With accommodation prices more affordable in Salerno, aside from the featured four clubs in this Special Campania South-West article, here are a number of other Campania clubs all within sixty minutes travel from the city. Everyone of whom has its own story, and while none have ever set the heather on fire, lower league football in any country these days is the honest, hard working cutting edge of the beautiful game. This is just a selection of the alternatives, starting with the nearest and working slightly further away.
ASD Battipagliese
This is the only suggested option just south of Salerno, a mere fifteen minutes by train on the Paestum-Agropoli line. Battipaglia is a working city, as many of these alternatives are, but while it might lack tourism, sometimes that is no bad thing, and the curiosity of the locals is heightened.
The local club is in the Campania Promozione league, the sixth tier. They lost out on promotion at the end of the season, losing a play-off semi-final to Citta di Campagna. Ironically, in the clubs “glory” years of hanging around the third and fourth tiers, the clubs sighted greatest result was saving themselves from relegation to the fifth tier by beating Palermo in a play-out in 1997.
Stadio Luigi Pastena, with a capacity of 7,000 has a main stand worthy of seeing, a colossal size for such a modest club. The stadium is just over a kilometre from the railway station, essentially left after coming out of the station, under the tracks via an underpass, straight on until a roundabout appears, and then it’s to the right with the floodlights visible.
Paganese Calcio 1926
The first stop after Nocera Inferiore on the Metropolitan rail line from Salerno to Napoli Campi Flegrei is Pagani. The local side, Paganese, has a very distinct white star on its badge, part of a small band of similar clubs with Casale and Bisceglie. The third tier is as high as they have risen, relegated to D three years ago having saved themselves in dramatic fashion the season before with a deep into injury-time equaliser versus Bisceglie a tier up. Just seconds after the visitors had scored what they thought was a relegation saving winner in what transpired to be a thrilling 3-3 draw. Bisceglie then even had time to hit the post before proceedings were brought to a close. It was, without doubt, the most incredible end to a game I have seen.
Curiously, they once participated in the Anglo-Italian Cup for the 1978 diet, when it was smaller sides that took part. They lost at Wealdstone and Bath before beating Bangor City (not very Anglo!) at home before losing in Pagani to Nuneaton Borough.
The stadium is about 1.5 kilometres from the Metroline station, but it’s a slightly complicated route, so use your phone map for guidance if you ever find yourself headed to the exceptionally well looked after Marcello Torre stadium here in Pagani.
US Angri 1927
You can’t beat stepping off a train in a place like Angri, and then being pleasantly surprised, no one really is! On this particular morning, it was probably me who was angry, especially as the night before Inverness ended up in the Scottish Championship play offs to stay in the league, partly due to Airdrie fielding a seriously weakened team against the team we could have caught. Three points from fifth, with a positive goal difference, I was certainly annoyed in Angri!
Angri are a poor man’s Cremonese, the other club who play in those iconic grey and red stripes. Unlike the side from Lombardia, Angri haven’t ever really set the world of Calcio on fire. However, just at the end of the last season, a minor success saw them win their last two games and relegate both Barletta and Gallipoli in the process as they preserved their Serie D status.
The club’s high was in 1995/96 when they won the Coppa Italia Dilettanti Campania, essentially the regional cup for teams in the fifth tier or lower. Even at lower levels, financial issues can strike, and Angri had to start over in 2013/14 all the way down in the 9th tier.
The Pasquale Novi stadium has an artificial surface, an increasingly common gig in lower leagues anywhere. It also just has one significantly sized stand and very small section in a corner for the visitors, all fenced in like criminals in a dock sadly. This venue had an open door, and with no one around I was just taking some photos when the considerable gates closed. With no game scheduled that day I ran to the entrance to find them closed. Thankfully, like Livorno, where I had also been inadvertently locked in, this venue had a fire escape style push bar side door, and out I got!
AC Savoia 1908
From all the teams featuring here, Savoia are the oldest and perhaps the most recognisable. In 1924 the club won the Championship of Southern Italy, losing out to Genoa for the overall title. This was a significant high, and a hundred years on, the club has never come close to replicating that. Indeed, managing to stave off relegation from the Campania Eccellenza might be a small victory, but not where a club with such a rich history wishes to be.
The name is taken from the old Royal Family of Italy, the House of Savoy, with the red and white “Danish flag” aspect of the badge, taken from the royal heraldry. The white shirt is said to be dedicated to the industry that made Torre Annunziata, the flour industry.
In 1997, my boys Ancona came up against Savoia in a promotion play off final for a slot in Serie B. It was a match played in the Stadio Olimpico in Roma no less, and one that thankfully Ancona won. Savoia has never come close to replicating those days since. However, in a summer of curious buy-out scenarios in Campania, San Marzano, who I saw at Cavese, have been bought out by Savoia, and they have essentially bumped themselves up a level to Serie D for the season ahead.
Torre Annunziata is a busy port city with steep streets leading up the hillside. The town has two railway stations, and from Salerno, the nearest to the Alfredo Giraud stadium is the second one Citta, as opposed to the first Centrale. From this particularly small station it is up to the main road and then turn left, gently climbing along this street that will take you through a busy shopping area, but also loads of alternatives for something to eat or drink. It’s a relatively straight forward walk, but I would occasionally refer to an online map to guide you off this road and further along.
The murals around the Giraud are fantastic, a stadium steeped in history, celebrated on its exterior walls. With a 10,750 capacity, this is easily the biggest venue on our trek here and speaks volumes of the notion that this is a sleeping giant.
SS Turris Calcio
The final stop on our little odyssey is just a little further along the coast at Torre Del Greco, home to the highest ranked club of the selection, third tier Turris. TdG is more a fishing port than Torre Annunziata, with a flotilla of small pleasure boats docked here too. It is another seriously steep sloped town, perhaps prettier than its near neighbour, and potentially even busier. Here we are for sure on the cusp of Napoli as the volume of Vespa and motor bikes increases exponentially.
SS Turris play on a slice of flat land, a significant hike up from the Metropolitan rail line, but it is also on the Vesuviano metro line out of Napoli, and that station is almost at the same level as the ground.
They were largely a Serie D or below club, but since 2020/21, the club has been holding its own in Serie C, a level they had previously experienced briefly in 1997/98. The season just gone was a real struggle, but they managed to get themselves out of the bottom five and avoid the fraught play outs on the very last day of the regular season.
Having watched Serie C games online from here I was aware of the extraordinary high rise flats overlooking the stadium. They truly dwarf the Americo Liguori, which has a capacity of 5,300 and is kept in very good order. The gates were open, so it seemed rude not to have a peek.
Other clubs can also entertain you in this very busy area for football clubs. The train line we have been following has more to entertain, FC Pompei play a significant 3.5 kilometres away from the station, a one stand facility, but are riding high, having been promoted to the 4th tier for the first ever time through a lengthy play off route. The stadium is insufficient for Serie D and they will play all games away from the historic city, but with plenty of options in the area, it is hoped they’ll find an arrangement relatively nearby, and not suffer the fate of Sorrento in Serie C who were playing a considerable distance away in Potenza, Basilicata last season.
The next town, along from Pompei in the direction of Salerno is Scafati, home to Scafatese, a club that once played two seasons in Serie B 1946-48. The club finished 4th in the Eccellenza but despite being knocked out of the promotion play offs at the first hurdle, they bought a place in D, giving the area an abundance of representation in the national leagues.
The other side of Torre del Greco headed towards Napoli is the lesser known but equally spectacular ancient volcanic buried town of Ercolano, home to ASD SS Ercolanese, a club that has dotted around the C and D world since 1922. They are currently in the Campania Eccellenza like so many in this area.
The moving of the Serie C playoffs, had me scrapping around looking for a Saturday match, and despite all these clubs in this area, they all tend to follow that traditional Sunday format. However, persistence paid off, with a 6th tier play-out match in Sant’egidio Monte del Albino, essentially a suburb of Angri, acting as the perfect foil.
Finding lower league games in Italy requires relying on the excellent website Tuttocampo, with different pages for each and every league, let alone region. That constitutes over the entire country probably more than 200 web pages needing updating with information regarding matches from tier 5 to 9 from Aosta to Sicilia. I know many in Northern Europe especially, they subscribe to the modern art of Futbology, where you can even set the parameters as to how far from your location you want to travel, and it will cough up alternatives to go and watch. That particular app doesn’t go any lower than Serie D in Italy, doubtless acknowledging how infrequently it is used in the country.
However, when you fill in the necessary “add a stadium” form and submit, to then be E mailed back that such a stadium doesn’t exist is making a mockery of the app. I know from first hand tales that people use and abuse it, looking to add rugby, shinty or any other vague looking park so they can make up a game and count it. This is all frankly just pathetic. So is signing into three matches all going on at the same time in the same vicinity just to, well I don’t know what; boost numbers? show off? Whatever. It does act as a nice way of quickly referencing previous games attended and that is why I use it, but having sent them photos of the non existent Stadio Comunale Antonio Spirito, they still refuse to acknowledge its existence?!
Sant’edigio finished one place higher than the visiting Atletico Faiano and merely needed a draw to preserve their status in the Campania Promozione level. A fine crowd was packed in to cheer them on, and Faiano, a club nearer Salerno (with more than a hint of Salernitana about the kit, and sponsored by the Serie A club shop) had a number of fans peering through the fence from a rather naff visiting section.
This was throwback football, to a surface I have never seen a game on previously, but having caught photos of Malta Internationals on a similar surface in the ‘70’s, the entertainment value was increased. Plumes of dust would erupt every time a few lads went close to the ball. Faiano took an early lead, and this seemed to be a good thing as it forced Sant’edigio into an almost entire game’s worth of attacking football, but the closest they got was a rasping shot that rattled the crossbar. As the clock ticked down, the gamesmanship ramped up, with laughable attempts to con the ref into free-kicks or penalty awards. Faiano players didn’t resort to time wasting injuries, and I had utmost respect for how they played this match.
At the final whistle, rightly, the Faiano players ran to celebrate with their loyal band of fans, but this was too much for a number of home players who rushed in to break up the party and a proper fight broke out, no handbags here, proper punches were landing, kung-fu kicks were hurting. With not a steward or policeman in sight, it was left for the coaching staff to try and separate the angry bunch and even as they all disappeared into the dressing door area, people were still trying to grab hair, anything. It was all a bit unsavoury, but even heading down to the 7th level in Campania, it matters and passions run high. For that alone, I salute them, even if they should know how to behave. I was after all in the right town, people finally, literally were angry in Angri!
Football Adventures with James Rendall 