Alfonso Negro

Alfonso Negro was born in Brooklyn (New York) to an Italian family from the province of Salerno and, after a few years, returned to Italy with his parents. In 1930 he joined the football club of his hometown Angri in Serie C and then moved to Catanzaro, playing in Serie B in 1933. While at Catanzarese, he made his international début with Italy’s B team. In 1935 he joined Fiorentina in Serie A and, at the same time, attended the University in Florence to study gynecology and obstetrics.

In 1936 Negro was selected by the Fascist University Group to represent Italy at the Olympic Games in Berlin, where he played as left winger in the semi-final, scoring one goal to win 2-1 against, Norway, his only international match for the A team. In 1938 he moved to Naples where he remained until the suspension of the championship, while continuing to attend university courses in Florence. He graduated in 1940 and, in the same year, with the entry of Italy into World War II, was drafted into the Army as a medical officer in Greece where he organized sporting events for the soldiers at the front, such as the match between the Royal Italian Army and the German Wehrmacht in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.

After the war Negro continued with both professions, football and gynecology, suiting up for AC Ercolano until 1952. The club provided him with a doctor’s office to pursue his other passion and gave him an apartment in an ancient palace with a magnificent view on the archaeological excavations of Ercolano, where he remained from 1942 to 1958. He then returned to Florence, where he died at the age of 69.