Bologna Football Club was formed on October 3rd 1909, Marco Jackson takes a look at the history of one of Serie A’s founding members and their pre-Serie A success.
Formed on October 3 1909, Bologna are part of a small group of Italian sides whose early success feels incongruous today. Along with Genoa, Pro Vercelli and arguably Torino, it is difficult to think of an Italy where those sides were the dominant forces, ahead of AC Milan, Inter and Juventus. Yet, for many years (they have 30 titles between them, albeit largely from the pre-Serie A era) that was the case.
As with all such clubs, the Rossoblu are in touch with, and reverent of, their history. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 1983 renaming of the Stadio Comunale to that of the club’s former president – the Stadio Renato dall’Ara.
The Stadio Renato dall’Ara’s story interweaves with that of Bologna’s, the two are inseparable. He was a knitwear magnate who took control of the club in a period following a number of questionable incidents. The most famous was that surrounding the playoff victory over Genoa that sealed the club’s first championship, eventually completed at 7.00am on a pitch some way outside Milan. Playoffs would come to feature prominently in Bologna’s story.
Following that initial success, the team of the 1930s contained some of the biggest stars of Italian football at the time – notably Angelo Schiavio, scorer of four goals in Italy’s 1934 World Cup triumph. Dall’Ara’s club won four titles in his first seven years at the helm and, though they fell from grace afterwards, the popular chairman resolved himself to ensuring they would return to the pinnacle.
Despite waiting twenty years and more, he was a determined man – a (perhaps apocryphal) tale tells of that Dall’Ara suffered an accident after travelling to Germany to sign Helmut Haller, his car spinning from the road and crashing. The Bologna chairman emerged from the wreckage clutching a piece of paper in his hand.
“Haller’s contract is safe!”
Haller was a fundamental cog in Fulvio Bernardini’s team, along with Dane Harald Nielsen, as they worked their way back to the top, culminating in a thrilling tete-a-tete with Inter in 1963/64. The two duked it out over a fraught and passionate season which involved saw the Felsinei docked points after a doping scandal only to have them reimbursed when it was dismissed. Inter visited the Stadio Comunale while the matter was with the courts, and a battle of bitterness being waged between the two clubs in the press.
The Nerazzurri won handsomely and were applauded from the field by their Emilian hosts. Despite that show of Corinthianism the two sides, inevitably, were to meet in a playoff – the only such event in Serie A history. Passions continued to run high and in an argument with Angelo Moratti about details of that game, dall’Ara collapsed and died.
Three days later the Rossoblu claimed their seventh, and last, title.
The European Cup campaign that followed saw Bologna face Anderlecht. The two could not be separated over two legs so there was a playoff in Barcelona, as was customary then. That ended 1-1 and, thus, the Rossoblu’s only European Cup campaign ended on the toss of a coin.
The years since have been mixed. Bologna have descended as far as Serie C and, while Serie B has often housed the Veltri, they have always eventually returned to Serie A. The fans have seen the blooming of some of Italy’s finest players and a couple of Coppa Italia titles as well as a few years of European football.
Roberto Mancini and Roberto Baggio played some of their best football in red and blue, and Giuseppe Signori became a favourite during his time with the club. Even when their side struggled, the likes of Marco di Vaio and Alessandro Diamanti were able to cast spells on any opponent. Diamanti’s departure brought a crushing relegation, though Delio Rossi’s side regrouped under new owner Joey Saputo and immediately scraped their way back in Serie A, inevitably through the playoffs.
Bologna – the city – is known for its medieval towers; a number of gargantuan achievements that fall further and further into ruin as time goes on, ensuring that the more modest accomplishments of the present day will forever be in their fading shadows. It can sometimes feel that the fate of the team is similar.
As Bologna enter their 107th year, playing in a crumbling stadium named for a former chairman, in front of fans housed in a stand named for a former captain (the Curva Bulgarelli), the club of today is infused with their past. No longer one of the big names of Italian football, they go into each Serie A season as relegation candidates.
They can, perhaps, look back to those towers. Huge amounts of man-power was needed to construct them, over many years. The achievement was, really, in the effort. In time, and if constructed properly, Bologna could stand tall again. It will not be an easy journey.
