While I was sitting in a Montmatre cafe in Paris in late April avoiding the rain a few years ago, as you do, I was making plans for a holiday to Italy with my girl. We hatched a plan for an early September trip with the centrepiece being her birthday celebration somewhere on the Amalfi Coast. Her birthday landed on a Sunday that year, and my immediate thought was, that’s the football day in Italy!! If the middle weekend was going to be a football free zone, I decided to add extra days either side of our plan so I could watch some football, and being a Calcio journalist, maybe get some stories to shine a light on the Italian game! Booking flights well ahead of the 2018/19 Calcio fixtures being released was always a risk, even more so when the “risk” became more fraught following Serie B’s trio of bankrupt clubs (Cesena, Bari and Avellino) which resulted in a queue of suitors looking to replace them, Whereas in previous seasons, clubs avoided relegation or others were propelled upward in such circumstances, but somehow in the riot of all the applicants, Serie B decided to cause lower league red mist by issuing fixtures and starting the campaign with just 19 clubs instead of 22! Noses were undoubtedly out of joint, and lawyers were called which resulted in Serie C (Lega Pro) and Serie D both being delayed in starting. My angst was compounded by the realisation that I was flying into Bologna on the first International weekend of the season, therefore neither Serie A and B were playing!
As the lower league situation remained unresolved, (a Supreme Court judgment had the potential to cause utter chaos that Italian football would struggle to recover from!). In desperation I had a little look to see who Italy were playing in the inaugural and somewhat confusing League of Nation’s. They were hosting Poland, but given they move the games around the country, it could have been played anywhere, however when I realised it was in Bologna the day I was arriving, my luck was starting to change! Roberto Mancini’s experimental first Azzurri line up fought hard and deserved the draw against a very well supported Poland who had been a great disappointment at the World Cup, but their fan base remains loyal. In the days leading up to my departure, “friendly” matches were beginning to appear for the Saturday roster of consideration; Chievo Verona v Triestina was contemplated, but a 10am ko in a town in the back of beyond would suggest they weren’t looking for a crowd! Lanerossi Vicenza Virtus, a new name for an old club, (who survived that summer only by usurping and moving Bassano Virtus from their relatively sleepy Bassano retreat, down into Vicenza and changing everything about them to the famous red and white stripes!) were playing Cittadella but again in a small town halfway between the two! Then my eye caught sight of something very special, Spezia v Sampdoria were playing with all proceeds going to the families who had lost loved ones in the terrible Genoa bridge collapse, I had to be there!
La Spezia from Bologna isn’t the closest for a day trip, but particularly on the outward journey, I left Bologna early enough to give me a few hours in a favourite town of mine, Parma, before taking another train through the mountains coming out on the coast at La Spezia. I have been in La Spezia a couple of times before in the early ’90’s but never for a football match. It is a very busy Port city, with the Italian Navy using the basin as a major harbour for its fleet. It is also a major Container Ship port, and ferries set off for Sardinian too. While none of that has changed, somewhere along the line in the last 25 years or so, they have invested hugely in building Porto Mirabello, a significant docking area for yachts, and while it may not be Portofino, the chic Ligurian town nearer Genoa, La Spezia is getting its fair share of the luxury end of the yachting world dropping by now! That investment has brought a real confident feel to the city and if it had a hard working port, down at heel feel before, that is no longer the case. La Spezia may not be on everyone’s “must do” list, but it is a city worthy of investigation.
The famous Cinque Terre villages are close by, and it is the perfect base to visit these stunning cliff hugging vistas either by train or boat! La Spezia with a population of 94,000 is the second city of Liguria, and with arguably the region’s biggest football club, Sampdoria (Genoa fans will dispute this fact!) coming to town that evening, it was a big Ligurian derby, albeit a rarely contested one, prior to Spezia being promoted to Serie A two years ago now. Their promotion to the top table certainly fits in with the significant upturn in the cities fortunes, even if the football club are now enjoying significant American financing.
The name of the city is unusual in Italy with the “La” prefix, but the football club have dropped this aspect of the name and are known simply as Spezia Calcio. Their stadium, the Alberto Picco, with a capacity of 10,336 is very well appointed, and if you are in the stand opposite the main stand, the mountain backdrop is stunning. As the sun went down during the game, the colours in the sky were a wonderful distraction! The stadium is around a twenty minute walk from the railway station, and I needed to know that, as the 20.10 train back to Parma was the only one that would get me back to Bologna before midnight! La Spezia Centrale station sits high above the town, with the stadium close to the water, opposite the Naval docks, about 1.5 km from the station. I decided to pace out the walk as a 18:00 kick off meant I was going to have to “leg it” as soon as the game ended. Choosing the stand with the easiest access back to the station was important, but this was temporarily thrown into chaos as Spezia had very kindly issued me with a Press Pass! I had written to the club as I had tried to buy a ticket online without success, but in mentioning I was going to write an article for Football Weekends, the club were very accommodating. However, this was a charity match for the Genoa Bridge disaster families, and the main stand was in the worst place for my “train sprint”, so I duly purchased a ticket for the far end of the stand opposite so I was in a prime spot for a swift departure! If you are headed to La Spezia for a game, the immediate area around the ground doesn’t have a bar or a restaurant, but it is only a ten minute walk from a busy shopping area that houses all the amenities you would need to get your fill before a ball is kicked!
Despite my undoubted enthusiasm for the Italian game, it is obviously impossible to keep a handle on all the clubs, and I had always had the perception that Spezia were a rock solid club who may have rarely set the heather on fire, but had steadily progressed and retained Serie B status for well over a decade, and occasionally flirted with the early moments of the playoffs for Serie A prior to their historic promotion just a the pandemic broke out. I was even thinking the “bankrupt” word might be missing in this tale, but subsequent investigation alas did reveal that they too have succumbed to the perils of such a curse, and the club in its present guise is merely ten years old, but football has been played in La Spezia for 112 years since 1906 as the date on the club badge would have it! Having waited 55 years for Serie B football, the club stepped up in 2005, and found themselves acting as a feeder club for Inter Milan for a few seasons. When Inter sold their shares, fortunes declined, and relegation from B sparked that all too familiar bankruptcy tale. They had been back in the second tier for a few years and were one of the most reliable Serie B sides with a prolific home record, until the historic promotion.
The club even have a “romantic” Scudetto to their name from 1944 just as World War II was coming to close! It is a “title” shrouded in controversy but was acknowledged and finally awarded by the Italian Football authorities only in 2002, allowing the club to have the Scudetto shield on its club shirt. The “top” flight in 1944 was split into two, with Torino and Venezia winning their respective groups, and they’d be joined by Bologna or Spezia in a round robin final. These two were due to play a two legged semi-final, and Spezia were leading the first leg 1-0 in Bologna when the game was suspended due to actions of the home fans. The game was awarded to Spezia 2-0, and the second leg, which couldn’t be played in La Spezia due to heavy war bombing, was moved to Carpi nearer Bologna, but their chairman refused to play, and Spezia progressed to the finals having only played about 30 minutes of football! A 1-1 draw with Venezia, set Spezia up against Torino, a side that was about to become the best in Italy for some years, but a shock 2-1 Spezia win put them in pole position, confirmed when Torino went on to beat Venezia 5-2 in the last game of the round robin, thereby giving lo Scudetto to the Ligurians. This 1944 success is merely seen as “decorative”, but try telling that to Spezia fans of a certain vintage!
I had seen Spezia once before in an away 5-0 thumping at Como in a third tier joust back in 1994, on a Sunday afternoon where the free flowing hosts were running riot. However, amid the quality display, all of a sudden the increasingly darkening sky was beginning to terrify me! Having travelled to Como from Milan in shorts as the day had been truly balmy, had the heavens opened I would have been in for a soaking, but thankfully and remarkably it stayed dry until I had left the shores of Lake Como.
The game at Spezia was my 4th Sampdoria match, having seen them involved in three 0-0 draws prior to this one! Vialli had missed a penalty in the first 0-0 at home to Cesena in 1990, and they’d been held magnificently by my own charges Ancona in the Coppa Italia Cup Final in 1994, Ruud Gullit and David Platt et all, at a full Stadio Conero for the first leg of the final! We’ll gloss over the return leg score, although it was still 0-0 after 52 minutes! Last season I saw them draw another blank at Sassuolo in Reggio Emilia, who this time had the honour of the missed penalty! Just about all these records went during this encounter in La Spezia! Sampdoria took the lead, a first Samp goal for me, and they were worthy of the lead at the time. They were fielding a strong side despite some International absentees, but scoring merely unshackled Spezia who started to get confidence and pushed Samp further and further back. This may only have been a friendly, a charity fundraiser at that, but this was a proper game! Spezia should have been level when Nigerian David Okereke got through one on one with the keeper where he imperiously rounded the stranded goalie and stared down an empty goal from the edge of the six yard box, but somehow he hit the outside of the post and it rolled off for a goal kick! He just wanted the earth to open up and swallow him, but minutes later he found just a morsel of space on the edge of the box and thrashed a beautiful drive into the top corner, with the keeper beaten all ends up! A few minutes later after yet more concerted pressure from the home “Aquilotti” (Little Eagles as they are known), a trip in the box and the ref pointed to the spot, 2-1 Spezia as they trotted off at half time! There were a few chances in the second half, but nothing to trouble either keeper or the scoreboard, and as substitutions finally reminded us this was a “friendly”, the game ended in a thoroughly satisfying home win!
The advertising boards around the pitch constantly changed, but never once did they carry an advert for any company. They were used merely to remind everyone why they were there. Who can forget the images of that collapsed bridge, and those lucky ones who just avoided plunging down into the ravine. A bridge that has stood for decades, just accepted as part of normal transport routes all of a sudden becomes a death trap, it is utterly horrifying and desperately sad. The match profits, around 18,000 Euros were given to the Genoa Bridge Fund for the families of those who lost loved ones, but Spezia were also remembering two of their own fans who had died a few years ago, Ilaria and Mattia, with the trophy presented at the end of the game given in their honour. Sadly I was not present to see it being handed over, but it was the 7th occasion the two clubs had played for it. If the crowd turnout was a little disappointing, those present knew the sense of the occasion, and it was a very wonderful thing for Spezia Calcio to do. At moments of crisis the footballing community is usually amongst the first and best to react in any circumstances, but Liguria united here in a special way, and it was a privilege to be there.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 