THE SARTORIAL ELEGANCE OF SERIE A: PALERMO, 1990-92 [ABM]

Same old story: Palermo got their colours after a laundry incident turned their football shirts pink. The club had previously worn a combination of red and blue, so it's doubtful that such a mutation is even possible. In any case, the more widely accepted explanation is based upon a letter sent to the club's president, Joshua 'Giuseppe' Whitaker, in 1905 suggesting the change to pink and black to represent the rosolio and amaro produced by Whitaker's family business, which was drunk after a game in accordance with the result: rosolio – which is pink, sweet – after a win, and amaro – black, bitter – in defeat. (It is not known what was consumed in the event of a draw.)

The new colours weren't in fact implemented until 1907, the same year the club changed its name to Palermo Foot-Ball Club. Hitherto, they'd identified as the Anglo-Palermitan Athletic and Foot-Ball Club, reflecting the team's English ties: the aforementioned ornithologist Joseph Whitaker, Viceconsul Edward De Garston, Norman Olsen, George Blake, who had previously been involved in the establishment of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, as well as Ignazio Pagano, a local Italian who had been introduced to football during his two years spent studying in England.

The opportunity to actually play football was scarce and centred around matches against the crews of passing British ships. Indeed, the only other team in Sicily at the time was Messina FC, founded in 1900 by Alfredo Marangolo, who had studied alongside Ignazio Pagano in London. In 1901, the two of them would get together and organise a match between their respective teams, and again in 1904, before the arrangement was solidified with the creation of the Whitaker Challenge Cup in 1905. This annual fixture ran for four consecutive years (honours even) before the 1908 Messina earthquake put a terrible stop to it.

In its place, and quite independent from it, came the Lipton Challenge Cup. One of the crews Palermo had played against had been that of the Erin, a privately owned yacht belonging Sir Thomas Lipton. Palermo had won, and the tea-magnate rewarded them with a formidable trophy. Unable to commit to a rematch, Lipton stipulated that teams from Sicily and Campania should compete annually for the cup, which effectively meant Palermo playing against either Naples Foot-Ball Club or Unione Sportiva Internazionale Napoli. This competition ran until 1915, cut short by Italy's entrance into the First World War.

In the wake of the conflict, a number of smaller clubs emerged: Trinacria, Itala, Esperia, and Racing FBC. Valentino Columbo, who'd played for Palermo prior to the war, purchased Racing FBC, who played in blue and white halved shirt, and rebranded them Unione Sportiva Palermo. Within a year, he changed the colours to pink and black, facilitating a sense of continuity between the new club and the older one. More mergers were to follow – with Unione Sportiva Leoni in 1922, Sport Club Libertas Palermo in 1923, and 'Vigor' in 1927 – and another name change, to Palermo Football Club. Meanwhile, the team muddled along in Lega Sud, struggling financially.

By the time of Serie A's inauguration in 1929, Palermo were playing in Group D – the 'Southern Directory Circle' – and came top of it, gaining promotion into Serie B. Coincidently, that same year the club commissioned a new badge, which is worthy of note because it was designed by the Italian painter and futurist Giuseppe 'Pippo' Rizzo. Comprised of a horizontally inclined rhombus set against a stylised, brown leather football, it was replaced as early as 1932 after Palermo won promotion into Serie A. This was the moment at which the club adopted the symbol of the golden eagle, derived from the city’s coat of arms, which remains in place to this day.
 
Like so many other Italian football teams, Palermo would soon fall foul of Fascist initiatives. First they were obliged to ‘Italianise’ their name, and not long after were pressured into taking on the colours of municipal Palermo – red and yellow. In the midst of all this, they were relegated. If that wasn’t bad enough, in 1940 the FIGC kicked them out of the league due to insolvency.

Not for the first time, Palermo were forced into affiliation with a lesser but more economically stable local rival. The team in question was Juventina Palermo, who just so happened to wear the same colours that Racing FBC had. The partnership was retitled Unione Sportiva Palermo-Juventina and within a couple of years were playing in pink and black; within four, they were called more simply Unione Sportiva Palermo.

The 1950s and 1960s would represent a period of relative stability for Palermo. Flitting between series A and B, the most dramatic thing that happened to them was another change of name, to Società Sportiva Calcio Palermo, a by-product of the club listing itself as a joint-stock company. At some point during this period – probably the late 1960s – Palermo started experimenting with stripes. By the 1970s, this trend seemed to have passed, a decade that was spent almost entirely within the confines of Serie B.
 

1979-80

The idea that the football shirt, and sportswear in general, is something other than utilitarian came about in the 1970s. If you wanted to identify a 'year zero' then 1972 might do, when Adidas launched their trefoil logo in the run up to the Munich Olympics. Up until then, branding in football had been low key, often non-existent. By the end of the decade it would be ubiquitous, thanks to the efforts of firms such as Admiral, Umbro, Puma and, of course, Adidas. In Italy, the company that led the charge was Pouchain.

This golden age of footballing couture would last until the end of the century, whereafter sports kit started to become more technical – or would pretend to be. Even though the notion of the football shirt as high performing sportwear is slightly disingenuous, it is fair to say that the invention of manmade fabrics has been of some benefit to the game, has it has for many other sports. When Pouchain were active, acrylic was the material of choice, which had itself superseded wool and cotton. Ennerre favoured acrylic, before eventually getting on board with polyester in the early 1990s, while ABM liked to mix polyester with cotton.

Palermo have had gear manufactured by all three: Pouchain from 1979-80, Ennerre from 1980-86, and ABM from 1990-96. Designed by Piero Gratton, Pouchain’s shirt had by far the best badge: the silhouetted profile of an eagle's head framed within the outline of a diamond. The problem with it was that the fashion of the day dictated that the jerseys were tightly fitted. The Ennerre shirts were more forgiving but suffered from the fact that they didn’t incorporate the club’s insignia, which wasn’t so unusual back then (see also Como, Avellino, even Juventus). After two years with Ennerre’s offshoot company Ennedue, who were equally negligent, Hummel stepped into the fold. Again, the Danish firm didn’t see fit to incorporate a badge, but otherwise showed promise. Finally, ABM took over, and knocked the ball out of the park.

Palermo’s 1990-91 shirt might be their best. For one, it had a badge, although not Gratton’s, which the club had got rid of in 1987. Instead, a Iberian style shield, of the type Inter used throughout the 1980s, with an oblique pink and black stripe running through the middle and the basic outline of an eagle’s head over the top. The template itself was the same that was being used at Fiorentina, Piacenza, Messina and Ternana: collar, trimmed V-neck, ABM's logo running in vertical micropatterned lines within the fabric of the shirt. The sponsor was ‘Citta di Palermo’ in what I can only assume was some sort of tourism initiative, which let it down a bit.

For the next season, the minimal club crest was dropped for a more complicated rendering of an eagle almost in flight. The collar was now black, while the new sponsor – consumer electronics producer Sèleco – was printed in blue. ABM also produced a pink and black striped third version with diagonal micropatterning, which hardly seemed necessary but looked good all the same.
 

1991-92

The 1990s saw Palermo – or Unione Sportiva Città di Palermo, as they were known from 1994 onward – yo-yoing between series B and C. The new century brought with it a revival of fortune, with the club qualifying for the UEFA Cup/Europa League on three separate occasions. The bubble finally burst in 2019, whereupon Palermo were forced to reregister as Palermo Società Sportiva Dilettantistica and ply their trade in Serie D. Upon promotion into Serie C in 2020, they were permitted to restitute the name Palermo Football Club, and are currently playing in Serie B wearing gear supplied by Puma.

STADIA: STADIO RENZO BARBERA, PALERMO

Palermo’s Stadio Renzo Barbera is located in La Favorita, a district to the north of the city centre overlooked by Monte Pellegrino (the most beautiful promontory German writer Johann Goethe reckoned he ever saw). Not far from here begins Viale della Libertà, a road that runs south-southeast, joins Via Ruggero Settimo, which in turn continues into Via Maqueda, before terminating finally at Piazza Giulio Cesare about 4km later. Viale della Libertà is unremarkable, although you might like to live along it. There are banks, low-rise tenements, an English Garden, and, where the street widens on the approach to Piazza Castelnuovo, smart looking restaurants, boutiques selling high-end designer gear, and a hammam. To the east is the city's port, which was bombed heavily during the Second World War and could explain the more open and modern feel in and around Palermo’s ‘New City’.

Via Ruggero Settimo carries on where Viale della Libertà left off. The road here is narrower, livelier and the shopping more affordable, and in the evening it is closed to traffic. About 400 metres farther it turns into Via Maqueda – alongside Piazza Guiseppe Verdi where you will find Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house in Italy and the fourth largest in Europe. This boulevard hasn’t been formally pedestrianised but it may as well be as its ends have been closed off to traffic with substantial blocks of concrete. Via Maqueda cuts across the old town, riddled with irregularly shaped side streets, Sicilian Baroque architecture (San Giuseppe dei Teatini), Byzantine (Martorana), Arab-Norman (San Cataldo), Gothic (San Francesco d'Assisi), and even Modernist (Banco di Sicilia). It’s not for everyone. These backstreets and alleys are shabby and littered, especially in and around Albergheria and Kalsa, but the piazzas and main thoroughfares are generally tidy. Giardino Garibaldi is very neat, the grounds of Palermo Cathedral immaculate.

1952

Stadio Renzo Barbera’s immediate vicinity is mostly residential, and a certain type of residential, populated by high-rise apartments. This is the fate of continental stadia that aren’t built in or around out-of-town industrial estates, which is no bad thing. The apartment blocks themselves may not hold much in the way of architectural interest, but at least people live here. Moreover, the pot plants that populate the spalled balconies suggest that they like doing so – that the tenants take pride in their surroundings.

When Stadio Renzo Barbera opened in January 1932 – called then Stadio La Favorita – the area very likely wasn’t residential, but maybe not industrial either. Photographs from around the period suggest a sort of pastoral urbanism. The ground itself consisted of two main stands, an athletics tracks, and curved banks behind each goal-end making do as terraces. Palermitani engineer Battista Santangelo was responsible and he covered the west-sided tribuna with an impressive concrete, cantilevered roof – a nod to the modernist style of his antecedent Ernesto Basile, the architect responsible for Teatro Massimo. By the season’s end Palermo had been promoted as champions to Serie A, only to be relegated four years later.

In 1948 Palermo topped Serie B for a second time and immediately set about developing La Favorita, possibly with a view to establishing a surer footing in Serie A. By 1952 the athletics track was gone and the end terraces had been built up to join the existing stands, enclosing the ground completely and providing capacity for 41,595 spectators. In 1954 Palermo were relegated once more.

Le Aquile (The Eagles) vacillated between the top two divisions for the next three decades, whereupon they found themselves demoted to Serie C. That same year – 1984 – the stadium was enlarged significantly with the addition of a second tier, supported on a steel framework reaching around from one end of the tribuna to the other, increasing the overall capacity to 44,860. In 1986, just as the club declared itself bankrupt, floodlights were installed.

If it wasn’t for the 1990 World Cup then that might have been that. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that political expediency demanded Sicily play a part in the tournament, that might have been that. And it nearly was. In 1989, less than a year before the Word Cup was due to commence, two of the tribuna’s new roof supports collapsed, resulting in five fatalities. Another seven beams fell the following day, and had the site not been closed down by the local magistrate then the death toll could easily have been higher. The World Cup organising committee was reluctant to deprive Sicily of its chance to host world cup football but it looked like they might. FIFA, appreciating the gravity of the situation, and perhaps aware of how scarce rain is in Palermo over the summer, made an exception and gave permission for games to be played at La Favorita whether there was a roof in place or not. In the event, there was a roof.

The reason why a new roof was being assembled in the first instance was because the tribuna was to be demolished and built anew – only the protruding, middle section of the original façade would remain (deemed a “valid example of colonial architecture”). The new structure would house two tiers, effectively doubling its size, which in itself would not be enough to satisfy the minimum all-seated capacity required to accommodate world cup football. Consequently, the second ring of terracing that had been added in 1984 was extended upwards, contiguous with the upper tier of the new tribuna. These extensions were to be supported by Y-shaped steel beams running around the circumference of stadium, while the present framework supporting the lower portion of the second tier was to be partitioned off from view. Other improvements would include a new ‘Cell-System’ pitch, an electronic scoreboard, improved hospitality and press facilities, and a general tidying up of the surrounding precinct. The refurbished stadium was inaugurated on the 30th May 1990, nine days before the World Cup was due to commence.

In 2002, Stadio La Favorita was renamed Stadio Renzo Barbera in honour of the club’s former chairman, who died that same year. (During his tenure as president Palermo reached two Coppa Italia finals, losing narrowly to Bologna on penalties in 1974 and to Juventus in 1979 after extra time.) The ground as it stands today is worthy of his name.

The tribuna’s roof is supported by four concrete towers that double up as stairwells, providing access to the amenities within. They resemble the sort of thing you might see on the side of a multi-storey car park or shopping mall: a 1980s take on modernism not quite resisting the pull of post-modernism. In between the two middle towers is the smooth concrete façade of the original entrance hall. Either side of them, tinted glass. The upper tier leans backward, its concrete underside left exposed. A teal coloured, metal-clad rim runs around the top of it. The rear of the roof juts backward slightly and then slants diagonally forward – or rather the teal cladding does, obscuring the cantilevered beams that support the roof beneath. The stadium’s name is appended in yellow lettering, contrasting nicely against the teal facing.

Inside, the stadium is awash with green seats. The back walls are painted pink, the colour of Palermo’s shirts. Monte Pellegrino’s presence is in no way diminished, and the viewing angles are about as good as they can get. Stadio Renzo Barbera may be the least architecturally curious of the grounds used at the 1990 World Cup but it may be one of the most practical, and it has weathered well, perhaps due to the climate.

As is generally the case these days, there’s talk of building a new stadium elsewhere, down-scaling the existing one for municipal use. Since Unione Sportiva Città di Palermo’s liquidation – for the second time – and their reformation as Società Sportiva Dilettantistica Palermo, such schemes must surely be on hold. In the meantime, Stadio Renzo Barbera is more than capable of doing the job.