scarf, more than just a club: Sporting Clube de Portugal

Bruno Althamer and Diana Grabowska are young Polish artists. During the Euro 2012, they developed an art event that they called "More than just a scarf!". In their own words, "Everyone can express the values that define their lives, their own personal motto, or just make your something other fans will admire. The idea came over a year ago. First we did scarves for ourselves and thought, 'why not give other people a chance to do something similar?'. We want to encourage fans to express themselves and to take more control of the things they say."

Not knowing anything about this, what a surprise to get a package on the mail with these words from a friend:

"Hello Nuno! I'm sending you a very special item for your collection! I met these two young artists a couple of months ago and, making a long story short, I asked them to design and make a Sporting scarf. Their names are Bruno Althamer and Diana Grabowska.

A picture of the scarf was subsequently shown at the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, in late June, as all their scarves were part of a larger project about "identity". So, this is already a very famous scarf!

I hope you like it! And Happy birthday! A big hug! Luís Agnieszka

Oh yes I liked it extremely much! Thank you!!! So much that I decided to confront this piece of contemporary art with some of my old school Sporting Clube de Portugal shirts. After all, this is more than just a scarf, and Sporting is more than just a club, so old and new should go well together. They do! I just don't know whether I will ever wear this scarf on the Jose Alvalade stadium - probably not! Just the same way as I also do not wear 40 or 50 year old match worn shirts.