The unstoppable rise of Novara Calcio

by Marco Maioli

Last year, when the Coppa Italia round of 16 pitted Novara against AC Milan, 12,000 Novara fans went to San Siro, wondering when their team (then sitting at the top of Prima Divisione) would have had another opportunity of playing a Serie A side. The Piedmontese, having already beaten (quite surprisingly) Parma and Siena, lost 2-1 and were eliminated. Now, Novara being third in Serie B with a month to go before the end of the regular season, travels to San Siro and Stadio Olimpico are not unlikely to become something less exceptional.

Should Novara earn a second successive promotion, thus gaining Serie A status, it would be an incredible achievement for a club that has spent the last decades in the placid anonymity of the lower leagues.

Risen to prominence in the 1920’s in the context of the then flourishing Eastern Piedmont football, the club’s heyday came in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, with seven consecutive seasons spent in the top flight and a remarkable eight place in 1952.

Those were the days of Silvio Piola, the highest goalscorer in the history of Serie A, who played for Novara in the final years of his career before retiring at the age of 40. In 1956 came the relegation to Serie B; in 1977, with the relegation to Serie C, started a 33 years long period spent in the third and fourth tiers, with few highs and many lows; a shameful descent to Serie D was slightly avoided in 1990.

A turning point in the history of Azzurri was marked by the acquisition of the club by the De Salvo family in 2006. The De Salvos, owners of a network of private hospitals, started revolutionizing the club by providing new training facilities: Novarello, a state of the art sports centre with six football pitches, hotels and restaurants, was inaugurated in 2007; then, at the end of the 2008/2009 season, when many players’ contracts expired, a new sporting director, Pasquale Sensibile, and a new coach, Attilio Tesser, were appointed with the aim of building a competitive side: nineteen new players were signed, among them Samir Ujkani, goalkeeper of the Albanian national team, and the former Inter striker Nicola Ventola.

The mix of lower leagues veterans and promising youngsters put together by Sensibile proved good enough to win Prima Divisione, losing only three games along the way, while also reaching the later rounds of Coppa Italia; instrumental in the cup run were the goals by Pablo Andres Gonzalez (the younger brother of FC Porto’s Mariano Gonzalez), who before moving to Italy was a part-time postman (hence the nickname “El Cartero”) playing for the Argentine side Grupo Universitario de Tandil – a player that has already agreed to join Palermo next season.

Regardless of where Novara finish in the league, this season should be regarded as a success. Home matches now attract average crowds of 6000 fans, which is a very good figure compared to most Serie B clubs especially considering that Novara lies between the cities of Turin and Milan, homes to the “big three” of Italian football. Just two years ago a little more than 2000 people cared to attend home fixtures and Massimo De Salvo lamented a lack of enthusiasm and love for the club.

The owners, ready to invest in the club without throwing money away, have ambitious plans for the future. Before the start of the season, the stadium underwent a series of refurbishments and an artificial turf (the first in Italy at a professional level) was installed; the move was dictated by the climatic conditions of the region, not favorable for growing natural grass. In the coming years the building of a new stadium could be taken into consideration.

In the immediate future, De Salvo may struggle to keep the man that many consider as the main responsible for the rise of Novara, Pasquale Sensibile, now wanted by many Italian clubs. The last two years have actually awakened a city that had almost disappeared from the geography of top level football. Now, with the finances in order and one of the best training facilities in the country, things are likely to get even better.

Marco Maioli is a new contributor to Just Football specialising in Italian football.

Italian Serie B, Italy, Novara Calcio