Full name | Unione Sportiva Avellino 1912 |
---|---|
Nickname(s) |
Lupi (Wolves), Biancoverdi (White-greens), Irpini (Irpinians) |
Founded | 1912 2009 (as Avellino Calcio.12) |
Ground |
Stadio Partenio, Avellino, Italy |
Capacity | 26,308 |
Chairman | Walter Taccone |
Manager | Walter Novellino |
League | Serie B |
2015–16 | Serie B, 14th |
Website | Club home page |
Unione Sportiva Avellino 1912, is an Italian football club based in Avellino, Campania. They currently play in Serie B.
Unione Sportiva Avellino S.p.A. went bankrupt in 2009. A new company Avellino Calcio.12 S.S.D. was admitted to Serie D by Article 52 of N.O.I.F. in the same year. The club was renamed as Associazione Sportiva Avellino 1912 in 2010 and restored to the original Unione Sportiva Avellino 1912 in 2015.
The club was founded as U.S. Avellino during 1912 to give the town of Avellino a footballing representative. The early history of the club is quite obscure as they only competed at a lower level against regional sides. Avellino competed in IV Divisione from 1913 until after the Second World War; today's equivalent of that level is Serie D.
For the earlier part of their history the club did not achieve anything of note, until being placed in Serie C for the 1945–46 post-War season. In the 1946–47 season they narrowly missed out on getting through to the interregional final, after finishing third in their group.
Avellino beat out the likes of Catania, Reggina and Messina to win promotion to Serie B at the end of the 1940s. However, the club were accused of match fixing and the federation decided to strip them of their promotion, instead relegating them down to Serie D. Although they were able to return to Serie C after one season, Avellino were relegated back down to spend six seasons in a row at Serie D level.
Eventually Avellino returned, but in the space of six seasons, Avellino gained promotion to Serie C in three of them and were relegated back down twice.
Avellino were promoted to Serie B in 1973 and Serie A in 1978. A truly remarkable feat for a southern provincial side was a 10-year stay in Serie A between 1978 and 1988, with the club holding a mid-table place for the majority of that period. Their best finish was 8th in 1987, with a team starring Angelo Alessio, Paolo Benedetti, Franco Colomba and Dirceu. The club has tended to shift between Serie B and C1 in the years since.