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Lanerossi Vicenza Virtus


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The heading to this article will see smoke billowing out of any ardent Vicenza fans ears! But if they were honest, they have to be thankful for the owner of the team from Bassano del Grappa for keeping the “il biancorossi” in the third tier this term. This modern story is yet another classic Oliver Hardy tie fumbling moment of “another fine mess”, and it’s such a real shame to have fallen upon the oldest club in Veneto.

Last season Vicenza were really struggling in the third division, and they fell into administration. They continued to play and avoided any undue point deductions that seem to get handed out like confetti in Italy these days. Whether such a penalty was averted by virtue of the new owners intimating their intentions I am unsure, but Vicenza did stay up under their own steam following a Play Out success, seeing off Emilia Romagna tiddlers Santarcangelo. In the summer the appropriately named Renzo Rosso, the owner of Diesel clothing, and also Bassano Virtus football club, decided to get on his white horse and ride to the savour of Vicenza Calcio. Italian football has rule that allows a team to usurp another side within a certain radius, and it has been used on a number of occasions to stop bankrupt clubs falling all the way to bottom of the ladder. SPAL, Ancona, and Nocerina have all used this rule to their advantage, the latter preferring to go into abeyance for a season until an opportunity to take over another club presented itself! What is unusual in this instance is that Bassano Virtus were also in the same league and finished much higher up the table. I saw them play at Forli, and I was very impressed by their slick counter attacking style, which swept the home side away relatively easily.

Bassano Del Grappa is 33 kilometres north of Vicenza but perhaps is not a traditional footballing town, indeed their small stadium has a cycle track around it. Finishing in the top six in Serie C was maybe as good it was going to get, whereas Vicenza is a football town with a rich history. Businessmen perhaps always have an eye for a bigger ticket opportunity, as well as lacking undue sentiment, which I guess might explain why Mr Rosso closed down his senior Bassano Virtus side and moved their assets to Vicenza, adding not only Virtus to the name, but also bringing back Lanerossi, a more famous word associated with the club. You have to feel for the fans of Bassano Virtus, a name that still exists but merely having retained a junior team. While the Vicenza fans are doubtlessly grateful to still have their club in the third tier, the word Virtus is merely an anomaly as far as they are concerned, and it won’t be a word that you’ll hear the tifosi using, let alone catch it on a scarf or merchandise, or the club badge!! I would not be surprised if Virtus just gets swept away in time, but for now the new owner will wish to pacify Bassano fans, but I am curious as to whether any have followed the team after the upheaval. I was a Meadowbank Thistle fan, and my club were unusually for GB hijacked by almost the last act of West Lothian Development Council before it was wound up. They wanted a team for the growing “new” town, Livingston. The lunacy of not even allowing the word Thistle to be retained meant that none of the Meadowbank fans went on with our support, but have Vicenza kept some of the original Bassano Virtus fans? I seriously have my doubts, as Italians are passionate for their club, but they generally don’t travel very far, and they certainly don’t do neutral viewing. Indeed in my regular trips to catch a variety of games in Italy my escapades are always met with incredulity. I doubt even along the road in Verona that Hellas fans go to watch Chievo or it’s very own Verona Virtus when Hellas aren’t in town!

Vicenza is a beautiful town, and in a separate article you can read all about it! The local football team have been on the go since 1902, and very early in their history they came within a whisker of a Scudetto in 1911, but came up against a Pro Vercelli side at the height of their powers and lost the final. In 1947, with Serie A now a national league as opposed to the earlier years of regional leagues with knock out conclusion, Vicenza finished 5th, and that was as good as it ever got for them. By the early ’50’s they encountered round one of financial issues, and the white knight at that juncture can in shape of a local woollen company Lanerossi, thus explaining where that portion of the name came! The Lanerossi involvement steadied the ship and from 1955 until 1975 the club were stalwarts of the top flight, which explains why the name Lanerossi is held in high regard.

The great Roberto Baggio started his career with il biancorossi and in 1986 the club had won promotion back to Serie A, only to be denied as they had been found to be involved in a match fixing scandal! They have never really recovered, and the club have largely lurched from one crisis to another. I first got involved with them in early June 1990 in the days leading up to the World Cup, when a Scotsman was full of optimism ahead of the Costa Rica debacle in Genoa a few days later! The scenario could not have been more similar to last terms last gasp survival in Serie C. Vicenza were three points from safety, but oddly the situation was in their own hands as the last day visitors to the Romeo Menti stadium were Prato, the team they could catch. A home win would result in a Play off between the two in Ferrara a few days later. It is perhaps indicative of the decline in people’s passion for their local team, but in 1990, the club wanted a full house, and tickets were merely 1,000 Lira, remember them! They duly got a full and vociferous stadium, but by contrast, I watched online last May when the stadium was no more than half full when Santarcangelo were in town for the play out! Perhaps the fans thought all was lost no matter whether they won or not last term, and hadn’t reckoned on Mr Rosso saving the day and avoiding a first ever slip into D territory, the fourth tier.

That June 1990 game will live long in my memory, and I was so lucky to get a ticket, but I was tucked in a corner with a low view of the pitch, with an imposing fence right in front of me. Prato were clinically swept aside 3-1, and duly dispatched to D themselves in Ferrara days later when Vicenza won 2-0. The World Cup was on the cusp of starting and I had moved across to Liguria by then, but I would have loved to have been in Ferrara! I developed a soft spot for both clubs and being an Italian calcio afficionado, I keep an eye on them both. Oddly, twenty nine years on from that encounter, Vicenza are back in C and Prato in D, just as that play off for relegation had left them!

I was to be back at the Romeo Menti shortly after Scotland’s last World Cup, a much more sedate occasion in October 1998, when my own charges Ancona were in town. I don’t recall very much about the game, but I had dragged my oldest Italian buddy Andrea from the safety of Padova, for what I am sure was his only ever game in Vicenza that didn’t involve Padova! It ended goalless, a positive result on my Ancona away CV which has yet to register an away win, even Lodigiani, Sangiovannese and Port Vale denied me a win!!

With a desire to see “technically” this new club, which still retains the old clubs history, I went along to the Romeo Menti recently to watch the Serie C game with third tier new boys from Imola, Imolese. A town more famed for it’s race track than football, but with the San Marino Grand Prix off the roster allegedly, the local football side are doing their bit to compensate, and try to get to the top echelon of the football circuit instead! This one also ended 0-0, and it had that look from an early point, much to the frustration of the 8,000 plus crowd, which included only 8 from Imola!! Perhaps, having played each other only a matter of weeks earlier in Vicenza in a Coppa Italia C joust, with the home side winning a scrappy game 1-0, they knew too much about each others style of play. The visitors created the better chances and are higher up the table at the time of writing, but the protracted play off to Serie B is the limit of either teams ambition. Given Cosenza went up having finished 9th in Girone C last season, any team in the 27 team play offs who can string a series of late in the season results together can progress up, and in progressing to the last eight, and in Vicenza’s case, the semi-final of the C cup, both they and Imolese have already demonstrated a cup tie winning mentality that could stand either in good stead come late May, early June.

The stadium in Vicenza is fabulously well kept and a proper ground too, with a very British style main stand running the length of the pitch. The behind the goal “curvas” were two tier affairs in 1990 when I was first there, but these have been modernised into a single, sizeable sloping terracing at either end. The capacity is now reduced to 12,000, more than adequate for the third or second tier, but it will be interesting to see if the new owners manage to bring the famous red and white striped, Stoke City-esque kit back to Serie A, and if they do Virtus might just stay!!

If you arriving on a train merely to go to a game, shame on you, as Vicenza deserves more of your time. But from the station, turn immediately right and follow the tracks and climb up to a junction where you want to edge left where a dual carriage road is separated by the train tracks in a hollow in the middle. When you see a rather lavish old Roman gate, you want to turn left and very soon thereafter the floodlights will come into sight. A small river means you have to go further down than you’d ideally want and then double back on yourself once crossed the wee bridge. I would allow 20/25 minutes to walk from the station. Otherwise, if you are sightseeing ahead of the game, you want to head all the way through Palladio’s marvels and when you arrive near the outside of Teatro Olimpico, you want to start nudging right! There isn’t anywhere to eat near the stadium, but under the Gradinata opposite the main stand, the Stadio Bar will serve you a beer before you go into the ground!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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