Page 35 - Raynes Park Vale v Camberley Town

Football History
English model. Novo agreed, and set
GRANDE TORINO about filling his staff positions with ac-
complished, experienced experts. With
Jewish Erno Egri Erbstein brought in
as a technical director. He was one of a
famed crop of Hungarian technicians
who helped make the nation one of
the most influential in the history of
football, but because of racial laws was
forced to work incognito.
Radical changes
Between them, Novo and Erbstein
made radical changes to the club, most
importantly switching to a WM forma-
tion popularised by Herbert Chapman.
The first signing was an 18 year old and sent to a concentration camp.
striker from Varese, Franco Ossola, who Torino, however, thrived in the con-
would become an important part of ditions, just missing out on the title
the side. In his first season at the club, again in 1942 before becoming the first
Torino went from mid-table obscurity Italian team to win the double in 1943.
to just four points from champions This would be the final season
hen we consider Italian football, claim supremacy in Italy. Bologna, their best position since the unbroken by war.
Wsome names just leap off of the The 1930s saw something of a power unification of the Italian leagues into a Conclusion of hostilities
page. Juventus, Milan, and Inter have vacuum at the top of Italian football. national division. Following the conclusion of hostilities,
dominated on the Italian peninsula, Despite some early Juventus domi- Mussolini’s declaration however, Torino were ready to go. The
and for some the romance of Fiorenti- nance, they had struggled, and nobody The following season, with the disrup- damage caused throughout Italy forced
na, the Maradona-linked Napoli or the had been able to claim their crown on a tion of war, saw them slip a little, but the decision to, for one season only,
rare success of Roma stand out. But consistent basis. Across the city, howev- Mussolini’s declaration that players revert to a regional group structure with
things could have been very different in er, that was about to change. Former were more required on the football field a national championship game, which
Serie A, as another side could, perhaps Torino player Ferruccio Novo had made than the battlefield ensured the league Torino won. This disruption means that
should, be above them all. Despite only a fortune in industry after leaving the remained competitive. the achievement is often not counted
winning one league title since 1950, To- game, and at the age of 42 returned to Novo took advantage of the austerity officially, but it didn’t matter to Torino,
rino built something in the 1940s that his club as President, ready to create of the wartime conditions by splashing who had an additional boost ready for
threatened to take over Italian football, something special. His first call was to his own cash, bringing in five players, the 1946-7 season: Erbstein, having
and definitely outshone their city rivals. Vittorio Pozzo, who had just won back- including three from neighbouring survived the holocaust, was returned as
Legacy cut short to-back World Cups as Italy manager, Juventus. Sadly, as the war intensified, manager.
Their legacy, however, was cut short in and Pozzo recommended a complete Erbstein was forced to flee back to Hun- It was fitting, after initially setting up
its prime, in 1949, allowing Juventus to overhaul of the club to follow a more gary, where he would later be captured the success, that Erbstein would be...

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