Serie A welcomed an old friend back for the 2017/18 season in S.P.A.L. from Ferrara in Emilia Romagna, but it would feel like a new name for a few generations of fans! After all new names in the top flight in Italy has become commonplace in recent seasons, most merely “visiting” for one campaign largely, near neighbours of SPAL, little Carpi were one year wonders, although they tried valiantly to get straight back the following year via the play off. Benevento (which translates as Good wind!) pipped them to become yet another new Serie A name for that all too brief season, but they did stir in the second half of the season, trying to follow Crotone’s lead in working a miracle. Alas, unlike Crotone, they went straight back down, but Crotone survived their first inaugural Serie A campaign at Empoli’s expense on the last day beating Lazio, after a remarkable second half of the season! Second season syndrome saw the Calabrians back in Serie B, but not before they visited Ferrara in the top flight when I was there! One other relatively new name is Frosinone, who are endeavouring to do better second time around in Serie A this season, and despite a dreadful start, they are showing signs of fight in the latter part of the campaign, and it is not too late, yet!
One or two “new” clubs have bedded down and proven that well run small clubs can prosper in Serie A with Chievo Verona and Sassuolo being the case in point. However, with SPAL, this is a more romantic re-introduction of an old stalwart. Forty nine years on SPAL have returned to where they used to frequent regularly, and not merely nibbling at the top table having spent 22 previous seasons in the Italian top flight in two periods 1920-1925 and 1951-1968, with the clubs high point coming with a 5th place finish in 1959/60.
SPAL is written in capital letters, short for; Societa Polisportiva Ars e Labor, certainly a lengthy and unusual name! They are from the beautiful city of Ferrara, a UNESCO city with World Heritage status, a mere 31 miles north of Bologna. The UNESCO award was largely from the buildings that were built in the 14th and 15th century by the House of Este who ruled the region at the time, with Ferrara a Duchy until 1471, which is why one of SPAL’s nicknames is Estense. The imposing and magnificent Castle Estense is the moated centre piece of the city, but the streets in the vicinity of the Castle are all teeming with breathtaking architecture and constructions, it’s truly a gem of a city.
These days with a population of 133,500 it is a small city for the top flight football, but the drive of the club and its passionate fans can sustain a Serie A club in the modern era. Even the Stadio Paolo Mazza has been dramatically overhauled in their 18 months in the top flight. The “away” end was just a car park until they returned to Serie A, and perhaps the dramatic back to back promotions caught the club out, as the Serie B capacity was only 8,500, but the work has seen the capacity nearly doubled at 16,134. Last season the visitors were accommodated in steep temporary steel framed seated stands at the empty end, but in the last summer this has now been developed into a proper stand, and the entire seating of the stadium is now under a roof too. Such alterations show the commitment and desire of the club to establish themselves in Serie A once more. If last season was a real fight to survive, this season saw a good number of points on the board early, and while they are still looking over their shoulder, they are well placed to get a third successive campaign with the big boys, and having beaten Bologna and Parma away, as well as drawing with Sassuolo, they can claim to be the Kings of Emilia Romaga this season, even if Sassuolo are in a higher league position at the time of writing!
One thing is for sure, and given SPAL’s Serie A history is of a certain vintage, older readers may recall their exploits, but most certainly an older Scottish reader will recall the legendary sports jacketed TV presenter Arthur Montford who always introduced highlights from smaller stadiums with the classic quote “a jam packed….”! Jam packed is what the Paolo Mazza (name after club chairman from ’46-’77) is that just about every week! Despite their checkered history, SPAL are a very well supported club. Even the SPAL shirt is jam packed given the extraordinary number of thin blue and white stripes!!
My goodness the journey back to Serie A had been anything other than smooth! It’s a sad indictment on Italian football in the modern age that so many clubs have been going bust. My previous Italian article on Tuscany (see Lower Tuscany below somewhere!) was littered with bankruptcy, with Pistoiese spectacularly having gone bust 4 times, albeit spread over 60 years! Well sadly SPAL can rival that with 4 bankruptcy issues since 2005!! That inaugural “event” saw them relegated to Serie D (then 5th tier), and having just edged back to the 4th division, a subsequent “episode” saw them back in Serie D for 2012/13 and Real SPAL was temporarily born! A subsequent “issue” and a new ambitious chairman meant that remaining in Serie D was not ideal, and they exploited an FIGC (Italian football authority) rule that allows a team in a similar region to be bought out! The innocent party here were Giacomense a backwater club in the near vicinity from the town of Masi San Giacomo who were riding high in the 4th tier having finished 11th in ’12/13. At the start of the following campaign they had been bought and moved to Ferrara, as well as being re-named SPAL 2013, effectively seeing the Spallini (another nickname!) promoted without doing so through league placing! The good fortune did not end here, as the three 4th tier leagues of the Italian structure were all disappearing the next season, condensing the 90 clubs in five 18 team leagues between the two tiers including the two 3rd tier divisions as well, into three 18 club leagues to be known as Lega Pro (the new third tier, now back to Serie C once more!) as the FIGC tried to stem the awful issue of clubs going bust, but it still happens! Finishing 6th in ’13/14 in the 4th tier was good enough to see SPAL “promoted” into the third tier by virtue of this quirk, and after one season of consolidation in that inaugural Lega Pro season, they have gone from strength to strength, with promotion to Serie B followed immediately with promotion to Serie A, both as champions, taking perennial yoyo boys these days Hellas Verona up with them!
My Italian charges Ancona have had similar issues and their second bankruptcy dragged on so long that it looked as though there would be no Ancona a few seasons ago. However, similar to SPAL, they usurped a quiet “local” side Piano Ancona who had been working their way through the regional leagues, and in doing so at the last minute saved a fall all the way down to the 9th tier! Ancona took their place and played in the 6th tier regional league before starting the long way back to the third division, albeit they went bust again in the summer of 2017 and have had to re-start in the 7th tier as Anconitana with no local team they could ambush! Indeed they only avoided going all the way down to the 9th tier because the local Marche region football authorities deemed the club “too big” for some of the lowest tier stadia! They are looking odds on for a second successive promotion to the Eccelenza league of Marche, the fifth tier!
The connection between Ancona and SPAL is strong, the fan bases have a “special” friendship, a real curiosity of the Italian game, Genoa and Cosenza are also chums with Ancona, and indeed when a match near Genoa at Savona was postponed for 24 hours at short notice due to torrential rain, Genoa fans offered their Ancona brothers a bed for the night!! I was at the last match between Ancona and SPAL, a Lega Pro encounter and a real love-in sing song and celebration ahead of SPAL clinching promotion to Serie B at the end of ’15/16 season. They might have clinched promotion that day with the 2-1 win, but other results went against them but it merely delayed the party for a week, and the beating of Arezzo at home was probably a better place to celebrate, although no one at Ancona would have minded had they clinched matters at Conero! If I had a grumble that day, red against blue and white stripes is no colour clash, and yet SPAL chose to play in a hideous day glow green kit, denying me my first sighting of the famous and remarkably tight, almost pinstripe SPAL top. Nearly three seasons on and the “biancazzurri” (Blue and whites) had gone all the way to the top, while Ancona nearly went all the way to the bottom! It will be a long time before the two play each other again, but if you turn up at any SPAL game wearing an Ancona shirt you are guaranteed to be welcomed warmly!
My second SPAL match was in September 2017, a Serie A home game with Crotone in town on a really wet Sunday afternoon. The stadium was only half roofed at that time, and I arrived early enough and was willing to pay 50 Euro for a main stand seat well away from the rain as I didn’t have a jacket or an umbrella, both left behind at the hotel in Bologna as the day hadn’t seemed so bad when we set off! The proper SPAL kit was worn, and it was red and blue striped Crotone’s turn to be silly with a ludicrous purple and day glow green monstrosity of a kit! The atmosphere was incredible, with the fans are tight to the action, and the home Curva a riot of flags and singing. Crotone fans were here in extraordinary numbers too, given such a lengthy trip from near the southern tip of Calabria, you have to respect such dedication. They got an absolute soaking, and although they were largely drowned out by the home fans, they never let up for the entire game either. It ended in a draw, 1-1, perhaps a fair result, although SPAL had more opportunities. By seasons end, the Ferrara boys were safe from the drop, but Crotone couldn’t repeat the great escape the previous season, and they need to be careful this term in Serie B as they are currently at the wrong end of the table.
You can choose to stay in Ferrara, but a day trip would allow you to enjoy its splendours too, and if you are lucky enough, see a game! It is a very short train trip from Bologna, and only a wee bit further from Padova/Venezia area. The train station is very close to the stadium unlike a lot of grounds in Italy. When you exit the station, cross the road, turn right and then first left and five minute later the stadium will appear. The frequency of the trains means an evening kick off would allow travel back to Bologna after the match. It is great to have such a famous name back in Italian football’s top flight, and when I can, I always make an effort to watch them online. In the revised version of an old saying, any friend of Ancona is a friend of mine, FORZA SPAL!
Football Adventures with James Rendall 