The demise of Il Grande Torino

Earlier today I was looking around the football news websites to find a suitable topic on which to write on. I came across the Serie A news and one thing struck me when I glimpsed at the table for the 2009/10 season; Torino weren’t there. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t catch much of Serie A last season but I figured there had been a mistake; until, that is, I found them on the Serie B page. A lot of you will probably cry out “so?!” or “Torino, who?”.

In a recent post to my blog I wrote about the Il Grande Torino; the great Torino side of the 1940’s who dominated the league. They achieved some 23 records (some of which still stand today) as well as 5 Serie A’s and a Coppa Italia. Led by perhaps the greatest ever Italian player in Valentino Mazzola this side crushed all before them. It was tragic that it had to end in such catastrophic circumstances when 18 players were killed in the 1949 Superga plane crash.

However the more that you look into it, the more you realize how much the Superga Disaster destroyed the club. While Manchester United’s ‘Busby Babes’ are immortalized in the clubs history; United recovered and have went on to become one of the most successful clubs in the World. Torino, sadly, have not. Since 1949 they have won Serie A only once and continually find themselves in a relegation battle or, commonly, being sent to the depths of Serie B. Consistently living in the shadow of their Turin rivals Juventus there is a sadness around Torino; almost a yearning for a past age when Valentino Mazzola, Romeo Menti and Guglielmo Gabetto used to grace the pitch of the Stadio Filadelfia. Instead of entertaining Milan, Inter or Juventus this season they will play host to Grosseto, Ascoli and Salernitana. This, however, is an all too common feature for II Granata these days.

Let’s hope this historic club do not linger in the dark of Serie B for too long and that they are elevated to where they should be; if they evoke the spirit of Mazzola, I don’t think we will have a lengthy wait.