Not every football story has a happy ending but this one does.
This is the tale of the sad demise of a once-proud football team called Hapoel Jerusalem who managed to reinvent themselves, against all the odds, as Hapoel Katamon, Israel’s first-ever team owned by its fans. Hapoel Katamon worked their way up from the lower leagues before eventually changing their name back to Hapoel Jerusalem and, in May 2021, clinched promotion to Israel’s Premier League, Ligat Ha’al.
Have you ever seen grown men (and women) cry? If not, then you clearly were not among the 6,000 crowd at Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium on April 30th for the 2-0 victory over third-placed Ness Ziona- the game in which Hapoel clinched one of the two elusive promotion spots to the top league.
Founded in 1926, Hapoel Jerusalem was never a really big club and will probably never become one, but for decades they were the dominant team in Jerusalem with a loyal fan base. The team was associated with the Histadrut trade union federation and the political left.
Hapoel Jerusalem peaked in the early 1970s, finishing third in the top league in 1973 and winning the cup in the same year. But then the decline set in.
Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel’s cross-city rivals, were linked to the rightist Likud. The rise to ascendancy of the political Right in Israel in the late 1970s coincided with Beitar replacing Hapoel as Jerusalem’s dominant football team.
As Hapoel declined, on and off the field, Beitar emerged as one of Israel’s big four clubs, along with the two Tel Aviv teams, Maccabi and Hapoel, and Maccabi Haifa.
In the early 1990s two local building contractors, Yossi Sassi and Victor Yona, took over Hapoel Jerusalem. Ongoing disputes between the two eventually led to Yona quitting, leaving Sassi in charge. His chronic mismanagement led to mounting debts. Relegation followed and the club appeared to be in terminal decline: a feeling of malaise set in.
By 2007, attendances for some games was as low as 50 people and the fans couldn’t take it anymore. A small group gathered in the living room of Eitan Perry, one of the long-suffering supporters. One of those present, sports journalist Uri Sharatsky, came up with a revolutionary idea: set up breakaway team by the fans for the fans. Hapoel Katamon was born and Sharatsky became the new club’s first CEO, a position which he still holds today.
The vast majority of Hapoel Jerusalem fans decided to cross the Rubicon and switch their allegiances to Katamon. But some stuck with the original Hapoel, clinging to the adage that you can change your wife, but not your football team.
The new enterprise soon caught the imagination of the Israeli football scene, myself included, and generated a major media buzz.
From the beginning Katamon set a clear progressive and anti-racist agenda (in contrast to Beitar, which attracted a hard core of anti-Arab racist supporters and to this day has never had an Arab player). In addition to the card-carrying fan owners, sponsors signed up to the Katamon vision but, in reality, few thought it was sustainable.
Starting out in Liga Gimmel, Israel’s 5th division, created an opportunity to visit some of the country’s more remote football venues in the far-flung periphery, both Jewish and Arab, in places that I had never even heard of.
Clubs which could barely count on the support of a few dozen supporters on a good day were suddenly visited by hundreds of red -and -black clad Katamon fans, cheering on their team as they worked their way inexorably up the lower divisions, winning one promotion after another.
My favorite memory was a game in the middle of the Jordan Valley, adjacent to a Palestinian refugee camp. Every time the ball was kicked over the fence behind the goal the kids from the camp ran away with the ball. The players were instructed to aim their shots low.
Over the years the quality of the opponents gradually improved, as did the venues we played in.
It was obvious that Katamon was here to stay.
When Shay Aharon, Hapoel Jerusalem’s iconic center forward, was signed by Katamon in 2010, it was clear that the revolution was complete and the future of the red half of the city lay with Katamon. Five years later Aharon retired as a player and took on the role of Katamon’s general manager, working alongside the head coach and playing a key role in youth development and recruiting new players.
Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Katamon played each other in a number of emotionally-charged derby games. Most of the fans on both sides hoped that eventually the two teams could reunite. That opportunity finally came in 2020 when Hapoel Jerusalem declared bankruptcy and a sponsor helped Katamon legally purchase the Hapoel Jerusalem name.
The Katamon membership voted overwhelmingly to endorse the merger. The Katamon name and the badge on the team shirt was replaced with that of Hapoel Jerusalem. The phoenix had risen from the ashes.
But the spirit of Katamon lives on: it’s just changed its name.
And the democratic structure remained in place. Hapoel Jerusalem member-fans pay an annual subscription fee just like Katamon, attend the annual general meeting and elect four of the seven members of the board of directors (the other three represent the sponsors). The fans vote on key issues, although the day-to-day running of the team remains the coach’s prerogative.
Hapoel Jerusalem also places an emphasis on community outreach and runs a successful Neighborhoods League, bringing together teams from Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab areas. Many women and kids come to Katamon games and there are also a fair number of religiously observant supporters.
“It’s about time the Premier League had a fan-owned team,” said Shay Aharon, after Hapoel clinched promotion, an achievement he described as historic. “Thousands of fans took destiny into their own hands and created an outstanding community-based club.”
There is of course a danger that Hapoel Jerusalem will come straight back down again. The football they played this season was good enough to win promotion but may not be enough to say up without the addition of three or four quality new signings. Shay Aharon is already looking for potential players to fit the bill, particularly from abroad.
Survival in the top league may be the order of the day, at least for the first season back. On the positive side, coach Ziv Arieh has proven himself as a capable tactician building from a solid defense and integrating players from the team’s impressive youth system.
One thing is for sure. The first game the fans will be looking out for when the fixture list is released in the summer are the derby games at Teddy against Beitar. A yellow-red Jerusalem derby after 21 years is a mouth-watering prospect and something that the long-suffering Hapoel fans thought they may never see again. And a derby victory will be the icing on the cake.
“I know this is the right thing and it should have happened a long time ago. Our city needs a derby and our city needs a healthy rivalry. But it’s also about who we are and what it is we portray and I am dreaming of the moment we see Teddy full and red and winning a derby, ” said Daphne Goldschmidt, one of the leading figures in the club.