Casale F.B.C.

A.S.D. Casale Foot Ball Club (formerly A.S. Casale Calcio) is an Italian football club, based in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont. The club plays in Serie D.

The team's nickname nerostellati (“the starred-blacks”) refers to the team's colours of black with a white star on the chest.

History

When the club was founded in 1909 Casale was at the geographical center of the new footballing movement in Italy. Genoa, Pro Vercelli, Milan, Torino, and Juventus were all leading clubs in the Italian football league system and Casale soon joined their number.

In May 1913 Casale became the first Italian club to defeat an English professional team when they beat Reading F.C. 2–1. Reading won all the other games on this tour, defeating Genoa, Milan, Pro Vercelli, and even the Italian national team.

In the following season, Casale won their first and only national title. Italian football was then organized on a regional basis and the national championship was divided into three stages. Casale topped the Ligurian-Piedmontese division and proceeded, along with second-placed Genoa, to compete in a division comprising the top northern teams, the others being Inter Milan, Juventus, Vicenza and Verona. Having won that division, Casale defeated central-southern champions Lazio 7–1, 0–2 in the two-leg final.

After World War I, Casale remained in the top division for a couple of decades, representing what had been the cradle of early Italian football.

With the development of professionalism, Casale was progressively relegated to lower divisions, 1934 being their last year in Serie A. The club was later refounded twice, in 1993 and 2013, after financial problems. In 2013, it took the current name of Casale Foot Ball Club.

A heated rivalry exists between the fans of Casale and Alessandria.

This page also has a version in other languages :  Казале (russian)