Classic Clubs:Juventus

In the history of football, Juventus is a club without compare. Known affectionately as "La Vecchia Signora" (The Old Lady), "Juve" were founded on 1 November 1897. But as her name suggests ("Juventus" means "youth" in Latin), this particular centenarian has lost none of her faculties with age. The club's statutes were written on a bench at the corner of the Corso Re-Umberto and the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele in Turin, the daily meeting place of fifteen or so students from the Ginnasio Massimo d'Azeglio high school and two 20-year-old bicycle repairmen, Eugenio and Enrico Canfari.

Juventus Football Club, whose original strip was pink, did not contest its first official match until three years later, a game they lost (1-0) to FC Torinese. Three more years then elapsed before Juventus adopted their new colours, when they acquired a set of black-and-white vertical striped shirts from John Savage, an Englishman living in Turin who had passed on the order to friends back in Nottingham.

Juve won their first title in 1905, but it was in 1923 that the club really hit the big time when it was taken over by the Agnelli family, owners of the powerful Fiat motor group. Lured by of the guarantee of regular wages and the perk of a gleaming new car provided by the Italian firm, several big name players soon headed for the Piedmont club, which proceeded to clinch five consecutive titles between 1931 and 35. Juve went on to cement their place among the giants of Italian football courtesy of the arrival of world-class talents such as Giampiero Boniperti, the Welshman John Charles and the Argentinian Omar Sivori.

The arrival of coach Giovanni Trapattoni in 1977 enabled Juve to scale even greater heights (six titles in his 10 years at the club), so much so that the Squadra Azzurra team at the 1978 FIFA World Cup Argentina ™ was to all intents and purposes the Juventus side. And, in 1982, there were no fewer than seven representatives of "the Old Lady" in the side crowned world champions in Spain.

The acquisition of the Frenchman Michel Platini, who topped the calcio goalscoring charts three times, enabled Juve to remain at the very top, despite the terrible tragedy at Brussels' Heysel stadium on 29 May 1985, when several dozen Italian fans were crushed to death (39 dead, 450 wounded). Since then, Juve have embraced the healing process with dignity, while continuing to collect silverware with monotonous regularity.