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Casale
Full name	Associazione Sportiva Casale Calcio SRL
Nickname(s)	Nerostellati (Starred-Blacks)
Founded	1909
Ground	Stadio Natale Palli, Casale Monferrato, Italy (Capacity 6,035)
Chairman	Giulio Bertacchi
Manager	Franco Lerda
League	Serie D/A
2006-07	Serie D/A, 3rd
Home colours 　 Away colours

Associazione Sportiva Casale Calcio is an Italian football club, based in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont. The team's nickname nerostellati (the “the starred-blacks”) refers to the team’s colours of black with a white star on the heart.

The victorious Nerostellati of 1914: Gallina (goalkeeper, holding his flat cap), Maggiani, Scrivano, Rosa, Luigi Barbesino, Giuseppe Parodi, Caira, Angelo Mattea, Giovanni Gallina, Amedeo Varese, Bertinotti.

When the club was founded in 1909 Casale was at the geographical centre of the new footballing movement in Italy. Genoa, Pro Vercelli, Internazionale Torino and Alessandria were all leading clubs in the Italian football league system and Casale soon joined their number.

In May 1913 Casale became the first Italian club to defeat an English professional team when they beat Reading F.C. 2–1. Reading won all the other games on this tour, defeating Genoa, Milan, Pro Vercelli and even the Italian national team.

In the following season Casale won the national title for the first and (as of 2006) only time. Italian football was then organized on a regional basis and the national championship was divided into three stages. Casale topped the Ligurian-Piedmontese division and proceeded, along with second-placed Genoa, to compete in a division comprising the top northern teams. (The others being Inter Milan, Juventus, Vicenza and Verona.) Having won that division, Casale defeated central-southern champions Lazio 7–1, 0–2 in the two-leg final.

After World War I Casale remained in the top division for a couple of decades, representing what had been the cradle of early Italian football.

With the development of professionalism, Casale was progressively relegated to lower divisions, 1934 being their last year in Serie A.

At the end of the 2005–2006 season Casale finished bottom of Serie C2/A; in 2006–2007 they are competing in Serie D/A, joining their old rivals the “Greys” of Alessandria.

See also Category:A.S. Casale Calcio players

Five players who appeared in the scudetto-winning team of 1913–14 played in the Italian national team, all making their international debuts between 1912 and 1914^[1]:

• Luigi Barbesino (midfielder)
• Giovanni Gallina (attacker)
• Angelo Mattea (midfielder)
• Giuseppe Parodi (midfielder)
• Amedeo Varese (midfielder)
• Sergei Pareiko (goalkeeper)

Casale’s biggest star, however, was the full back Umberto Caligaris whose career with the club ran from 1919 to 1928. During this period he made 37 appearances for the Azzurri. He represented Italy in the 1924 Olympics and won a bronze medal at the 1928 Summer Olympics before leaving Casale for Juventus. His total of 59 caps stood as a record for many years.

Eraldo Monzeglio, later to represent Italy on numerous occasions, including the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, made his Serie A debut with Casale in 1924–25. The following season, however he moved to Bologna F.C. 1909.

• For 1913: http://www.btinternet.com/~rfc1871/news/features/italiantour.htm (English), and Il Calcio a Casale M.to (Italian)
• For 1914: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campionato_di_calcio_italiano_1914 (Italian)

• Official Website (Italian)
• Boys Casale: an Ultras site with more coverage on the foundation of the club and its early years. (Italian)
• Casale page @ Serie-D.com (English)