The Day Italian Football Died: Torino and the Tragedy of Superga

AT just after 5pm on 4 May 1949, a Fiat aircraft carrying 31 people, among them the Torino football squad, crashed into a 2,200ft-high peak called Superga on the outskirts of Turin. In an instant the dominant force in Italian football was destroyed.

It was a tragedy unparalleled in sporting history and still affecting the club today. Unlike Manchester United after Munich, the Torino club has never been able to recover from that awful moment.

Fifty years after the tragedy of Superga, Alexandra Manna and Mike Gibbs revisited Turin to see an entire city pay homage to the memory of those who died.

The experience made a profound impression upon them and they resolved to find out more. The result is this book.