S.S.D. Licata 1931

Football club infobox
clubname = Licata


fullname = Società Sportiva Dilettante Licata 1931
nickname = "Gialloblu" (Yellow-blues);
"I Santi" (The Saints);
"I Falchi" (The Hawks)
founded = 1931
ground = Stadio Dino Liotta, Licata, Italy
capacity = 8,000 | chairman = Piero Santamaria
manager = Antonello Capodicasa
league = Eccellenza Sicily
season = 2006-07
position = Serie D/I, 15th
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pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=_yellowhorizontal|pattern_ra2=
leftarm2=3366CC|body2=3366CC|rightarm2=3366CC|shorts2=3366CC|socks2=FFFF00

Società Sportiva Dilettante Licata 1931 is an Italian football club located in Licata, Sicily. The traditional club colours of Licata is yellow and blue; known in Italy as "giallloblu". The club has two other nicknames; I Santi which means The Saints, and I Falchi which translates as The Hawks.

Licata is a historical Sicilian team, and one of the only six Sicilian football clubs to have ever reached the Serie B league in Italian football history. [ [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/region-italy.html RSSSF.com] ] The club currently plays in the Eccellenza Sicily.

History

The club was founded in 1931 as Associazione Calcio Licata by a few local students who discovered the game of football thanks to some Swedish sailors who worked in the area; the official team colours, in fact, refer to the flag of Sweden. The club was renamed Polisportiva Licata in 1967. [ [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/region-italy-sicily-b.html RSSSF.com] ]

The first appearance of Licata in a professional league, is dated in 1982 within Serie C2. During the 1984-85 season, Licata, coached by a young Zdeněk Zeman, won Serie C2 and promoted to Serie C1, despite a team composed almost entirely by players from the youth squad.

In 1988, with Aldo Cerantola as coach, Licata won also Serie C1/B, and were promoted to Serie B for the first time ever in the club's history. During its first season in the Italian second division, with Giuseppe Papadopulo as coach, then replaced by Francesco Scorsa, Licata ended in ninth place; finishing above Parma. They also achieved the honour of playing a Coppa Italia match at the Stadio San Siro against AC Milan.

The following season however, Licata were relegated to Serie C1 after finishing in 18th position. A couple of seasons later, in 1991-92 they were relegated down to Serie C2. They were then relegated in the 1992-94 season, and were set to compete in the CND league, but slow decay for the Sicilian club was complete and they became bankrupt in 1994.

Reformation

A new club, Licata AC, was then founded and admitted to the regional Eccellenza league [ [http://www.calciodieccellenza.it/Classifiche/94-95.html CalcioDIEcecellenza.it] ] . But in 1996, after having daringly avoided relegation, Licata AC did not register to Eccellenza and was cancelled too; a new team, Santos Licata (then Nuovo Licata, that finally switched to the current denomination), started from "Promozione" (7th level in the Italian football league system).

During the 2005/06 season, Licata won the round A of Sicilian Eccellenza, consequently returning to Serie D for the first time for a decade.

Notable former players

*flagicon|Italy Walter Mazzarri
*flagicon|Italy Massimo Taibi

Notable former managers

*flagicon|Italy Aldo Cerantola
*flagicon|Italy Giuseppe Papadopulo
*flagicon|Czech Republic flagicon|Italy Zdeněk Zeman

Honours

Serie C1
*Champions: 1987-88

Serie C2
*Champions: 1984-85

References

External links

*it icon [http://www.licata1931.com/ Official homepage]
*it icon [http://www.ultraslicata1931.it/ Fans' site]