União São João

In 1994 União São João became the first club in Brazil to reorganise itself as a clube-empresa under the Zico Law. Hermínio Ometto, who ran the Usina São João sugar plant in Araras, had set the club up in January 1981 so the town would have a side of its own, and the green and white of the shirts stand for the cane and the sugar it becomes.

In 1996 the side won Série B outright under Lula Ferreira. The ground, opened in May 1988 and named after the founder, took 21,497 people in for a match against Santos in 1995 — a figure the current registered capacity of 16,096 no longer allows.

Then the descent, and it was steep. Relegation from Série B in 2003 after finishing 24th and last; relegation again in 2014, this time to the fourth tier of the São Paulo state championship, with debts near 15 million reais. In February 2015 the club shut its doors to sort the accounts out, and stayed shut to professional football for six years. It came back through the youth categories in 2021 and 2022, won Série A4 in 2023, and reached the Copa Paulista final the following year, losing to Votuporanguense on penalties after a 1–1 draw.

The name people in Araras still reach for first is Velloso, the goalkeeper called up by Brazil in 1992, when the club was barely eleven years old and had just come up out of the state second division.