Sassuolu

Sassuolo – or Unione Sportiva Sassuolo Calcio, to be precise – has recently fallen onto my radar because, a) last season they won promotion back to Serie A and, despite the odds, have managed to survive another year (as an Ipswich fan, clubs that can make this jump hold a certain fascination for me), and b) it was also where Muric, Town's former goalkeeper, spent last season on loan and has just today announced he will be joining on a permanent deal.

So... who exactly are Sassuolo? And what can their badge reveal about their origins?

Well, they use the classic footballing "Barcelona-style" badge, which is actually quite common around the footballing world as a way of paying homage to the Catalan giants. (Forest Green Rovers in England used a very similar design before their rebrand.)

They are the only Serie A team not to represent a provincial capital, with the town itself

having only around 40,000 people. Their stadium is actually too small to meet modern Serie A standards, so what was once their home ground is now their training ground. Instead, they share a stadium with Serie B side AC Reggiana, around 20 kilometres away. The stadium, however, has been purchased by Sassuolo's owner – the chemical giant Mapei.

Mapei made its fortune from glue. Not the sort you used at primary school, but specialist commercial adhesives that stick everything from lino to kitchen floors, tiles to walls and even Olympic running tracks to the ground. Their products have been used to help repair the Panama Canal, restore the Sistine Chapel and refloor parts of the Kremlin in Moscow. Apparently the reviews say it made putting the floors down quite easy...

The company remains owned by the founding Squinzi family, who are renowned for their philanthropy and investment in Italian sport, particularly cycling.

So that's the team. What of the badge?

The black and green colours make Sassuolo stand out amongst Italian clubs, most of whom seem to favour red, blue, white, or some combination of the three. The club originally played in the colours of the town's coat of arms – yellow and red – but switched to black and green in 1971 for reasons that remain somewhat unclear. One theory (although supposedly debunked) is that an English side called Lancaster Rovers was touring Italy and, after cancelling the remainder of its trip, donated its kits to Sassuolo as an apology.

Sassuolo itself features the same symbol on its coat of arms that appears in the upper-left quadrant of the football club's crest: three rocks with two flowers growing from them.

This is thought to be a visual pun, something common in heraldry. Sassuolo sounds similar to saxum solum ("rocky soil"), one proposed origin of the town's name. The town's Latin motto translates as "From the rocks, buds" – which is a rather lovely message and metaphor.

Especially for a football club that spent most of its existence in Italy's lower leagues before finally flowering into a respectable Serie A side.

The town itself sits in the foothills of the Modena region. Its thick clay proved ideal for ceramics and, even today, factories across the area churn out vast quantities of tiles. Around 80% of Italian ceramic tile production comes from the Sassuolo district. It is also famous for its own anise-flavoured liqueur, Sassolino (think Sambuca), first developed by Swiss migrants who settled in the town.

St

anding in the town centre is the Palazzo Ducale, one of northern Italy's finest Baroque buildings. Originally a fortress, it was transformed into a grand ducal residence in 1634 by Duke Francesco I d'Este. He commissioned leading architects and artists, including Bartolomeo Avanzini and Gaspare Vigarani, and the interior is lavishly decorated with paintings and murals from floor to ceiling. The palace is surrounded by extensive gardens that have been compared to a miniature Versailles, complete with fountains and hunting grounds that once stretched for more than 12 kilometres. Within the grounds is a now ruined 'Peschiera' which apparently was a half theatre-half aquraium (I'm thinking a mediaeval dolphin show...?).

So there you have it.

Sassuolo.

From glue to ceramics, cycling to liqueur, and industry to Baroque elegance. A great deal has flourished in that rocky soil, and this little Italian town with a big heart now has a football club determined to hold its own amongst the giants of Italian football.