The club was founded in 1890 as Internazionale Torino, becoming FC Torino in 1906. They were denied their first Championship by the outbreak of WW I and lost their second chance in 1926-27 due to an alleged irregularity. Torino won its first "scudetto", the Italian Championship, the following year and, between 1942-49, it won other five "scudetti", led by its captain, the midfielder Valentino Mazzola.
But on May 4, 1949, the entire team, the legendary "Grande Torino" (Great Turin), probably the best team ever playing in the "Serie A", was killed in a plane crash towards the hill of Superga, on the outskirts of Turin, and the club never recovered: after a decade of mediocre seasons they were relegated in 1959, although they returned to Serie A within a year.
By the early Sixties until the late Eighties, Torino has always got good results in "Serie A" (the Italian Premier League), including a further "Scudetto" in 1975-76. Since the end of the Eighties, they have rotated between "Serie A" and "Serie B", the top two divisions with little success, except a Coppa Italia in 1993 (and a Mitropa Cup win in 1991.
But in its worse seasons too, Torino has often reached good results in epic matches (the so-called "derbies") against the other Turin team, Juventus F.C.
Since 1990 the club have played in the 69,040 capacity Stadio Delle Alpi, shared with Juventus, the stadium is unpopular with the fans and clubs. Prior to 1990 the clubs shared the Stadio Comunale for thirty years, Torino moving there from the Stadio Filadelfia, the home of the "Grande Torino".
Noted past players include Valentino Mazzola (captain of the "Grande Torino"), Giorgio Ferrini, Gigi Meroni, Francesco Graziani, Paolino Pulici (three times Serie A best scorer), Leovegildo Lins Gama, nicknamed Junior (one of the players in the Brazilian Seleçao of the Eighties), Roberto Cravero, Gianluigi Lentini and Vincenzo Scifo.
League Champions: 7 times 1928, 1942-43, 1945-46, 1946-47, 1947-48, 1948-49, 1975-76 (plus once in 1927, "scudetto" never awarded to any other team)
Italian Cup: 5 times 1935-36, 1942-43, 1967-68, 1970-71, 1992-93. Runners-up 9 times.
Serie B Champions 3 times 1959-60, 1989-90, 2000-01.
UEFA Cup Runners up 1991-92
