Operário: my life, my story, my love, by John Elvis

At the age of 11 I started going to the Worker’s camp.

At that time, we didn’t even call him Germano Krüger.

It was simply “let’s go to the countryside.”

The one who took me was my father.

It was he who taught me to be an Operarian.

It was 1988. The Worker was competing in the Paranaense Championship Access Division. And look... it was tough, guys!

But even suffering, we liked it.

In fact, liking the Worker was never a matter of choosing the easiest way.

In the years that followed, the memories became clearer. The championships of 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 came. The Paranaense Championship of the First Division, the Second Division of the Brazilian...

And I was there.

I have a lot of games in my memory.

I have the Worker of 1990 especially alive in my memory. A very good team, which came close to getting access to the First Division of the Brazilian Championship.

And inside the house, in our countryside, in our city, the Ghost won from almost everyone.

Coritiba, Atlético, Sport, Clube do Remo, Americano de Campos, Noroeste, Catuense... so many opponents, so many games, so many stories.

And I had the opportunity to be present.

The old worker's guard will certainly remember.

And I don’t just remember the games.

I remember people.

People who today we may not even imagine seeing hung in the wire, cheering with blood in the eyes by the Ghost.

And the language of that time... well, that probably would not go through the revision of customs of today!

But it was football.

It was passion.

He was a worker.

In 1993, things started to fall apart.

The team has gone bad in virtually everything they’ve played and started a sad decline, of those that seem to have no end.

Until the licensing of the activities came.

A decade without our worker.

One of the absurdities that Ponta Grossa has ever seen.

They tried to make another team with the name of the city. But our Ghost was irreplaceable.

Time has passed.

And we're practically back to stake zero.

Second Paranaense.

- Oh, again.

But the cheerleader was there.

There were stickers of the Worker scattered all over the city.

The Ghost is back!

After a few years of suffering, we finally returned to the Paranaense Championship.

And I kept going to the stadium with my old man.

In all these years, he never had the opportunity to see our Worker be champion of anything.

And maybe that’s where this story gets even more exciting.

Because we have reached the present day.

Today we have Paraná titles.

We have national titles.

We have a club that has once again been respected in the Brazilian football scene.

We are again with chances of reaching the main championship of Brazil.

And, unlike that past of difficulties, today the Worker is recognized by organization and management.

And to complete, our stadium is being refurbished and expanded.

Stadium?

For me, it will remain the field.

Because that's how I learned to call him.

It was there that, at the age of 11, my father held my hand and taught me a passion that would span decades.

So today I want to thank you.

To everyone who helped rebuild the Worker.

To the leaders.

To the players.

To the staff.

To the professionals who work daily for the club.

Especially the workers.

By the way, Operarianos should be the whole city, right?

Strangely enough, there are still people who are against it.

But that's part of it.

What matters is that the Worker again gave us what seemed to have been lost along the way:

Pride.

Proud to be of Ponta Grossa.

Proud to wear black and white.

Proud to look back and realize that 11-year-old is still here.

That boy who entered the countryside accompanied by his father.

That boy who suffered in defeats, vibrated in victories and learned that football is also memory.

Today, when I look at all of this, I think of my old man.

I think of that man who first took me to the field.

He may not have seen the Champion Worker.

But you got something much bigger.

He left me with a passion that has passed through time.

A passion that has survived defeats, crises, licensing, absence, reconstruction and all the difficult moments.

Because some things can't be explained.

We just feel.

And Worker is not just a team.

It's part of my story.

It is part of the history of Ponta Grossa.

And as our cheerleader sings:

Operator, MINHA VIDA.

Operator, my story.

Operator, my love.

 

Ponta Grossa, 203 years: the city where I want to win, by John Elvis