In the spring of 1925, everyone in Piraeus was talking about the creation of a new team. It had the rather peculiar name “Olympiacos”, which referred to the Olympic Games, whose revival the Greeks of the time considered with pride. Olympiacos was created from the merger of the Piraeus Union and the Piraeus Association, and as a counterweight the other well-known Piraeus club: Ethnikos. The new team also was created so that Piraeus would have another competitive and strong team to challenge Panathinaikos and AEK for the national championship. This new team was the creation of some of the great families of Piraeus.
The club originally had only 33 members and, according to its charter, could have no more than 100 – the well-known “100 Immortals” who could never lose their membership.
It’s first board of directors featured industrialist Michalis Manouskos as president, while the vice-president was Notis Kaberos, a senior naval officer, whereas his brother, Dimitris, a pioneering officer of the Hellenic Air Force, was also an active participant.
Other active members were Stavros Maragoudakis, the director of the Post Office, Nikos Andronikos, a wealthy merchant, Dimitris Sklias, an army infantry officer, the lawyer Nikolaos Zacharias, real estate agent Ioannis Kekkes, but above all, the entire Andrianopoulos family.
Andreas Andrianopoulos, a businessman from Tripolis in Arcadia prefecture, had studied law but found himself succeeding an uncle in the latter’s retail business.
Andrianopoulos was the father of the legendary “Five brothers”, who were protagonists in Greece’s football world in the 1920s and beyond. The brothers were Yannis, Giorgos, Dinos, Vassilis and the fabled Leonidas.
The youngest, Leonidas, lived for a century and left behind a very insightful biography entitled “Last of the Five”.
Five brothers, one immortal legacy. From the “Teacher” Giannis to the “Stravosougia” Leonidas, the Andrianopoulos family built a legend that lives in the hearts of Piraeans.
The fact that five brothers played on the same team – in the midfield or as forwards – was something extremely rare, even for the standards of the era, so much so that, according to articles at the time, there were tributes to this quintet by the foreign press. In fact, apart from these “5”, the family had three more children. Stavros was the only one who didn’t play football. Stelios, at the age of 17, wore the Olympiacos jersey but played very little. Aristides also played football for the Piraeus Union and it’s certain that he would have played for Olympiacos had he not died of typhoid at the age of 18, three years before Olympiacos was created in 1925. All of the achievements of the legendary five were dedicated to his memory.
The five Olympiacos legends: Yannis, Giorgos, Dinos, Vassilis and Leonidas Andrianopoulos – a family, a team, a history that placed its stamp on Greek football and laid the foundations for the “Red-and-White” club’s greatness.
Yannis
Yannis Andrianopoulos was praised as not only a great footballer but the most technically gifted of the five. He’s also credited as the one who brought football to Piraeus. The reason is simple: he was a student at Cambridge in his youth and saw people’s love in England for the still relatively new game.
His proposal was that Olympiacos should play in white and red, as no other team in Greece sported these colors at the time. As well as being the team’s captain, he was also its first coach. He transferred to Olympiacos all the knowledge of football he had gained in England and detailed the game to all who would listen, precisely because he loved it so much. Yannis Andrianopoulos was a member of the national team that participated in the 1920 Olympiad and when he retired from the “beautiful game” he became president of Olympiacos during two periods: the first in 1932 and the second in 1933-35.
He passed away very young, on November 6, 1952, and thus did not see his son, Andreas, elected mayor of Piraeus, serve as a minister and as an elected member of parliament. During his career he managed to win four championships.
Giorgos
Giorgos Andrianopoulos played as a center forward and began his career in the Piraeus Union and also earned an international cap after being called up to the national side. His career is truly special.
In 1927 he graduated from the Athens Law School and then completed a postgraduate degree in Paris, among the very few Greeks at the time that traveled abroad for such studies. At the age of 25, and still an active Olympiacos player, he was elected in 1928 as a Piraeus municipal councilor, and in 1951 he became mayor of the city. He was actively involved in politics and was elected six times as a member of parliament, while he also served as minister of merchant shipping, thus being the only formal footballer to have served as a minister. Giorgos also served as the director and chairman of the Piraeus Port Authority, but Olympiacos always remained the greatest chapter in his life. He was the club’s president from 1954 to 1967 and left its helm in December 1967, pressured by the April 21 dictatorial regime. It was said at the time that local officials who supported the military junta were overshadowed by his popularity.
Giorgos Andrianopoulos also went down in history because in 1975 he saved rival Panathinaikos from relegation with his vote.
At the time, the “Greens” were accused of bribery in a game against Iraklis Thessaloniki, and it was Andrianopoulos’ vote that was decisive, along with his statement that he respects Panathinaikos because without the latter’s presence Olympiacos would have no meaning. Many Olympiacos fans did not comprehend his attitude, however, this great sportsman, who in his youth was a track and field and cycling athlete, never backed down from his position.
Dinos
Dinos Andrianopoulos, in contrast to the tall and lanky Giorgos, was shorter but also lean. He was viewed as a slower player on the pitch, but according to his brother Leonidas, in the latter’s biography, Dinos was had a heightened “football aptitude” on the field and was a passing specialist.
He was the only one of the five brothers who began his career with the Piraeus Union and not with the Piraeus Association, with the two sides being as rivals at first – only when Olympiacos was created did they all the brothers join up. In the seven years he played for Olympiacos he won five Piraeus championships and one Greek championship. Dinos said he had offers from abroad to turn professional and that an offer from Slavia Prague had tempted him, but he could not leave Olympiacos. He considered the day he put on the red-and-white jersey the most important day of his life and was proud because Andrianopoulos’ Olympiacos was such a good team, “that when we beat opponents by only a few goals we were almost ashamed to walk around Piraeus.”
He passed away very young: at 57 years old. His death coincided with an Olympiacos victory over Panathinaikos 2-1 with a goal by Aristidis Papazoglou. He listened to the match on a radio with friends, saying he didn’t feel well and then went home. His heart couldn’t take the joy of victory.
Olympiacos was not just a team, but a vision. The Andrianopoulos brothers made the club a legend, giving the team a soul, passion and a fighting spirit that defined Greek football forever.
Vassilis
Vassilis Andrianopoulos played for Olympiacos as the youngest of all the Andrianopoulos brothers, at only 17. He also played the most games of all the “legendary five”: a total of 161. Vassilis was described as a player ahead of his time. His formidable technical skills and stately stature allowed him to play in every attacking position. He holds a historic record that is unlikely to be broken, given that in September 1928 he scored all of Olympiacos’ goals in their great 7-3 victory over a Yugoslav team! He was capped seven times as an international and scored three goals while playing for the national team. In the 1950s he also served on the national team as a manager. He stopped playing in 1933 but continued to be involved with Olympiacos and was one of the most important players in the team’s history. Vassilis was, according to accounts of the day, the most handsome one of the Andrianopoulos clan – a “playboy”, and according to many football historians of the period, perhaps the first true star of Olympiacos. In all, he won one Greek championship and five Piraeus championships. Vassilis passed away in 1990.
Leonidas
The fifth of the legendary “Five” was the most beloved of all. Leonidas Andrianopoulos was a figure of almost mythical proportions. He didn’t initially want to be a footballer because he loved track and field, specifically competing in the triple jump and sprints. He was the youngest sibling of the family, born in 1911 on Bouboulinas Street in Piraeus.
His brothers made him take up football and supplement the team’s attackers, because, as he said, “having him with them was the only way to keep an eye on him”!
Leonidas was very fast, tough and dynamic, a “flanker” on the left side of the offense who disrupted defenses. He was also a great storyteller: He recounted, for example, that when he and his brother Stelios opened a men’s suit shop in the early 1930s, he and his brother Stelios would take clothes with them to away team games in order to show them off and take orders. He also spoke with adoration about his rivals: Kleanthis Vikelidis, Angelos Messaris, and Antonis Migiakis. For him they were “players who in the era of professional football would have been worth millions”.
He won a total of four Greek championships and passed away on October 25, 2011, having reached his 100th birthday and having seen his Olympiacos win 38 championships and 23 Cups!
One last thing. In Piraeus during the years when the five brothers were at their height, they weren’t known by their actual first names. Giorgos was “Podaras”. Dinos was the “Buloukos” because he was heavier. Yannis was the “Teacher”, since he was also a coach. Vasilis was “Kelemes” – after the name of the most famous racehorse in the country at the time. Finally, Leonidas was “Stravosouyas”, or “crooked knife”, a tribute to the ancient hero Leonidas.
