The history of Società Sportiva Calcio Bari, a professional Italian football club based in Bari, Apulia, dates back to its founding in 1908. The club has undergone several transformations, including the formation of a phoenix club in 2018 after financial issues led to its exclusion from Serie B. Since then, SSC Bari have steadily improved, earning promotion to Serie C in 2019 and eventually to Serie B in 2022.
From the beginnings of soccer in Bari to the 1920s
Origins (1908-1915) The first soccer team founded in Bari, as well as in the entire region of Apulia, was the ephemeral Club Foot-Ball Challenge, which arose in 1901 on the initiative of a group of students.Gianni Antonucci, Il Bari... 105 anni fa, La Gazzetta Meridionale, 19 gennaio 2013 On the other hand, the establishment of the city's first stable club, the Foot-Ball Club Bari, dates back to January 15, 1908. As in the case of many other Italian soccer clubs, the founding of Bari was characterized, in addition to the contribution of local sportsmen (including some veterans of the Club Football Challenge period), by the participation of some outsiders: Floriano Ludwig, an Austrian who had moved to Bari and was the main founder, Gustavo Kuhn, a Swiss, who was joined by Giovanni Tiberini, a Marche native who had moved to Bari and led sons of Bari merchants..
In the first lineup, Ludwig can be recognized, standing first from the left, along with other foreigners, in Bari for work, and Bari residents: next to Ludwig standing from the left are Barther and Bach; in the center are Attoma, Roth, and Labourdette; below are Jovinet, Giordano, Gazagne, Randi, and Ziegler.
Originally the players wore garnet jerseys and white shorts and played mainly against English sailors at Campo San Lorenzo (Bari's military-owned place-of-arms) in the San Pasquale district.
The debut in southern Italian soccer and the birth of Liberty and Ideale Although the club was founded very early compared to others the team, like almost all of those then existing in Southern Italy, was not well represented in the leagues of Italian soccer, so F.B.C. Bari took part in only a few official seasons (i.e., organized by the F.I.F., F.I.G.C. since 1909)..
In the South, in the pre-World War I period only Campania appears (at the time) to have held an official regional championship annually.
From the F.B.C. Bari (which soon came to include five teams, depending on the age of the members) two sports clubs split off: in 1908 the Unione Sportiva Ideale (which initially played in a blue jersey with a white star on the left side of the chest and white shorts; black-green stripes adopted instead in 1915), and in 1909 the Foot-Ball Club Liberty (which wore red-blue colors with horizontal stripes and white shorts, later changed in 1915 to white-blue vertical stripes). These three formations competed in friendly derby matches and against teams organized by sailors who had landed in Bari, and later in matches and tournaments (always unofficial) with other Apulian formations, although initially Liberty and Ideale (formed mainly by teenagers) were precluded from challenges against the first teams and the most relevant competitions.
The first official championships of the Bari red shirts mentioned by the available sources are those of the 1909–1910 season: the first team lost the small Southern Championship of the Seconda Categoria (the second football league of the time; according to the data so far available, the Southern championship would have been the first official interregional round played in the South of Italy) against Naples Foot-Ball Club (as a result of the Neapolitans' 6–2 win in Naples in the first leg and Bari's 0-2 forfeit in the return), while the reserve formation (second team) won the regional round of the Terza Categoria with full points against the first teams of Sporting Club Lecce and Pro Italia of Taranto.
In the following season the biancorossi lost the second edition of the southern championship played with Naples, as a result of a home draw and a defeat (2-2 the first and 7-0 the second result, respectively, in the Campania capital). In 1915, during wartime, F.B.C. Bari was disbanded, while Liberty and Ideale barely managed to sustain themselves financially so as not to close down (also due to the severe lack of athletes, all of whom left for the front).
Re-founding in the early postwar period and the 1920s (1924-1927) After the end of the war, FBC Bari was temporarily disbanded, and Liberty, which had always been appreciative of FBC Bari's "lineage" and was getting increasingly better organized, picked up the sporting legacy of the original Bari (Ludwig himself and his collaborator Kuhn became senior executives of the white-and-blue club).. The mutual rivalry between Liberty and Ideale grew as time went on, and soon Liberty identified itself as the aristocrats and members of the bourgeoisie, Ideale as the proletarians..
On January 16, 1924, FBC Bari was re-founded, but not by the same members as sixteen years earlier, and gained access to the Prima Divisione. It then participated, for the first time together with the Libertians and Idealists, in an official competition in the 1924-25 season (meanwhile, Liberty had already gained access to official championships in 1921, Ideale in 1922), ending at the bottom of its group. Suspended from official activity in 1925, FBC Bari finally played in the 1926-1927 Terza Divisione, finishing last in its group and disbanding shortly thereafter (in these three years it was little followed, because by then in Bari and its province attentions were fervently turned to Liberty and Ideale).
From 1928 to World War II (1928-1945)
The birth of U.S. Bari and the Serie B (1928-1931) In the 1927-1928 season, at the end of a top championship in the Prima Divisione (then corresponding to the second national football level), Liberty (renamed "Bari Football Club" from February 1927). reached the Divisione Nazionale for the first time with a decisive 5–3 victory over Fiorentina in Bari on January 15, 1928.
When the championship was over, as in several other cities in Italy (e.g. Salerno, Naples, Florence and Rome), Bari F.C. (formerly Liberty) and Ideale merged into the Unione Sportiva Bari on February 27, 1928.. The new U.S. Bari was the first Apulian formation in history to participate in the highest soccer championship.
Starting in the 1928-29 season, Bari began wearing white jerseys with red lapels and white shorts (picking up the colors of the municipal coat of arms).. On September 22, 1928, Alfredo Bogardo, a journalist for the local newspaper "Cinesport," taking up Carlo Bergoglio's idea from the Guerin Sportivo, launched a popular referendum to assign a symbol to Bari and its players: the most voted for was the cockerel (which prevailed over eaglets, squirrels, sparrows and gazelles). In contrast, the nickname "robins," coined by the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, was short-lived.
Bari played their home matches in the Campo degli Sports; a stadium built in the Bari neighborhood of Carrassi in December 1925, by the Società Anonima S.A.S., on the initiative of Liberty.
After the '28-'29 season, the league system was reorganized and Bari, ranked 13th (in the National Division), was placed in the newly established "Serie B." Young Bari player Raffaele Costantino (formerly a center forward for Liberty, who later remained in the newly unified Bari), nicknamed "young king" by his fans, was called up for the Italian national team for the first time, making Bari the first Serie B team to see one of its own players called up for the national team.
In 1929 Pippo Scategni joined. After an attempt at an immediate return to the top division in the 1929-1930 season, which failed amidst conspicuous ups and downs and the serious injury of 25-year-old Bari player Totò Lella (due to a kick suffered to the abdomen in the match played away from home against Fiumana, the young man suffered a lung injury, dying of a worsening condition in 1932),. coach János Hajdú (formerly a midfielder for the old Liberty), Dario Gay, and Piero Bottaro were recruited (Costantino was traded to Roma, in Serie A, and then returned to Bari in '35). The Apulians led a successful 1930-'31 season, returning to the top division.
Early seasons in Serie A (1931-1943) For the Serie A, Hajdú was replaced by the Hungarian Árpád Weisz, former Italian champion in 1929–1930 with Ambrosiana-Inter (and future winner of two scudetti with Bologna; he was later expelled from Italy in 1938 because he was Jewish and perished in Auschwitz in 1944). The first round was very difficult and at the end of the season the team was saved by winning the play-off against Brescia.
In the following year Weisz returned to Ambrosiana. Due to insufficient liquidity, many of the most highly valued athletes were sold, including Bottaro; among the newcomers were Luigi Ferrero and goalkeeper Alferio Cubi.. In the league, after some good results the team collected few points in the first round, improved in the return round and suffered 13 penalties (an all-time record for the 18-team Serie A);. it relegated by a few points in the last days.
In the following season in Serie B (in those years split into two rounds), the roster was rejuvenated and put under the leadership of Tony Cargnelli; Gay and Scategni left.. At the end of the championship, after having placed first in the standings of their round, the "biancorossi" lost 1-0 the promotion match in Bologna with Sampierdarenese (who came first in the northern round): after having shown great fervor, the "biancorossi" fell, under applause, into tears for the missed promotion.
On September 6, 1934, Benito Mussolini inaugurated the new Stadio della Vittoria..
The goal of promotion to the top division was achieved in the 1934-1935 season, under the leadership of András Kuttik.
The years 1935-1941 saw Bari's permanence in Serie A.
In 1936 Cargnelli returned as coach (he left Bari again two years later). In the Jan. 3, 1937 match against Alessandria, young Bari midfielder Francesco Capocasale, in his second first-team match, scored the winning goal for the 2–1 win;. in the April 18 match against Ambrosiana Cesarino Grossi (also a Bari debutant) helped the lineup in the comeback from 0-2 (to 2-2); becoming a crowd favorite. Grossi's limited stature earned Grossi the nickname "pocket center forward." In the 1936-37 Coppa Italia Bari was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Milan. In 1938 Ferrero also left and Tommaso Maestrelli (from Bari but born in Pisa) moved up to the first team. In 1939 Costantino ceased his competitive activity (he remained in Bari's management as sporting director, also taking over the technical leadership of the team on several occasions);. Cubi, Grossi (who left for the war, died in Albania, to the great sorrow of Italian soccer) and Capocasale, who was sold to Juventus, left. Alessandro Carlini was hired. Bari reached the semifinals of the 1939-1940 Coppa Italia, being eliminated 0–2 by Genoa.
The club's balance sheet was going increasingly into deficit (partly because of an open gap in the stadium fences, often used to avoid paying for tickets) and in the summer of 1940 the management was forced to sell many of the most highly valued athletes;. among the various purchases Bari's goalkeeper Leonardo Costagliola joined. In 1941 the team relegated, ending the galletti's longest period so far in Serie A: six years. Bari went back up to the first division the following year, taking first place in Serie B; in '43, however, it fell back to the second division, at the play-offs. Many thought of a conspiracy against the galletti (Maestrelli left at the end of the season).. However, the team benefited from a readmission to the top division due to wartime causes.
The last years of the war (1943-1945)