“Paolo Nori, writer and above all Crusader fan, says that the only things that make him cry are Dostoevsky and Parma matches. I can certainly confirm the second, not having his culture and not knowing the Russian writer.

The thing that amazes me is that this feeling continues, even in a season like this where at a certain point it seemed we were going to be promoted to Serie A two months early. I’ve been wondering about this since yesterday, not being able to understand until now. I don’t understand the reason, even if I found some answers.

I cry in front of another victory for Parma because I think that supporting your hometown team is a fortune and a privilege, I cry for those unique shirts in the world, white with black cross, which represent 110 years of history, which in my small way I have tried to reconstruct, telling the stories of more normal champions and footballers, who have generated the identity of this team: in recent months I have met and appreciated footballers who wore our colors 50 years ago, the children of those who are not more physically with us, and everyone has something in their eyes when they talk about Parma that they can’t explain.

Then I connect everything back to my grandfather, who gave me this damned passion, thinking about how happy he would have been today, at the café, talking about this team and that we would have hugged each other today celebrating this triumph.

Yesterday before the match, I spent a couple of hours with Giovanni Ferraguti, historic photojournalist of the Gazzetta, leafing through his archive of photos from the 70s onwards, and while he told me the anecdotes of names that many perhaps don’t even know, from Rizzati to Volpi , from Bonci, Colonnelli and Toscani, I thought that shortly thereafter we would write another page in the history of this city and this team.

Neither I, nor Giovanni, nor Paolo Nori, nor any of the Parma fans who waited for this victory and this goal were wrong.

Personally, I can’t wait to be moved by the next victory.”

Pietro Chittolini, Parma fan, 2nd May 2024

*translation of a post first published on “Centenario dello Stadio Ennio Tardini” Facebook page.

Young people have their future in their hands. But also ours.

Today is November 30, 2023.

Rains.

It is cold.

It’s one of those typically autumn days that physically bring us into winter.

You can feel the humidity in your bones.

You’re running errands in the center and you’ll have them all day but the house, the radiator on, maybe a nice plate of anolini for the evening are already fantastic.

Then you pass via Saffi.

You shouldn’t have taken that road, but you find yourself there coming from San Giovanni and passing through Borgo del Correggio.

At a certain point you have a flash of inspiration, an illumination, you perceive your best smile under the collar of your jacket.

Did it occur to you that in these same days, but 110 years ago, a group of young boys from Parma met in those parts to plan the future.

Enthusiastic, excited, full of ideas and projects and at the same time cold and wrapped in their heavy cloaks, they walk quickly through the city fog.

They come from the villages of the Historic Center and Oltretorrente, some from the outskirts of Prati Bocchi and San Leonardo. With two very heavy bicycles, there are those arriving from San Lazzaro.

At the time Parma was always wonderful, but not that great.

There rich images of hopes and dreams, warming themselves by the fire of the stove inside the tavern, and while they try to warm themselves by rubbing their hands, these young boys talk about the future and the football team they want to create.

Some of them have already participated in a football tournament (grouping under the temporary name of the Verdi Foot Ball Club), but they are so enthusiastic that they want to stabilize and make that brief previous experience lasting.

They think big: “…we have to create our city’s football team and we will call it PARMA FOOT BALL CLUB!!!”

Imagine twenty-year-old boys, sitting at the tables of a tavern in Via Saffi, on a cold November evening in 1913, talking, shouting, smiling, waving, dreaming, drawing, asking each other a thousand and a thousand questions, but they are animated by an iron will and a common goal and thanks to this they overcome all obstacles, overcome any impediment.

Try to imagine how much determination and how much healthy enthusiasm I could have had in planning and realizing a dream that changed and improved the lives of thousands and thousands of future Parma residents or Parma fans.

Without them, without their evenings in the cold to meet and talk about Parma, we probably wouldn’t be here today.

But fortunately we are here and on 16 December 2023 we will celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of the most beautiful football club in the world.

…

Here, dear young people from the Curva (and not only) who perhaps will read these lines: we hope you have the same imagination, the same will, the same determination that your peers had 110 years ago.

We hope you imagine the Curva Nord and the Ennio Tardini Stadium in the most beautiful, colourful, loudest and most engaging way possible.

We hope you overcome your doubts, shyness, scruples and do everything possible so that our support can be an example for the young people to come.

We hope you have the same enthusiasm, the same excitement, the same will to make your dreams come true, exactly like those who imagined Parma football in the autumn of 1913.

1913 seems very distant and yet the fruits of that amazing sowing are still here today. And they will remain so for who knows how many decades to come.

Dear young Parma people or not Parma people but Parma fans: don’t be afraid of the future, because it is in your hands, in your head and in your heart.

If you listen to them and follow, we will listen to you and follow you.

*translation of a post first published on “Centenario dello Stadio Ennio Tardini” Facebook page.

“Venice Parma, we return defeated, but there is a Crusader fan who smiles when he thinks back to the day.

No, it’s not because of the team’s play or the visit to the city, his smile comes from looking at those present at the away match.

Those present were few, or at least lower than the number one might have expected (there were 518 in total), but it is by observing them closely that a different observation arises: there are a lot of young guys.

Following up on this observation (40% of those present were under 35 years old and a percentage between 10/15% under 20 years old) the desire to delve further arose: how is our fan base from a demographic point of view? Not in general, obviously, but that part that cheers, that shouts, that moves, that goes away.

Here is the data.

This year in the Curva Nord there were 4,233 subscriptions subscribed and more precisely:

2633 full – 490 reduced women – 706 under 24 – 404 under 14

This means that 1110 people under the age of 24 have subscribed to the Curva Nord, representing over 25% of those who have pledged loyalty to the Crusaders no matter what.

25% is a very high figure, from a quantitative point of view; but it is a fundamental value from a qualitative point of view, because those who are under 24 undoubtedly represent the future of our fans.

But that is not all.

In this championship, just over 2000 tickets per match were sold at the box office; had half of these been developed by a group of ticket fans between 14-24 years.

You can immediately understand how the percentage of young people attending the Curva is growing more than proportionally (and affecting potential enthusiasm).

We turn to them, so that they have the desire and courage to involve other peers, to question themselves, to make the Parma match an unmissable event, to identify completely with the only team that represents our splendid city and our magnificent province, to bring all their enthusiasm, making up (at least in part) for the gaps and shortcomings of the Crusade fans.

But we also turn to Parma Calcio and the fan organisations, so that everyone is increasingly encouraged to involve, bring together and make the passion that a boy of that age can have explode.

We “little old men” must act as “little old men”, encouraging and stimulating them, without acting as a stopper..

Young people must be young because the future, for us and for them, has already begun and is already here.

Forward Young Crusaders!”