Pro Vercelli (Italy)
The city of Vercelli, located in the Italian region of Piedmont once was the playground of one of the greatest teams to ever play in the top flight of Italian football. Long before Sacchi’s Milan, Herrera’s Grande Inter and the all-conquering Grande Torino, managed by Ernest Erbstein, a little known team called Pro Vercelli were the darlings of Italian football.
A team which has more titles than the likes of
Napoli, Roma and Lazio, ProVercelli shouldn’t be condoned into the back pages
of Italian football history, with all these giants of Italian football having
their own period of dominance through the history of the game, it can be argued
that Pro Vercelli were the first great dynasty.
As the city is known more for its cultivation of
rice rather than any footballing exploits, it can be forgiven that the team
isn’t talked about near as much as it should, but for the real Italian football
aficionados, Pro Vercelli are at the forefront of any debate on great Italian
club sides.
The story begins back in 1908, when football was,
evidently a vastly different compared todays money driven and often predictable
nature of the game. Italy was also on the verge of change, it would only be a
few short years before Mussolini and the impact of fascism would change Europe
for the foreseeable future. The Italian championship in the early part of the
20th century was split into two competitions, the Italian only
divisive Italian Championship and the Federal Championship in which only
foreigners were allowed to ply their trade in.
This created an opportunity for Pro Vercelli to
exploit, as many teams withdrew due to the split, they finished first ahead of
US Milanese and Andrea Doria to begin their ascent to dominance. A second
successive title followed in 1909 and the chance to make it 3 in a row came in
1910, however, due to bizarre circumstances surrounding the final against
Inter, it was the one title that alluded them in a five year stretch.
With many of Pro Vercelli’s first team scheduled to
play in a military tournament on the same day as the final against Inter. The
teams request to postpone the match was rejected by both the Italian football
federation and Inter which left the team with no choice but to field a team of
youth players. The team was made up of mainly players aged between 10 and 15,
largely out of protest for the decision to turn down the postponement; it will
come as no surprise to learn that they were demolished 10-3 by a rampant Inter.
This was to be the only blimp in an otherwise
fruitful period between 1908-1913, in which five titles were won. The most
striking aspect of this era was the importance placed on home-grown talent, the
team didn’t need to spend money on players when the youth system was producing
talented individuals that were ready to make the step up and win championships.
Three players stand head and shoulders above the
rest in the annals of Pro Vercelli’s early history, Guido Ara, Carlo Rampini,
and Silvio Piola, all players of vastly different talents, and their impact on
the team allowed them to establish a stranglehold on the League Championship.
Ara and Rampini formed the core of the Vercelli teams that won 5 league titles
between 1908 and 1913; Piola perhaps was in the wrong place at the wrong time,
as his time did not come until the 1930’s when Pro Vercelli was already on the
way to their inevitable decline.
As the 1920’s began, club legend Guido Ara took
charge of the club and led them to a further two league titles, not only was
this a remarkable achievement for the club, it made Ara the only person to have
been present for all 7 league success’s. Unthinkable at the time, this would
prove to be the last title for Il Leoni, who would ultimately fade into
Italian football obscurity.
Due to the ever increasingly professional nature of
the game and bigger clubs becoming richer and richer, it was nigh on impossible
to retain a core group of talented home grown products and start another
dynasty. The jewel in the academy’s crown was the aforementioned Silvio Piola,
who plundered an impressive 51 goals across five seasons with the club, before
the riches and fame would be too much of a temptation to resist, the bright
lights of the capital came calling as Lazio managed to sign him and he went on
to become a legend for the Italian national team, scoring decisive goals in the
1938 World Cup final against Hungary to power Italy to victory in France in the
last pre-war World Cup.
The slow decline began, the season they sold Piola,
Pro Vercelli were relegated from Serie A, never to be seen at Italy’s top table
ever again. As relegation from Serie B was confirmed in 1948, the team would
plod their way around the doldrums of the Italian game. Serie C and D are
terrible places for fallen giants, rotten with uncertainty and false hope of
reclaiming glory days of old, the club even flirted with bankruptcy and nearly
went out of business.
Pro Vercelli are currently playing in Serie C,
after years of a yo-yo existence between the bottom two ladders of the Italian
professional game, many supporters dream of even just seeing their team play in
Serie A, never mind winning it. Unfortunately the way modern football is ran
means this might be out of reach, but for a team that has achieved its fair
share of highs and lows, maybe more so than any other in the country, it is
certainly not impossible.
The once-great Pro Vercelli, who conquered Italy
for 15 years and then lost their way, will echo through history as the first
great Italian club side.