Saturday, May 4, 2024
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"Il Grande Torino" E Sempre Torino
The
great Torino team which flew to Lisbon for a friendly on 1 May 1949 had
all but clinched their fifth championship in a row. With four games
left, they were four points in front, had gone their last eighteen games
unbeaten, and had not lost at home for 93 games -since 1943. Captain
Valentino Mazzola nearly missed the plane with a fever, and some
newspapers reported that he had actually remained at home. Other rumours
claimed that the team's captain had got off at Barcelona. Both,
unfortunately, turned out to be false. After the game in Lisbon, 31
passengers and crew flew back from Portugal on 4 May. The weather was
terrible that afternoon. Heavy rain lashed down onto the city and dark
clouds hung over the hills and mountains that surround Turin, down on
the Po river plain. Visibility was poor. It was as if night had fallen
early. That
afternoon there were very few people on the hill up at Superga, where
an eighteenth-century basilica stood, high above Turin. A peaant saw a
plane fly past just above his head, another heard the same aircraft
circling in the mist and fog. At
17.12 p.m. on 4 May a car screeched to a halt near to the restaurant
which stood on the small square next to the basilica. The driver said he
needed to use the phone, urgently. The journalist he spoke to at the
national press agency refused to believe his story. Soon firemen and
police vans began to arrive. A FIAT G-212 plane had smashed into a wall
at the back of the church. The wood around the building was on fire,
despite the driving rain. Nothing could be done for the 31 victims and
there were no survivors." Bodies, luggage and wreckage were strewn over a
wide area. As news spread, thousands of fans began to make their way up
the hill, in the pouring rain, in a spontaneous and silent procession.
