Casale F.B.C.

Casale

Full name	Casale Foot Ball Club Associazione Sportiva Dilettantistica
Nickname(s)	Nerostellati (Starred-Blacks)
Founded	1909
Ground	Stadio Natale Palli, Casale Monferrato, Italy
Ground Capacity	4,000
Chairman	Giuseppe Coppo
Manager	Virgilio Perra
League	Eccellenza Piedmont/B
2014–15	Group B, 2nd
Home colours Away colours

Casale Foot Ball Club A.S.D. (formerly A.S. Casale Calcio) is an Italian football club, based in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont. The club currently plays in Eccellenza Piedmont and Aosta Valley/B.

The team's nickname nerostellati (the “the starred-blacks”) refers to the team’s colours of black with a white star on the heart.

History

The victorious Nerostellati of 1914: Gallina (goalkeeper, holding his flat cap), Maggiani, Scrivano, Rosa, Luigi Barbesino, Giuseppe Parodi, Caira, Angelo Mattea, Giovanni Gallina, Amedeo Varese, Bertinotti.

When the club was founded in 1909 Casale was at the geographical centre of the new footballing movement in Italy. Genoa, Pro Vercelli, Internazionale Torino and Alessandria were all leading clubs in the Italian football league system and Casale soon joined their number.

In May 1913 Casale became the first Italian club to defeat an English professional team when they beat Reading F.C. 2–1. Reading won all the other games on this tour, defeating Genoa, Milan, Pro Vercelli and even the Italian national team.

In the following season Casale won their first and only national title. Italian football was then organized on a regional basis and the national championship was divided into three stages. Casale topped the Ligurian-Piedmontese division and proceeded, along with second-placed Genoa, to compete in a division comprising the top northern teams. (The others being Inter Milan, Juventus, Vicenza and Verona.) Having won that division, Casale defeated central-southern champions Lazio 7–1, 0–2 in the two-leg final.

After World War I Casale remained in the top division for a couple of decades, representing what had been the cradle of early Italian football.

With the development of professionalism, Casale was progressively relegated to lower divisions, 1934 being their last year in Serie A. The club was later refounded twice, in 1993 (financial problems) and 2013 (exclusion by LND after relegation), when it was refounded with the present, original name previously used from 1909 to 1925 and 1929 to 1935.

Notable players

See also Category:A.S. Casale Calcio players

Five players who appeared in the scudetto-winning team of 1913–14 played in the Italian national team, all making their international debuts between 1912 and 1914:

• Luigi Barbesino (midfielder)
• Giovanni Gallina (attacker)
• Angelo Mattea (midfielder)
• Giuseppe Parodi (midfielder)
• Amedeo Varese (midfielder)

Casale’s biggest star, however, was the full back Umberto Caligaris whose career with the club ran from 1919 to 1928. During this period he made 37 appearances for the Azzurri. He represented Italy in the 1924 Olympics and won a bronze medal at the 1928 Summer Olympics before leaving Casale for Juventus. His total of 59 caps stood as a record for many years.

Eraldo Monzeglio, later to represent Italy on numerous occasions, including the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, made his Serie A debut with Casale in 1924–25. The following season, however he moved to Bologna F.C. 1909.

Honours

Serie A

• Winners (1): 1913–14

Serie B

• Winners (1): 1929–30

Serie C

• Winners (1): 1937–38

Coppa Italia Dilettanti

• Winners (1): 1998–99

References

• For 1913: Il Calcio a Casale M.to (Italian)