Читать книгу Calcio: A History of Italian Football - John Foot - Страница 56

‘That Torino team never died’

GIOVANNI ARPINO

After Superga the victims of the disaster, already close to perfection and nigh-on unbeatable on the pitch, entered into the realms of myth.²² As time passed, devotion to the ex-Grande Torino developed into a kind of civic religion. Trips to Superga were described as ‘pilgrimages’. People left flowers, cried or prayed by the plaque on the hill. One handwritten note left in 2003 ended with ‘our claret red heart will never stop beating’. Photos of the dead stars were displayed all over the city, in people’s homes, in their cars and in bars, clubs and restaurants. The trophy room at the Torino ground was known as the sacrestia (the sacristy) and the Grande Torino players became known as caduti – the fallen, like angels, or war dead – and not simply victims. All were young, and the players remained youthful in the photos that were associated with the crash, which were similar to religious icons, or santini (little saints, distributed in Italian churches).²³

All the darker aspects of the past were forgotten or written out of history – such as Mazzola’s divorce from his first wife and the scandal that had ensued. Relics were preserved – wheels and parts from the plane, shirts, shoes, shoelaces. Enormous quantities of books, films and poems were and still are dedicated to the Grande Torino players, and not just in Turin.²⁴ Even romance could flourish in the ruins of Superga. At one ceremony, the daughter and son of victims Giuseppe Grezar and Romeo Menti met at the plaque behind Superga. A love story was born which produced a child and a separation. Torino fans were not just fans – they were different, they had a faith that had been reinforced by tragedy and martyrdom, they were devoted. Massimo Gramellini, Torino fan and journalist, invented a term for the generation of fans who had lived through the tragedy of 1949 – uomo superga; Supergaman.

This devotion was strengthened, over the years, by a number of factors. For one thing, no Torino team was anywhere near as good as the Grande Torino. As a matter of fact, lots of Torino teams have been bad, and some have been very bad indeed. Over time, it appeared increasingly unlikely that Torino would ever be Grande again. Moreover, the rise and rise of Juventus led Torino followers into an increasingly melancholic nostalgia for the 1940s. This nostalgia was reinforced by the ritual humiliation of seeing Juventus win, time and time again. Finally, the team and the club suffered a series of other tragedies that reinforced the sense of bad luck, of a kind of curse.²⁵ Torino heroes Gigi Meroni and midfielder Giorgio Ferrini died young. On the pitch the team managed to hit the woodwork three times in the 1993 UEFA Cup final, which they lost on away goals. Torino even finished second behind Juventus in the 1976–77 championship, despite losing just one game all season.

Later Torino teams, in particular, never really came close to reproducing the form of the 1940s squad. Even the excellent 1970s team was only able to win one championship – the only scudetto won by Torino post-Superga. Torino contrived to lose the Italian Cup final four times in the 1970s and early 1980s – three times in a row and twice on penalties to the same team, Roma.²⁶ In 1993, when Torino appeared to be on the verge of a renaissance with a vibrant young team, it soon became clear that the club’s finances were in disarray. The city of Turin could barely support one team – let alone two – as its population declined by 300,000 in twenty years. Even Juventus rarely filled their stadium and by 2003 were planning to reconstruct the hated Delle Alpi stadium (built for the 1990 World Cup) and reduce its capacity to 40,000.

Meanwhile Torino – whose fan-base was local, ageing and, some claimed, on the verge of extinction – slipped in and out of Serie A. The club sold off its best players and dismantled the most impressive youth programme in Italy. Christian Vieri, for example, who had come through the famed granata youth team, was discarded for next to nothing. With the team itself barely competitive in Serie B, Torino fans were left clinging on to their glorious past, with its tragedies, victories and epic derby games. Humiliation was piled on humiliation, and the club even ended up being owned by a card-carrying Juventus fan, but Torino pride remained intact. Yet this pride and history also weighed down the current players – the particular demands of being a Torino player were too much for many youngsters, who often buckled under the pressure.²⁷ In 2005, the team managed to scrape back into Serie A at the end of a playoff that attracted more than 50,000 faithful fans. Soon afterwards, the club was declared officially bankrupt when huge tax debts were exposed by fake banking guarantees. Cimminelli left in disgrace, along with President Romero. This new club was given a new name – Torino Football Club and Cricket (sic). Thanks to a special agreement, Torino were re-admitted to Serie B, ‘as a club which expresses a sporting tradition and has deep roots in the local community’. Without a training ground, a ticket office or even a kit, Torino ‘celebrated’ its 99th anniversary as a year zero – the lowest point in its long history.

Bob Dylan once sang, ‘they say the darkest hour is right before the dawn,’ and this was certainly true for Torino. A year after the false triumph of promotion, they fought their way back up to Serie A after an astonishing comeback in a playoff against Mantova, in front of 60,000 delirious fans. The campaign had been financed by a rich publisher-fan called Urbano Cairo. This was a sweet moment for Torino fans, not just because they were back in the top division after three years, but above all thanks to the scandal that had embroiled Juventus in shame and indignation. For the first time ever, Torino were in A and Juventus in B: utopia for long-suffering Toro supporters. However, true to form, Torino struggled through the next season, tormenting their fans with the threat of yet another relegation. It was only in May that they made themselves safe, the same day as their city rivals clinched promotion back to A. The ‘derby of the Mole’ would be back for the 2007–8 season.