A number of clubs, especially in Serie C, coincidently all bunched in the same Girone (group) carry the prefix “Pro”. This essentially means “for”, and has nothing to do with the notion that they are more professional than the rest at this level.
One of the trio of “Pro” brigades even has seven Scudetto titles on their CV, Pro Vercelli. Another’s name is literally taken from a very famous old quote by Horace, a Roman poet; “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori”. Wilfred Owen lifted the opening part of the line into his more modern work, and courtesy of that, you might be familiar with it, but Aurora Pro Patria (as they are now known) are another famous old Italian club from the city of Busto Arsizio. It can be found just 35 kilometres north of Milan. Pro Patria took inspiration from the latter portion of the quotation above, “to die for the fatherland”. Thankfully they left off “mori” (to die), sublimating it with “et libertate” (and freedom) and Pro Patria et Libertate were founded in 1919, a club with fourteen Serie A campaigns in its history.
If the first two of the Pro clubs form an integral part of the rich tapestry of Calcio, the third, Pro Sesto might lack the history, but try shouting that in Sesto San Giovanni! As we’ll discover, the suburban Milanese side are one of the great stalwarts of third tier football.
My first ever encounter with a Pro team was in a very rare Piacenza derby, where the more famous team named after the town were hosting Pro Piacenza in Serie C. This encounter was an eye opener, in that it wasn’t much of an occasion, with the Pro team giving the “for” sides a bad name. They had absolutely no fans and were thrashed 4-0. For a few seasons, they held their own in the third division, obviously being heavily subsidised by a sugar daddy to compete. However, later that same season, the wheels were coming off the enterprise. The money dried up, and the players weren’t being paid by February 2019. In Italy, failure to complete three matches results in a row sees a club being expunged from any given league. Having had two matches cancelled, things reached a head for Pro Piacenza at Cuneo. They took the field with just the minimum number of “players” required to fulfil a fixture, seven. None of them were recognised players, with U19 squad lads and a ball-boy roped into playing in a desperate attempt to hoodwink the authorities. They lost 20-0 and were never seen again! Curiously, Cuneo, a relatively solid, reliable team, were thrown to the wolves for their part in this farce. Heavily fined, it proved to be a burden too far, and having limped to the end of 2018/19, they failed to register for the following campaign. Cuneo 1905 Olmo are now in Piemonte Region Eccellenza (fifth tier) as they try to recover their lofty Serie C days.
Let’s open the lid on our three feature Pro teams
1- Aurora Pro Patria
Busto Arsizio might not be a household name, but its location just 15 minutes south of Milan Malpensa airport does potentially afford a day trip to Italy to watch a game and return home on a late flight. The Malpensa Express stops at Busto Arsizio Nord station shortly after leaving the two terminals. With a population of 83,000, Busto certainly has some wealth attached with some fabulous houses and exquisite apartments along the walk from station to stadium. Brand, spanking new apartment of a lavish nature are being built very close to the ground, with the upper balconies perhaps being afforded a fine view of the stadium, albeit the mainstand will preclude a full view.
Pro Patria’s blue and white hooped kit is unique in Italy, and it might already have attracted or alerted fans of QPR, Reading, Morton, or even Duisburg! Curiously, Morton has a friendship with Reggiana, but I am unaware whether any of the other famous blue and white hoops fans embrace their smaller Italian brothers. I can’t think of any other Italian team whose main shirt is hoops either!
In the first half of the last century, Pro Patria were regulars in Serie A, having 14 top flight campaigns on the CV, with the last one in 1955/56. Like so many Italian clubs, having had a proud history doesn’t halt those financial issues coming around the corner. These concerns eventually caught up with them, seeing bankruptcy in 1995 and more depressingly in 2009 when the club were knocking on a rare return to Serie B. They had perhaps pushed the boat too far in their quest to gain promotion, a real shame.
While things have stabilised under the guidance of the Tesoro family, a business based in Apulia, the club hasn’t ever reached the ambition of returning to the second tier as yet. They have qualified a few times for the protracted end of season promotion play offs but never progressed anywhere close to merely being unlucky in that competition.
This season, the club started slowly, but a fine run of results saw them leap out of the bottom five slots, thereby potentially avoiding any relegation play out action, renewing hopes of another crack at the promotion plays. Essentially, only 5 teams don’t have a playoff match in these three 18 team leagues come May, so the middle bracket can be a fraught zone of delight or doom!
The fickle nature of the football fan will see i Tigrotti (little tigers, as they are known) delight in knowing rivals Alessandria are even lower in the table, and even likely to be directly relegated to Serie D. The nickname is curious and amusing. Yes, a tiger has a hooped style coat, but it certainly isn’t blue and white!
The evening I pitched up at the quaint Carlo Speroni stadium with Padova in town, a club whose sole focus is on getting back into Serie B. They are locked in a two-way battle with Mantova for the solitary automatic promotion slot, albeit an almighty 5-0 home loss to their rivals has added pressure in airbrushing out any further slip ups. Believe me Padova do not want to be in the Play Offs, they regularly go far in them (finalists often) only to lose. One of the recent such finals was against the aforementioned Alessandria who went to Serie B instead and might have wished they hadn’t.
With a capacity of 4,627 the Stadio Carlo Speroni is more than sufficient for Serie C, but it would require buffing up should Serie B ever come along again. The stadium has one open end with room for another stand, so the minimum capacity could easily be reached. The mainstand runs the length of the pitch and is roofed, as is a fine stand opposite, leaving open terrace at either end, with the away fans housed on one of these quasi permanent scaffold gigs Italy loves behind one goal. The Speroni is certainly very well maintained. You will get a good view no matter where you sit, albeit with a running track between you and the action. Given the size of the city, I had hoped more would be in attendance for this match, but perhaps a legacy of the proximity of Milan means younger fans are drawn by the lure of bigger club action. I would think only around 1,000 were present, with a couple of hundred along from Padova.
I tigrotti were the first to show their teeth in this clash, and with a little more composure, they might have roared into the lead. As it was, Padova were just bedding in, and once they hit their stride, the inside of the post was whacked, but it incredibly stayed out. Then they thumped the bar, but both efforts might have included miracle work by the goalkeeper. Maybe it could be Pro Patria’s night after all, but then one of those unfortunate shot hit hand affairs entered the fray, and even without VAR, the referee seemed convinced. It was duly dispatched, and Padova led at the turn.
The second half was end to end, but Padova just had a greater nuance to possession and guile in defending. These qualities regularly thwarted Pro Patria and also rendered the Veneto side a second goal, a fine shot from outside the box that kept low. It never quite put the game to bed, but they did enough to win. A rare defeat recently for the Busto boys in recent weeks, but their play would suggest the next win is just around the corner.
While Busto Arsizio is minutes from Malpensa, (45 minutes from Milan Centrale, if coming the other way), the stadium is a good solid 40 minute walk from the Malpensa Express station. It is a relatively straight forward walk through the town, a very nicely appointed place it is too, with just one incline on the way out of Busto, with the stadium right on the outer edge.
2-Pro Vercelli
The seven time winners of lo Scudetto are still quite high on the roster of all-time winners (joint 4th), even if they haven’t won a title since 1922! It is unlikely, sadly, that we will ever see the likes again, as the professional era has made it harder and harder for small communities to host Scudetto winners. However, that should not detract from a stunning achievement from a relatively small town team. The amazing retro main stand at the exceptionally well kept Stadio Silvio Piola is adorned with shields of the Italian flag with the dates of those seven successes, rightly still celebrated to this day.
Modern-day Pro Vercelli are a solid, reliable third tier side. They did suffer one episode of that Italian curse, bankruptcy in 2010, more than a hundred years after they started in 1892. The pioneers would be turning in their graves when the classic white and black club colours were temporarily lost, but in an extraordinary twist of fate, at exactly the club’s moment of need, another Vercelli club just happened to have enjoyed its solitary season in the professional leagues. As Pro Belvedere Vercelli were due to head back to Serie D, having enjoyed adventures that brought the only ever Vercelli derbies this high up the ladder, it also coincided with Pro Vercelli drowning under serious debt.
The very next season, US Vercelli were born, essentially a reprieved Belvedere merged with their more illustrious neighbours, saved from excessive demotion courtesy of this scenario. In time honoured fashion, US Vercelli became Pro Vercelli for next season with the name Belvedere lost in the merger. The combined resources brought brighter days, and back as Pro Vercelli in 2013/14, they won the promotion play offs and were back in Serie B after 64 years. The club survived two campaigns, but both were a struggle, and after succumbing to a third similar tale, they were back in Serie C, where they have remained ever since.
My one sighting of Pro Vercelli came soon after the relegation in the derby with Novara which is known as the Rice Field derby, courtesy of the flatlands between them and the crop of choice in the region.
Vercelli is on the Eastern edges of Piemonte, accessible from Busto Arsizio via Novara, or direct from Milan Centrale on trains bound for Torino. The stadium is a good 20/25 minute walk down through the town.
3-Pro Sesto
The last of our Pro teams hail from Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb of Milan easily accessible on the Metro. If you take the red line (M1) north, alighting at the first Sesto stop (Sesto Marelli), the walk is over a mile, but the metro angles away from the Breda stadium, and any subsequent stop would see you further away. It is a relatively straight forward walk, but I would encourage Google Maps to guide you in accurately. I had time to kill on a day before my flight home from Milan and ventured out to see the stadium. It has a community cafe inside the ground, so even on non match days you’ll likely find an open gate for a peek, all washed down with a coffee if you want.
The Breda stadium has a 4,500 capacity with a roofed main stand looking out over three uncovered “seated” terraces, but they are essentially concrete, so unless you have one of those club cushions that Italians of a certain age seem to carry around, you’ll likely be standing.
Pro Sesto have never set the heather on fire, being invited into a mixed B/C set-up post war in 1945 was as high as the club ever climbed. Once the mix was unwound, they finished in the necessary 7th place in 1947/48 to retain proper B status for the sole time in the club’s history. Still on a high the next season, they finished 7th again in a much tougher league. However, it all unravelled soon after, and within three years they had fallen back to the regional leagues.
I caught up with them years ago at Cesena in 2008 in a third tier encounter, and that is where they are once more, albeit this campaign is proving a bit of a struggle. They have been on a downward journey in those intervening years since Cesena with bankruptcy entering the CV, but in 2020 they were back in C and I am sure the club will do everything in its power to retain its professional status this time around too.
As if to accentuate the community aspect, not only do they run a community cafe, but on the opposite side of the stadium are further pitches that are used not only for the first team to train, but form part of an important and highly successful youth set-up within Pro Sesto and the wider Sesto San Giovanni area.
Other Pro clubs include Pro Livorno, who temporarily were at a higher level than US Livorno in these angst filled days of the most famous left wing club in Italy, but also graced Serie A twice in 1921/22 and just after WWII in 1946/47. They are now a step lower than Livorno in the Tuscan regional Eccellenza league, step 5 on the pyramid.
However, largely if smaller Pro teams stay in Serie D or lower, they can survive. There is a fifth tier Pro Novara, and last year, I saw Pro Massafra in Brindisi down in the Puglian ninth tier, the lowest Italian tier.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 