Spezia Calcio – Italy’s Wartime Champion

By the summer of 1944, with Allied forces advancing up the Italian peninsula, Nazi and Italian fascist forces had been forced to dig in, defending the ‘Gothic Line’ that ran from the naval base of La Spezia in the west to Pesaro on the eastern Adriatic coast. Conscripted Italian labour was drafted in to build defences to delay the Allied advance from the south. North of the Gothic Line, competitive football continued. The Italian football association (FIGC) based itself in Milan and created a mixed division championship split into six regional groups – the Campionato Alta Italia – the Northern Italian Championship. Regional group winners and some runners-up would qualify for the semi-final group stage, with the final held in Milan.

As a major naval base, the Ligurian port of La Spezia was a key target for Allied bombing and the bridges north out of the city were destroyed, breaking road links to Genoa. The port’s football club, Spezia Calcio, which had finished sixth in Serie B in the 1942/43 season, was also in crisis. Its president, Coriolano Perioli, had been deported to Germany and six members of the squad were out of reach, south of the Gothic Line. To produce a team, the head of La Spezia’s fire department, Luigi Gandino, created a squad formed out of the available Spezia Calcio team along with players from Genoa, Livorno and Napoli. They were all registered as firemen and – as players – excused from military service. The team was named the 42° Corpo Vigili del Fuoco di La Spezia (42^nd La Spezia Fire Brigade) and managed by Ottavio Barbieri, who had won the Scudetto twice as a winger at Genoa and represented Italy in the 1920s. A fire engine was adapted especially to transport the team and the players all lived together at the fire station.

Vigili del Fuoco won its first group in the Emilia Zone Group D unbeaten, having faced Suzzara, Fidentina, Parma and Busseto. Progressing to the Emilia region semi-finals, the firefighters again topped their group, which featured Suzzara again along with Carpi and Modena. Viligi del Fuoco traveled to Bologna, where they were a goal up before the match was suspended in the 79^th minute due to a pitch invasion by home fans. Vigili del Fuoco were awarded a 2-0 victory to take into the second leg.

With La Spezia being too dangerous to hold the return match, the venue was switched to Carpi, but Bologna protested and withdrew, meaning the firefighters from La Spezia had made it through to the final round! The final, held in Milan, was a three-team round-robin featuring the reigning champions Torino, managed by Vittorio Pozzo, and Venezia. Many spectators avoided going to the arena because they feared being rounded up by Germans. The firefighters drew their opening match with Venezia 1-1. Pozzo’s Torino side had only lost once in the tournament, featured superstars Silvio Piola (on loan from Lazio) and Valentino Mazzola, and was the overwhelming favourite.

However, Barbieri’s tactics thwarted the Torino side and Sergio Angelini scored twice to give Vigili del Fuoco a 2-1 win. Four days later, Torino beat Venezia 5-2, meaning the makeshift firefighter side of La Spezia had become wartime champions of Italy. The FIGC did not recognise the title until in 2002, after a lot of campaigning.^⁠1

¹ https://www.acspezia.com/it/lo-scudetto-del-1944.12081.html]  (retrieved 01/05/21)