Cesena FC at 80

This is a 99% complete article which will be submitted to Football Weekends magazine as a celebration of the 80 year history of Cesena FC. Upon completion of the match on 2nd February versus Perugia I will update, and submit with photos from this big Serie C promotion tussle.

During these pandemic days, with fans still barred, or at best only allowed to attend in very limited numbers, it’s even more depressing for those clubs celebrating a landmark season. Stranraer are 150 years old, a magnificent age, and a fabulous little club, with the longest running shirt sponsorship in the world! Kilmarnock have also celebrated such a figure too. In Italy, Pistoiese in Tuscany, who I wrote about last year, is the latest Centenarian for 2021, but Sassuolo and Empoli were also celebrating 100 years old in 2020. The first club I cheered for abroad was Cesena, who are a mere young pup at 80 years old in the 20/21 season. Founding a football club in 1940 was certainly an unusual time in history for a start up, especially as World War II was raging, but despite these troubled times AC Cesena were born! Given it was a Subbuteo catalogue club listings for my West Germany team that drew me to them, that introduction to the name goes all the way back to circa 1978, at which time the club was only 38 years old. Rightly, the club are generating enthusiasm and revenue from a number of fine 80 year momentos.

Cesena is a city of just short of 100,000 citizens, considerably south of Bologna in the direction of Rimini. A number of the faculties of Bologna University can be found here in Cesena, even if it’s an hour or more away from the Emilia Romagna capital. The addition of the University students doesn’t just give the place an academic feel, it sees an inordinate number of younger people in the area. I am sure no one from the city would take offence when I say Cesena isn’t on any main tourist trail, but that said, it is not without some lovely typically Italian narrow streets in the central area. Piazza Del Popolo is the main square, traffic free and quaint with its ornate fountain in the middle, and on one side the imposing, fortified wall of the grounds of the Rocca Malatestiana. If you venture through the archway and up the steps from the Piazza you’ll be en route to the Rocca high above Cesena, as well as experiencing a rare uphill walk in the vicinity as the city is very flat. Cesena is a little away from the Adriatic Sea, but it’s less than 10 kilometres to the coast at Cesenatico, a town with the most fabulous collection of old traditional boats on the river, as well as a wonderful selection of restaurants with quayside tables, complete with the trawlers of today docked right beside them. Cesenatico also has a great beach and a large selection of holiday hotels if you want to chill out and do calcio. Marco Pantani, the famous Italian cyclist was from Cesenatico, and a Cesena fan. 

Bologna FC have traditionally been the big rival for Cesena, but in these days when the fixture is rarely played Rimini, Ravenna and Forli have all been derbies in the last few years. In the ‘70’s and ‘80’s Cesena and Bologna were predominantly the only Serie A representatives for the region, but not consistently. Parma broke through to become a stalwart in the top flight in the ‘90’s, as well as Sassuolo now, and while Modena, Reggiana and SPAL have all dropped in for a short spell too, the sands of the most significant Emilia Romagna clubs might have shifted for now, but whenever Bologna and Cesena next lock horns, it will still be the spiciest derby in the region.  

Back in the late ‘70’s, I am sure only very occasionally an Italian league table would appear in Goal or Shoot magazine, the staples of my football world (I was too young to know about World Soccer magazine at that juncture) and if Cesena weren’t in the top flight at the time, there was limited to no chance of knowing much of the plight of the club from a distance. As luck would have it, Cesena were promoted to Serie A for the first time in 1973, and they stuck around for a few season’s too. They even managed a club high 6th place finish in Serie A in ‘75/76 in only their third ever top flight campaign,  which also brought a UEFA Cup qualification the following season. Cesena were drawn to play Magdeburg, then a crack East German side, who were the only DDR club in the duel Germany period of history to win a European trophy. Just two years before playing Cesena, Magdeburg saw off AC Milan at the De Kuip in Rotterdam 2-0 to win the Cup Winners Cup. 

Playing such a high calibre side was always going to be a challenge, but a red card at 1-0 down in Magdeburg didn’t help the cause, and the East Germans eventually ran out 3-0 winners. Two weeks later in La Fiorita, the name of Cesena’s stadium back in the day, a very healthy crowd was on hand to roar on “i Cavallucci Marini” (the Seahorses as they are known. A curious nickname for a landlocked town team, but a lovely badge!). It was a magnificent effort, with Giorgi Mariani scoring Cesena’s first ever European goal to send them in at the break leading 1-0. The game started to go in the home sides favour five minutes into the second half when Fiorino Pepe scored to make it 2-0. They were on fire at this point, but the game swung on a solitary minute of action twenty minutes from the end. Firstly Jurgen Sparwasser (remember him! The scorer of the only goal in 1974 when East beat West Germany in the sole competitive game the two ever played) pulled one back for Magdeburg, effectively meaning Cesena needed to score another three. Frustration boiled over and scorer Mariani was sent off, before Emiliano Macchi scored a third. A 3-1 win was a fine result against such an illustrious opposition, but they bowed out 4.3 on aggregate at the first hurdle and sadly Cesena have never troubled European qualification places again thus far.   

I first set foot in Cesena in June 1987, appropriately my first ever game overseas. What a special experience was about to unfold on the very last Sunday of the Serie B campaign. It was a car crash of a final round of fixtures with a heap of clubs still clambering to go up and avoid the drop. Perhaps in the modern world we wouldn’t have had a chance of tickets, all briefs would have been sold online ahead of the day. In hope more than expectation, it was an early train up the coast from Riccione to Cesena, a journey of no more than 40 minutes, but we were in Cesena by 9 in the morning. We immediately worked our way back towards the stadium spotted close to the tracks before the train pulled into the station. The ticket booths were open, and in those good old days prior to ID requirements, lira were shoved through a low porthole, and two tickets were thrust back, we were going to the ball! 

The excitement of the occasion never abated through a walking tour of the town, lunch in Piazza del Popolo, ahead of the return to La Fiorita well before kick off. In those days the stadium was an ellipse with many stands just quasi permanent scaffold. The home curva was the highest of them all, where we chose to be right in the very back top right corner more than an hour before the game,  and the place was already bouncing. Catania were in town, and they had their own battle against relegation to attend too, but in an era pre digital, the radio rumour was needed and rife. The game was nervy and exciting, but on a hot afternoon the 2.1 win, including a three times taken penalty in front of an over capacity crowd was ultimately exhausting, but in a good way. The scaffolding shook from start to finish, and when the dust settled Cesena were neither up, nor had they failed. Locked together with Cremonese and Lecce, all three went into a play off round robin that still produced no winner, and a second play off with Lecce in San Benedetto del Tronto was required. I wasn’t willing to wait until the following week to find out the score from Guerin Sportivo, and soon after the end of the game I called the San Benedetto stadium to ask the score, “due uno Cesena” was all I recall, but that was all that mattered as I punched the air, Cesena were back in Serie A and it was nearly mid July!

I was back to see two Cesena away matches in Milan and Genoa in the spring of 1990 as the club toughed out two fabulous draws against Inter and Sampdoria in the top flight survival struggle. The club were under the guidance of Marcello Lippi at the time, a manager destined for greatness, but elsewhere alas. Massimo Agostini scored in the San Siro, and momentarily I forgot I was in the home Gradinata full of Inter fans, with my reward for such a great moment in my footballing pantheon was having a Coca Cola poured over down my back! A fortnight later Gianluca Viali missed a rare penalty in a 0-0 draw, but on the final whistle the visitors’ joy turned to anguish as the scoreboard showed Hellas Verona had beaten AC Milan leaving Cesena needing another final day win to stay up. That man Agostini bagged the winner in a 1-0 success that sent Hellas down, another result confirmed with a phone call.

Between the promotion and those new Serie A campaigns, La Fiorita was almost completely overhauled. Gone was the ellipse, gone was the scaffolding, and in its place were three sides of two tiered covered seats brought closer to the action making it the magnificent Dino Manuzzi that still stands to this day. Those who ventured to the U21 European Championships a couple of years ago I am sure all enjoyed the experience at the Manuzzi, as well as the town itself. As to whether the area behind the home curva was awash with fans supping beer on the street in front of an array of small bars, or tucking into some tasty offerings from food vans ahead of the games I am unsure, but this is all part of the pre-match day experience at Cesena. They are also a club with a wonderful tradition of printing a programme, and even in these pandemic days it’s still available to read for the fans on the club website as a free download. I know this is the least you’d expect in the UK, but a very rare occurrence in Italy.

Why it took 16 years to see Cesena again, and 19 since my inaugural game is two fold; One was due to discovering Argentina/Uruguay where I would visit once, if not twice a year, and while Italy didn’t take a back seat altogether, my trips became more limited for a period. The second reason was due to a tragic accident in Lecce, when one of the backroom staff was electrocuted and died, causing the postponement of a game in Cesena that I had planned to watch. Ironically, when I did get back to Cesena it was Lecce’s arch rivals Bari who were in town for a second tier fixture. It was a mildly panicky occasion as I was passing through en route to Ancona with a suitcase, and only upon arrival in Cesena did I discover they had no left luggage facilities. A Transport Policeman took pity on me and tucked it away in his office by the station, amazed as he was that someone had come from Scotland to cheer his hometown team! The only snag was, post match after an enjoyable 1-0 home win through a Papa Waigo goal, the police officer had gone home for the night and the office was locked up. No one in the station ticket office had seen any replacement, and just as I was fretting I wouldn’t just miss my train, but have to stay the night to retrieve my suitcase, two officers appeared and despite uncertainty of language and incredulity a suitcase was in the building, they opened up and I pointed to the offending article before whisking off to the platform minutes ahead of my southbound train!

My subsequent three games at the Manuzzi tell the tale of the clubs fluctuating fortunes. You earn your spurs for any club support when you pitch up at a third tier encounter with a tiny suburban team from just outside Milan in the shape of Pro Sesto and that’s what happened exactly two years after the Bari game in 2008. It was a relatively routine encounter, a 3-1 win in beautiful autumnal sunshine. Three years later, Cesena were back in Serie A, albeit struggling, but 21 years on from seeing the famous 1-1 draw with Inter at the San Siro, a choke full Manuzzi was roaring on a fantastic show by the home side. They really were giving the Champions League winners from a few months earlier a run for their money. Budan had put Cesena into a deserved lead sending the stadium into a wild frenzy, but as they game went into injury-time, Giampolo Pazzini didn’t just equalise on 92 minutes, but he scored the winner in the 95th to break home hearts, and serve up my only Cesena defeat to this day. It had been a wonderful day, a gifted ticket from my great friend Stefano, an Inter man, who joined me for the occasion. I was gutted by the late, late smash and grab, but Inter were endeavouring to chase down AC Milan for the Scudetto, something akin to this season too, but back in 2011 they came up short of that goal.

Six years later in 2017 I was back for a second tier encounter with good friends Brescia, my first game under the lights at the Manuzzi , which was only a partial full on experience if you will, as during the first half the Cesena Ultras were having a silent protest and the WSB (as the main fan base is known, short for Weiss Schwarz Brigaden. The club’s fans have a big tie up with German outfit Stuttgart) only perked up with flags and songs in the second half. Even more odd was the lack of away fans, a fact as to why none were present I never did discover. Both clubs were nearer the bottom of the table, just above the relegation places and while a 1-1 draw suited no one really, they both seemed pleased.

One of my first heroes at the club was journeyman Fulvio Simonini, he played versus Catania in 1987, and contributed greatly to that promotion push. Yet oddly he was only at the club for one season, explaining why at my next Italian game in ‘88 he scored for Padova. Then along came il Condor, Massimo Agostini back for a second and third spell at the club, following his time at Roma, where he had sharpened his natural goalscoring talent. He was an instant cult hero, scoring 67 goals for the club in 215 appearances over the three spells spanning a period from 1982 to 1999. In between Agostini’s second and third spells at the club, another great Dario Hubner played for the bianconeri. He was a hard working, more modest centre forward, whose five years at the Manuzzi brought 74 goals in 166 games, showing he was more prolific than Agostini, albeit more of his seasons were in the world of Serie B. Walter Schachner the Austrian striker played from 1981 to 1983 at Cesena giving the club representation at the 1982 World Cup finals where Walter was amongst the goals. Romanian Adrian Mutu tried his best to save Cesena from relegation in 2011/12, chipping in with 8 goals. 

Cesena have always had a reputation in Italy as being a wonderful youth development club, and it’s academy has seen some highly prized individuals come through the ranks. That reputation was somewhat tarnished by summer transfer goings on in 2017 that resulted in a false accounting figure being used for the transfer of a player from Cesena to Chievo. The Veronese were punished 12 points for the next Serie A campaign, and they ultimately went down courtesy of the weight of the penalty, while the escapade sadly sent AC Cesena over the edge to bankruptcy. The Phoenix club Cesena FC had to start again from Serie D, the 4th tier, and even caused consternation by looking to remove the seahorse from the club shirt. Thankfully courtesy of fan outrage, the Seahorse remains on the badge, and the biggest seahorse you’ll ever see adorns the centre of a roundabout outside the stadium, it is part of the fabric of the club now! 

Three notable Italian players who came through the youth system include Sebastiano Rossi who was the goalkeeper in 1987 where he had failed to save any of the three times taken penalty attempts from Catania, but he was a great Cesena servant having been between the sticks from 1982 until moving to AC Milan in 1990. He would win five league titles and a Champions League trophy in his 12 years there. Alessandro Bianchi learned his trade at Cesena for five years before going on to great things with Inter from ‘88 to 96, before coming home and finishing his career at the Seahorses from ‘96 to ‘01. Ruggiero Rizzitelli also started and ended his playing days at the club, setting out in 1988, and hanging up his boots in 2001 having starred for Roma, Torino and Bayern Munich in between. Alessandro and Ruggiero would also play 9 times for the National team. You can see why the Cesena youth system had a fine reputation, and I merely chose three better known examples, but it is hoped that the club can get back to those days of refining the talents of the future players. As money continues to float the haves away from the have nots, one possible bridge between both worlds is having a successful youth system.

The newly formed Cesena FC successfully negotiated a tough first season in 2018/19 where Matellica pushed them all the way to the solitary promotion slot. Last term, back in the third division it was a patchy at best campaign but perhaps a lengthier time off last summer thanks to the pandemic and having been in the lower mid-table no mans land where they missed out on the play offs at either end of the league table gave the club a better opportunity to regroup and get things ready for the 20/21 campaign. 

It is a real shame no fans are allowed in this season as Girone B of the three Serie C divisions has developed into a cracking competition between some fine names of the Italian game, all vying for the solitary top spot and automatic promotion, thereby avoiding the protracted, but exciting play offs. Padova and Modena, as well as relatively new boys Sud Tirol are all in the mix together with Perugia and Cesena, who started slowly but have improved immeasurably.  Carpi, Triestina, Mantova and Sambenedettese are all threatening to gatecrash the leaders too, but lack the consistency to challenge so far. 

It’s an odd thing, but back in 2017 versus Brescia, the surreal, quiet atmosphere of the first half saw Cesena play much better than after the break when the fans were singing. Perhaps the current eerie atmosphere is suiting them better this term, as the lack of the crowds’ occasional edginess certainly can’t make them nervous, but conversely the players have to dig deep for inspiration to keep the motivation high, and I am sure every professional footballer would rather perform in front of a crowd. Will this pandemic spoiled campaign see Cesena back in B ahead of the return of the fans? It would be great, and I look forward to going back to the Manuzzi to see them when it’s safe to do so. Cesena is a lovely place and a wonderful club.