The years 1972-1978
In a word: BOOM.
Munich Olympics, 1972, and for those who love sport these are sad days with terrorism invading the Olympic Village, hitting Israeli athletes and causing the suspension of the Games. But for the ball it is also a historic moment: in the midst of the Cold War the Olympic final is between the United States and the Soviet Union and in the most incredible of finals (but how many have we seen like this...) Alexander Belov gives the gold medal to Russians, giving rise to an endless series of appeals and controversies.
In Tortona basketball literally explodes and if it is true that those who sow reap, these are the fruits of the youth organization studied and implemented in the decade just ended. The protagonists of the pitch are built at home, President Pugni knew it, Franco Nicola also knows it, all those who will hold the highest managerial position in the years to come will remember it.
Il Derthona takes shape, embraces the Rapida and becomes the true basketball expression of our home. These are the years that set an example with the historical nucleus of the Tortonesi, the hard core of Capitan Carboni, Pippo Bertolotti, Massimo Falcin together with some "foreigners" who complete the staff. It rises to the headlines thanks to Uccio Camagna's girls who arrive as far as Rome, as far as the Foro Italico which would soon go crazy for a certain Panatta Adriano. Are the Youth Games 1972, the future national team Zanelli drags us but the best scorer is Anna Ghisolfi, a surname and a family that will be easy to link to the successes of Tortona basketball even some time later.
These are the years of austerity, of afternoon games to allow people to return by train, but basketball's race towards second place among national sports continues as fast as a five-against-zero counterattack. We are different from football, we like to think that those who do the best things always win under the basket, that it is like an equation where the numbers must be in the right place and so here are the first statistics, what today we call box scores, with shooting percentages, rebounds, steals. A sheet that summarizes a match, numbers to study, to read and reread to understand what went wrong: the Americans teach us this, we in the provinces let ourselves be fascinated while the new recruits grow, those who must take us to the top and that they will reach the top. From the 1958-59 draft they are Marciano, Marina, Gazzaniga, all people who on the C series fields will be able to explain that a highly respectable tradition was born in Tortona which now awaits a sports hall of its own, capable of offering the right stage.
January 1975 it's another wound in the heart: Uccio Camagna dies and with him a piece of the women's movement. Naming the Palazzetto after Uccio becomes the minimum recognition while trying to continue on the path that leads upwards by signing the agreement with the Saclà of Asti. The "foreigners" arrive, the Rallos, the Malaspinas, the Bragheros but the one who leaves his mark is a certain Nereo Maghet from Gorizia: he is the 1976-77, Nereo is a point guard and is an encyclopedia walking around the pitch. He takes us one step away from the D, close to a boy born in Illinois but from Tortona to the core, called Gianni Cermelli, someone who shoots and if he misses he gets the rebound, someone who doesn't live as an athlete but who plays with a heart that makes you want to put on your shorts and fight with him. There is Mario Armana on what today they call "the pine", under the basket Carboni and Fornasari, Gazzaniga is what today would be a 3-4 but Nereo goes down in history because he becomes the first of many to come. Of people who come to Tortona to play and leave their hearts there, of kids "adopted" by the large family who wrote Derthona Basket on the house intercom.
The Seventies ended with the first sponsor on a black and white shirt and with rightful access to the C2 series: we are now a reality and the golden years are just around the corner.
Texts taken from the book “HEART OF A LION: fifty years of basketball in Tortona” by Roberto Gabatelli – 2008
