The years 1962-1971
The legendary sixties... We can say it too because these are the years of the definitive push, of the consecration of a Tortona basketball movement. Yet the omens have dark hues if it is true that while Wilt Chamberlain, the 2 March 1962, scores 100 points in New York with the Philadelphia shirt (naturally unbeaten record) Derthona has stopped its activity. We start again exactly two years later, within the newly formed city sports club, with Vittorio Moccagatta presiding over the members' meeting but above all with the launch of a regular Basketball Introductory Center and this is the turning point: January '65 there are 150 members directed by Prof. Dino Canegallo and Prof. Mario Armana. They are the heirs of Messina and with Prof. Aldo Caenazzo they will become the triumvirate of Tortona coaches for entire generations.
In 1966, Simmenthal's Olimpia Milano is the first Italian team to raise the Champions Cup to the skies while the city's attention rises to the level for the legendary Bar Tournaments which gather around the Corso Garibaldi field big-match audiences also for the presence of people like Rusconi, Bufalini, Flaborea who play for Ignis for a living. In the February 1967 Tortona stops for a long-awaited event: the Corso Garibaldi gym is inaugurated and Ignis Varese and Oransoda Cantù play there, in one of those derbies that will never leave you indifferent. We play a lot, practically everyone tries to shoot towards the basket, the Kaimani do it better than many and the protagonists are called Luigino Fassino, Peo Moccagatta, Toto Picchi and Mario Bidone who in the "big room" live years of important exploits between satin tracksuits and free throws again shot from deep. It is the prelude to the city rivalry that explodes shortly thereafter: it is the 1969 in fact, when in the legendary Barino dei portici a group of light-hearted young men decided to give life to the "Rapida Basket Club", a name chosen not by chance.
It is the reference to the quick fun and gastronomic trips, to the gypsies of our home and the twinning with Cantù provides shirts and tracksuits dressed by Fassino, by Fanzio, by Uccio Camagna, by Bidone under the presidency of Dr. Pino Rossi. On the bench Milvio Picchi doesn't "eat panettone" and Checco Beccaria leads the yellows in the First Division championship. In the same year, Derthona restarted with the Promotion championship, with Armana on the bench and Di Matteo becoming President after having recorded the Juventus record with 63 points in a clear victory in Fossano: we marched on parallel tracks until 1970-71 when Tortona experiences its first derby, in front of 400 packed spectators and it is the Bianconeri who take over the city sportingly.
In June of the same year, Rapida organized the friendly match between Cantù and Asti and the Tortona fans could admire Charlie Recalcati, the best Italian of the time as well as the man who would lead our colors to Olympic silver in Athens around thirty years after... The women's sector takes hold and Uccio Camagna is its creator and leader in the first Promotion championship but it is a double derby because basketball in skirts also sees the second local team: it is Coach Risso's Red Stone.
The gym in Corso Garibaldi is no longer enough to contain the city's enthusiasm, the structures are lacking, the funds are lacking but there is no lack of passion and talent and the promotion to Serie D marks an era: Carboni, Bertolotti, Lugano, Vittorino Rossi push us to the first time beyond regional borders, effectively opening a whole different story.
Texts taken from the book “HEART OF A LION: fifty years of basketball in Tortona” by Roberto Gabatelli – 2008
