Ascoli Unseen

Some of my Ancona buddies laughed, and would doubtlessly think it poetic justice, but when a very localised thick fog enveloped the Stadio Cino e Luca Del Duca just ahead of kick off in Ascoli, that was the scenario. It really was touch and go with the game delayed while the referee and both captains walked the length of the pitch, periodically getting lost in the mist, whilst deliberating. You couldn’t see both goals, nor the home curva or main stand from our vantage point on the opposite side. Yet, both remarkably and thankfully, the game started.

Ascoli are the serious rivals of my charges, Ancona. It is sadly a rarely played derby these days, with Ascoli back maintaining a higher league status than us, for now. I have long suggested the majority of Italians wouldn’t cross the road to watch another team, but that also extends to rival cities, and unless on an away bus visiting Ascoli Piceno, to give its full name, a lot of people from Ancona have never been here! In a region of many stunning towns or landscapes as Marche has, Ascoli is right up there with the best of them. However, from an Ancona perspective, it is like putting your head in the jaws of the devil. However, in the interests of a balanced article, I will risk the wrath of the biancorossi tifosi (fans) in penning this tale.    

With a population of just over 49,000, Ascoli Piceno is less than half the size of the regional capital Ancona, making its football club’s almost always more lofty league status all the more remarkable. The town lies in the Marche hills on the river Tronto, which runs out into the Adriatic at the well named San Benedetto Del Tronto, a holiday resort down on the coastal plain 43 kilometres away.

Its historical centre really is home to ancient architectural gems, with a very picturesque piazza and narrow alleyways being the constituent parts. If any endorsement was necessary, a RAI TV historical production was underway while we were visiting, with nothing needed to be changed to capture that bygone era atmosphere, aside from trying to stop the odd rogue cyclist or dog walker from stepping into shot. Thankfully, they weren’t shooting in Piazza Del Popolo, the main square, where sadly, quasi permanent tents reside in the centre housing a daily market. It isn’t a great look and useless for capturing a full piazza snap. Many areas in the centre are under scaffolding or fenced off, but sadly, these are a legacy of an earthquake a few years ago, rather than a city wide upgrade. 

Asculum Picenum is the old latin name for a stop on another of those Roman roads, this time Via Salaria which was essentially a Salt Road taking the Adriatic harvested sea salt across the country to Roma! 

I was doing the same circuit of matches with a friend Steph from Brussels. I had bought train tickets before we realised our paths were going to cross a few times, while Steph had hired a car. Usually, ahead of a night game, I do a trek out to the stadium to get some daylight shots, but Steph had driven directly there before checking into his accommodation.  When we met up that afternoon, he confirmed he found no open gates, but he had taken a few pictures of the exterior, which he kindly sent onto to me for use with my article. Right there amongst the flags and murals captured by Steph were Panzer tank brigade flags, highlighting everything I had been told regarding this extreme right-wing fan base. 

One of the joys of the fog was being unable to see any of the flags and fans in the home curva. The Del Duca is currently being slowly reconstructed, aided perhaps by its USA owners, North Six Group, who also own Campobasso. The previous home Curva has been knocked down and not replaced, leaving the Ultras housed at the opposite end now, with the away fans tucked in the corner of the same curva, heavily fenced off. The Gradinata opposite the main stand is a very new and sizable stand. It could be that the capacity of the three sides is more than sufficient, especially where the totally mis-firing team are going in totally the wrong direction for the ambitious owners, with the Serie C trapdoor looming large. Curiously, another American owned club, Spezia, so recently in the top flight, are staring at the same trapdoor. 

Relegation to Serie C might bring the Ancona v Ascoli derby back. Neither club has ever won an away league fixture when this derby has been played. That cycle was broken finally in of all competitions, the Anglo Italian Cup Semi-Final. It was perhaps the most low-key, but still important clashes between the two ever! The winner was going to Wembley, and Ancona headed back to the coast with a first leg advantage 0-1, that first and only ever win at Ascoli. It had been enough for me to start researching accommodation in London with a view to heading down. However, a brace by Giuseppe Incocciati, including a last gasp goal, made it 2-1 to Ascoli in the return leg to progress on away goals. What was even more remarkable was that these two goals were the only ones Incocciati scored in thirty appearances for Ascoli in his second stint at the club. They were his last goals in his professional career as a player, and I am sure they were enough to elevate his status to cult with the Ascolani fans. Notts County would win the 1994/95 trophy, seeing off Ascoli 2-1. They would be the last English winners before time was called on this quirky competition.

Back in 1991 I was at my first Marche derby between the two, in Ancona’s fabulous old city centre stadium Dorico. This was a Serie B clash, a first meeting of the two for decades. Ascoli were just down from the top flight, and Ancona were on the cusp of the club’s halcyon days. We won 2-0, a memorable occasion that ranks amongst my favourite games of my life. The post match celebrations were buoyant, but it all became more scary having to run down the road to escape a marauding horde of Ascoli Ultras who had escaped the police cordon leading them back to the railway station.        

The two had one more memorable encounter, a Serie C promotion Play Off on neutral territory in Perugia in 2001, where a late extra-time Ascoli goal looked to have won it, but a dramatic equaliser was enough for Ancona to progress to Serie B with the draw as our higher league placing gave us that advantage of a tied score. Play-offs rarely result in a penalty shoot out in Italy, but in this instance it gave Ancona a rare opportunity to lord it over their rivals from a higher league. Needless to say it didn’t last long with Ascoli ending a seven year spell in the third tier the very next season as Champions.

Ascoli started out in 1898 and first hit Serie A in 1973. They were the first ever Marche club at this giddy level, but after a two year stay, they slipped down again. They bounced back in 1978, when they managed a seven season stint in the top flight, finishing 4th and 6th in 1980 and 1982, even through gritted teeth this was a magnificent achievement, but it was ahead of multiple clubs qualifying for Europe, and they missed out on that experience. In this period, they registered a 36,500 record crowd versus Juventus, representing more than 70% of the population. 

In all, the club have enjoyed five promotions to Serie A, but perhaps the most recent in 2005 had an element of good fortune. Having failed to get promoted via the play offs, the subsequent relegation of Genoa and Torino due to fraud and financial issues, saw Ascoli invited to step up. In the third top flight campaign of that sequence, ironically a 1-0 loss to Torino, back after a season in B, relegated them and they haven’t knocked on that door since.

Another element of good fortune shone for Ascoli in 2013/14, by then back in the third tier, when having been declared bankrupt, Ascoli Picchio, the new club management name successfully bid for the assets of the club. The football authorities accepted their takeover without demotion, something that Ancona can only dream about in our various bankrupt scenarios. The strokes of good luck just kept coming, and at the end of the following season, another term in C looked inevitable, having finished second to Teramo. However, the Abruzzo club were found guilty of involvement in a football scandal, and Ascoli were declared champions and back in Serie B, where they have resided ever since. With two promotions and a bankruptcy without undue punishment on the CV, lucky Ascoli rabbit’s feet would be a top seller in the club shop!

While Ascoli and Campobasso have the same owners, the similarities don’t stop there. Until Ascoli’s recent demolition and upgrading at the ground, the two stadia might have looked like two peas from the same pod, borne of an industrial concrete template, a design that can also be found at Avellino, Foggia and Benevento. The American Italian owner of The North Six Group bought Campobasso in honour of his grandfather, who was a Molise man, the smallest of Italy’s twenty regions. Should both his clubs find themselves in Serie C next season, it will be interesting to see which one he would prioritise. Ascoli are likely to be spared a whole bunch of feisty derby encounters in C as Campobasso appears odds on to keep local rivals Sambenedettese down in the fourth tier for another term. Ancona will be enough for them to contend with, and the return of this derby might just spark my boys into making a more memorable season.

For the Friday night football under the lights at the Duca, Cremonese were in town. They were just relegated from Serie A last term, and were in the mix at the top for an automatic promotion place. A couple of hundred i grigiorossi (grey and reds, the curious Cremona colour scheme) had journeyed south for this encounter, but like ourselves, they must have been astonished to arrive into the misty lands of Ascoli.

In the centre, enjoying some grub, we were none the wiser of what was unfolding. The pre-match nibble ahead of a night game in Italy can be trickier than you would think. Restaurants don’t generally only open at 7, and with a good 30-minute walk to the stadium for 8.30 start, you need the chef to be on the ball! We pitched up just ahead of 7 and got the chefs buy-in to get cracking while chomping on the hors d’oeuvres, Olivio Ascolani, essentially olives stuffed with spicy meat, a thoroughly recommended nibble.

When we set off on the walk to the stadium, there was still no hint as to the impending pea souper, but as we crossed the river and started the gradual incline towards the stadium, complete with hilarious markings counting down the distance to the ground, things started to thicken up. The stadium is hardly high above sea-level compared to the town, but it is situated just below the foothills of the Marche hills, and the unexpected higher temperature of the day, doubtlessly clashed with the night air of the hills causing an extremely localised fog.

Localised it might have been, but I have no idea how they thought to start. Maybe local knowledge suggested it would lift eventually, and if that is what swung the decision, they were spot on. By half-time it had lifted completely, but the first 40 minutes of this game were eerie and unusual. The best vantage point to see just a little further was to stand at the bottom of our stand, almost at pitch level, where you weren’t allowing the lights to distort and exacerbate the conditions. It must have been a televisual nightmare to see anything.

The unusual situation made it seem a little more thrilling than it really was. A lot of niggly fouls disrupted the play, and chances were at a premium, or at least in the fog, that was how it appeared. A chap known to Steph was in the home Curva, and his after match catch-up suggested they couldn’t see the far end for at least the first thirty minutes up there.  

Cremonese were the more threatening side on the break, and mid-way through a fog free second half, they smashed the ball home. It was obvious that the scorer had played for Ascoli previously as he immediately raised his hands in faint apology whilst being surrounded by his colleague with more unrestrained joy. VAR then intervened, and after a long delay, it was either offside or a foul in the knock down header, but no information was made available as to why. One sad morsel to report, the scorer of the non goal, Frank Tsadjout may have been on the books at Ascoli, and he may have paid total respect in not celebrating, but deep in the home Ultra section he was racially abused, very, very sad indeed.  

The game swung one way, then the other, players feigned injury and lumps were kicked out of each other, but rarely leading to an open sight of goal. Both merely mustered one shot on target each in the game. It ended as it began goalless, and from an Ancona perspective, I was quite chuffed about that, in not having to falsely applaud our rivals had they scored. I may only have seen Ascoli play twice, but they still haven’t managed a goal, and as for Cremonese, well this was a second viewing of them too, and while they might have managed one third tier goal versus Lupa Roma, both that encounter and this one were awful. Cremonese thereby join the pantheon of “don’t watch” for me along with Imolese, a small but growing band of clubs I have given a chance to entertain, and they failed miserably.

Ascoli Piceno is a lovely town, well worth a visit, even a daytrip off the coast. I am sure many will enjoy a game here, too, all in the honour of knocking off another ground, perhaps. That is all perfectly fine, but I would recommend watching from either of the main stands, well away from the home Curva unless your politics are aligned similarly to Lazio, as the hardcore Ascolani fans would give them a run for their money! Fundamentally, that is why Ancona call them serious rivals. I went in search of a good story to write and out of curiosity for myself. I am glad I went, but it was a one off experiment, and unlike many places in my favourite country on this planet, I won’t be back, which will be music to the ears of my Ancona buddies.  

A small footnote to my visit, Ascoli did get relegated to Serie C. The Marche derby is back on roster, and I will do everything I can to get to Del Conero for that one.