Bologna, declared in 2006 by UNESCO Creative City of Music, can boast some of the most beautiful anthema, not only for football, but for all sports. It is the birthplace of great artists of the past and contemporary and the residence of many who have found in Bologna a fertile ground for their creativity. Music and Sport have often been inseparable and the anthems composed for Bologna Calcio clearly prove it.
What is behind one of the greatest collective rites of our time?
Already in 1981 the anthropologist Desmond Morris had investigated the symbolism inherent in the dynamics of this thousand-year-old sport – FIFA recognized the Chinese one of the 25th century B. C. as the oldest version of modern football – with the famous essay “The Football Tribe”.
The music, expressed in the anthems sung by the fans at the stadium, is also a fundamental collective rite. The first score dedicated to Bologna Calcio dates back to 1912: the arrangement for two violins, double bass, trumpet, cello, clarinet and drums (typical reduced formation of orchestras of the early 1900s) shows only the author’s initials, which remain unknown to this day. However, we know that the authors of the text were the young fans Giannino Tonelli and Vittorio Ortali, who frequented the “Bar Libertas” in via Ugo Bassi 13, the second headquarters of Bologna football from 1910 to 1918.
Once, while they were at the bar and almost for fun, they composed an anthem whose one verse became iconic and it still resonates among fans today: «Bologna is a squadron that makes the world tremble!». The score of the anthem was lost until 2011, when it was found by chance in the cellar of a family of breeders in Ravenna and then it was resold along with other memorabilia in a small market in Cesena. There the score did not escape the attentive eye of a design student who, after having it certified by an antique dealer, sold it on eBay. Definitely he wasn’t a fan of Bologna, but rather of one of the aforementioned Romagna teams!
This is the text of Tonelli-Ortali’s anthem:
"The red and blue flag victory will give us for our hip hip hip for our hip hurrah.
We are eleven beautiful flowers, of women we are lovers, of football players and always winners.
We are the students of victory, we are the glory of our club.
We fold the flag of every rival club, long live our balls and our hip hurrahs.
Bologna is a squadron that makes the world tremble and makes hip hip hip hurrah. »
The first 78 rmp phonographic recording dedicated to Bologna was commissioned by President Renato Dall’Ara in the EIAR studios: “«To make a great Bologna, what do you need? A goalkeeper, two thirds. . . »
In the 1940s the historical Stelutis Choir recorded Bologna ROSSOBLU composed by Leonildo Marcheselli, considered the “father” of Filuzzi, the liscio played in Bologna and its province. It’s possible to find online a valuable recording of Marcheselli, accompanied by Banda Puccini at the historic Cassero di Porta Saragozza. Among the most passionate fans and “philologists” it’s a common legend that the anthem was commissioned by Gino Villani, legendary founder of the Coordination Centre of the Bologna Fans Clubs. Villani was perhaps the most famous among the historical leaders of the Bologna fans and he encouraged the team from under the Maratona tower with his inseparable megaphone. For more than 10 years, before the start of each match, he shouted greetings to Bulgarelli: «Honourable Giacomino, cheers!», which also gave the title of an essay by the legendary sports journalist Gianfranco Civolani. That greeting to Bulgarelli represented such a legendary ritual that it is said that the referee waited for it to whistle the start of the match.
“Rome, Stadio Olimpico, theatre of a new exceptional event in the history of the Italian Single-Group Championship. In fact, for the first time we have a tie for the conquest of the Scudetto. Bologna and Internazionale face each other” saying this the chronicler Nicolò Carosio began the radio report of Bologna-Inter 1964, which we all know ended with the great victory of the Scudetto for Bologna. In the days following the conquest of the Olimpico, Villani printed hundreds of labels for the wine bottles bearing the words: “Albana Scudetto – bottled, like Inter, on June 7, 1964”.
The first anthem played at the Dall’Ara Stadium was Alè Alè Forza Bologna by the Passarini Quartet, replaced in 1976 by_“Bologna Campione”,_ an anthem by Dino Sarti with some verses in the dialect of Bologna. Dino Sarti, former worker, actor, cabaret artist, chansonnier, sang great covers in dialect also of Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour or Frank Sinatra “New York, New York”.
1988 was the year of “Le tue ali di Bologna”, which to this day still echoes on the stands at the end of the team line-up. The song, composed by Andrea Mingardi, Lucio Dalla and Luca Carboni, is played by Dalla, Mingardi, Carboni and Gianni Morandi.
In recent years, before the death of Lucio Dalla (after which Le tue ali Bologna is used together with L’anno che verrà, Dalla’s 1978 masterpiece), with this anthem Cuore Rossoblu, composed always by Mingardi, was also played.
On 22 February 2014, before the match against Roma, "Fede rossoblù" by the punk band Skiantos was broadcast, in tribute to the band's leader, the multi-faceted artist Freak Antoni, who had died ten days earlier.
For a while, during pre-game, the sparkling “Just can't get enough” by Depeche Mode was broadcast to invigorate the fans And it worked!
In 2023 Angelica Sisera writes "Per Forza Bologna". First woman to have written and sung a piece for Bologna football team. “With this piece I wanted to pay tribute not only to the team but also to the fans and the whole city, united by an important history. Per Forza we’re rooting for Bologna, there’s no need to say it!”
The association Bologna FC 360° will publish this year, on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1964 Scudetto, a compilation containing all the above-mentioned songs, official and non-official anthems, and some new ones, dedicated to the rossoblu team. Some of the proceeds from the sale of the records will be donated to charity.
Autore: Angelica Sisera
Fotografia: Marco Medici