The Calcio Catania is a professional Italian football club based in Catania, Italy. Although the club has spent most of its history playing in Serie B, it currently plays in the Serie A league for the 2010-2011 seasons and is ranked 13th on the league table. This is the club’s fifth time to be promoted to Serie A.
The Stadio Angelo Massimino is Catania’s home ground it has a crowd capacity of 23,420. The stadium was renamed in honor of the former president Angelo Massimino in 2002. Massimino had been president of the club from 1969 until his death in 1996.
There were recent proposals for the club to move to a 33,765 seater stadium called Stadio Dèi Palici located on the southern outskirts of Catania but there are no concrete plans yet. Over the years the club has won several honors and titles including one Serie B Championship (1953), runners-up in the 1964 Coppa delle Alpi, five Serie C Championships (1938, 1947, 1948, 1974, 1979), one Serie C2 Championship (1998), one Serie D Championship (1994) and promoted to Eccellenza Sicily in 1993.
Calcio Catania was founded on June 19, 1908 by Italian film director Gaetano Ventimiglia and Francesco Sturzo d’Aldobrando. The club was Catania’s first and most stable professional football club. It was first called A.S. Educazione Fisica Pro Patria. After two years of the club’s foundation they changed the name to Unione Sportiva Catanese.
Catania and other Southern clubs often competed in the Lipton, Sant’ Agata and Agordad cups while football clubs in the North of Italy are more organized and usually competed in the early Italian Football Championships. During the 1942-1943 seasons, the club changed its name briefly to Associazione Calcio Fascista Catania but ended prematurely because of the World War II.
After the war the club was reborn and merged with another club called Virtus Catania. The new formed club was named Calcio Catania and was entered into Serie C and had spent three seasons there before gaining promotion to Serie B in 1948.
Catania had spent most of its history in Serie B and was promoted to Serie A in the 2006-2007 seasons. Throughout the history of Calcio Catania, the club had produced several notable players like Enzo Bearzot, Giovanni Vavassori, Johan Walem, Pedrinho, Chinesinho, Juan Manuel Vargas, Claudio Ranieri, Amedeo Biavati and Albano Bizzarri. Calcio Catania has a strong rivalry with Palermo.
One of the most historical football violence in history happened after a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo. The incident happened on February 2, 2007 outside the Massimino Stadium where a violent clash between football fans and the police happened in Catania, Italy resulting in the death of a police officer named Filippo Raciti. This violent incident led the FIGC to cancel all football related activities and events for a period of time that resulted to a decline in the club’s form. Get all the latest football fixtures, results and live scores for Calcio Catania.
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