They were a team of hearts who sadly few people alive today saw play live. Now just a fading black and white team portrait on a half-ripped postcard. Post-war, Torino won five Serie A titles on the run and were set for many more. Led by their magnificent Captain, and arguably the finest Italian footballer of all time. Valentino Mazzola.
Tragically, on 4th May 1949, whilst returning home from Portugal, after a testimonial match, the airplane carrying Torino football team, became lost in a thick fog and a ferocious storm, tragically causing it to crash into the Basilica Superga, (a large church on a hill) on the outskirts of Turin, killing everybody on board.
Thirty-one people in all, including eighteen Torino footballers. So died a dream. A catastrophe both on a human and football level for all Italy. (Ten Torino players made up the national side with the goalkeeper from Juventus.) This books tells the story of a club ravaged by tragedy since its early days of inception, right up until the modern day.
A dark tale of how life is beautiful until death comes unexpectedly calling. From the terrible days of two World Wars. Of Superga and the sad times that followed. A list of characters that litter the pages with astonishing exploits of both human courage and Fascist cruelty. Torino footballers fighting as Partisans.
Then the Garibaldi boys! Denis Law and Joe Baker bought by Torino to help them recover from the disaster, but all goes haywire one night in Turin, when both men are nearly killed in a car crash. Followed in the mid-sixties by the extraordinary winger Gigi Meroni. The Butterfly! A footballer of such beauty who captured the hearts of all both on the pitch and off. A fifth Italian Beatle. Tragically, he too was taken far too young, in what appeared to be a curse on Torino Football club.
There is more, so much in this astonishing tale of what is nothing less than a real life,
Italian tragedy.
