I put this up recently on another thread so apologies to anyone who has already seen this.
But here's an article I wrote some time back concerning the Torino air crash....
On the 4th May 1949 a plane crashed into the cloudy peaks of the Superga mountain just outside of Turin. Of the thirty-one crew and passengers there were no survivors. Amongst the fatalities was Valerio Bacigalupo, a man known, with macabre irony, as 'the man with wings'. Another casualty was Ezio Loik, so solid and dependable he went by the nickname of 'the elephant'. Guglielmo 'il Barone' (the Baron) Gabetto also perished, along with his team-mate and good friend Eusebio Castigliano, who was widely and affectionately known as 'velvet leg' for his elegant playing style.
In purely footballing terms (and a tragedy of this scale renders such terms virtually irrelevant) perhaps the greatest sporting loss was a bullish thirty year old winger by the name of Valentino Mazzola. Undoubtedly one of the most gifted footballers of the 20th century and captain, and talisman, of the Grande Torino, Mazzola had everything. Sublime dribbling skills, an exquisite touch, adept in the air, and an all-round range of talents bestowed by an over-generous God. He could also, allegedly, jump higher than the crossbar from a standing start.
The plane was returning from Lisbon when bad weather and cruel fate intervened. Il Grande Torino, the finest club football side since the sport's inception, had been playing an exhibition match, parading their inventive skills and slick brilliance to an astonished Portuguese crowd. In fact, so in demand were they to showcase their talents abroad, the club president was toying with the idea of building two teams - one to compete in the domestic league, the other to undertake tours of international friendlies.
Guglielmo 'il Barone' Gabetto was the team's main striker, yet he disliked poaching easy goals.
'If it is not difficult, I am not interested in scoring'. Consequently, he only seemed to score from impossible angles, and each goal was seen by the fans as a 'little miracle'.
Every single player, every member of the coaching staff, every reserve, medic, kit man, and club director perished on the Superga peak. Bar one. A competent full-back named Saura Toma. Toma had injured his left knee in a match leading up to the fateful flight and doctors decreed that he stay home and rest, an arbitrary decision that saved his life. The following season he bravely represented Torino for a further fourteen games, surrounded by shell-shocked, unfamiliar youth players drafted in to replace their idols in a desperate, ultimately futile, attempt to rebuild the club from ashes. Toma dutifully did what he could before immense grief and guilt brought a promising career to a premature end.
His guilt was a uniquely personal anguish but the grief was shared by millions. The tragedy unleashed a tumultuous outpouring of emotion on a scale rarely before seen. Just four years earlier the already dead body of Mussolini swung in a Milan piazza. Prior to that came the devastating horrors of war. This was a nation hardened to life's extremities, yet the accident shook Italy to its marrow and its soul.
It is difficult to equate Il Grande Torino with any successful modern team, to form a clearer understanding as to just how good they were. To fully impact just how cataclysmic and monumental the disaster was. The 21st century Manchester United, even the celestial Real Madrid, do not come close to matching Torino's dominance and brilliance over an entire footballing era. Ten of their players were Italian national regulars. They had won the previous four Serie A titles at a canter and were on their way to clinching a fifth before the tragedy curtailed their wondrous adventure. Moreover, they perfectly captured the spirit of the times in post-war Italy, mirroring the fledgling optimism after the mighty fall of fascism and an oppressive political climate. Their celebratory, insouciant verve carried a significant cultural resonance with the people; to the beleaguered masses eleven players in burgundy shirts were validating a new democratic age every Sunday afternoon. Even their tactics reflected a cultural symmetry, a revolutionary W-M system, half-inched from Britain, and distrusted by other teams from the peninsula, it is, in its purest form, a 3-2-5 formation. That's right, FIVE attacking players.
At the player's funerals the fifth successive Scudetto was accorded to the club even though four fixtures remained. After a period of national mourning these games were reluctantly played out at the behest of the league's authorities. Torino were only able to call upon their callow youth team and so, in an act of defiance to the game's rulers, and solidarity and respect to Torino, their opponents - Genoa, Palermo, Sampdoria, and Fiorentina - also sent out their youth teams.
The Superga tragedy is unparalleled in sporting history. Of course there was Munich a decade later, an equally magnificent set of players and potential wiped out in one horrific moment, but, unlike United, Torino have never truly recovered. In the sixties the all-powerful Agnelli family - owners of Fiat - took control of their once inferior arch-rivals Juventus and, with substantial bankrolling, paved the way for a black-and-white dominance for many years to come. In 1959 Torino's charismatic Filadelfia stadium - that had showcased Mazzola's sublime talent, echoed the thunderous chants of 'Toro, Toro', and shook to Rigamonti's uncompromising tackles - was abandoned due to crippling financial problems. A proposal was tentatively put forward for a communal ground to be shared with the rising Juve, which later became the imposing Delle Alpi stadium. Sadly, Torino, often languishing in Serie B, with bankruptcy an ever-present shadow, soon began to resemble its poor tenants.
This is still the case. In fact, never more so. The last fifty years have brought little but dispiriting, prolonged spells in the lower leagues and fraught, top-flight relegation campaigns.
Torino's existence has become largely one of struggle, toil and survival. A once mighty club is now a sleeping, some might say comotosed, giant. But it is a giant with a rich history steeped in silverware, mythology and bygone excellence.
It is a history that should never be forgotten.
At half-time Torino were leading 7-0. The players agreed in the changing room that any more goals would appear arrogant and, not wanting to inflict further humiliation on their Roma opponents (who they had lunched with prior to the game), they decided to ease up as the game was patently already won. During the second half Torino's Franco Ossola, a superb winger and gentle soul, was tripped in the box. The referee duly pointed to the spot, but Ossola insisted the foul occurred outside the area. The free kick was blazed purposely over the bar.
