Sangiovannese

In the spring of 2000 a club from a Tuscan valley town won the amateur title of the whole of Italy. Sangiovannese had taken Group E of Serie D that season, and the Scudetto Dilettanti followed. It was the second time the club had won that group — the first came back in 1970–71, three decades earlier.

Promozione Toscana, Group C, in 1990–91; Eccellenza Toscana, Group B, two seasons after that; then Serie D and the title. What that decade bought was the highest football the club has played: Serie C1, where the best it managed was eighth place in 2004–05.

The club dates from 1927 and belongs to San Giovanni Valdarno, in the Arno valley south-east of Florence. The ground, Stadio Virgilio Fedini, holds 3,378, and the number tells you what those Serie C seasons actually looked like from the terraces.

The fixture that matters most is the one down the valley. Aquila Montevarchi sit a short distance along the Arno, and the meeting is the Derby del Valdarno — two towns close enough that the rivalry never needed a division to sustain it. Arezzo, the provincial capital, provides the other, played on a different scale but with the same geography behind it. Games against Figline 1965 draw a crowd too, though neither the club nor the supporters call that one a derby, and the distinction is kept.