VARESE (Basketball Champions League) - A few weeks ago, 98-year-old Enrico Colli obtained his 2016-17 Openjobmetis Varese season-ticket. It is a ritual he has upheld every year since the club was founded in 1945. In the 1950s, his son Pietro became the second Varese season-ticket holder in the Colli family. Then a couple of decades later the family began to occupy three seats at Palasport Lino Oldrini, as grandson Enrico joined in the family tradition.

"In my opinion, the root of the fans' loyalty is the fact this club has never given up, even when it went through very testing times," Pietro Colli, who is now 73, explained to www.championsleague.basketball. "For sure the club does not have a big budget in recent decades but they have always kept the fans involved and the city of Varese recognises this. The fans have always been very close with the team. After home games the players will go to the same pizzeria to have dinner and we can go as well and spend time together and chat about the game. This is the kind of things that fans of any generation appreciate."

"Obviously we lived marvellous times when we were winning the one trophy after the other in the 1970s [Varese won five European Champions' Cup trophies in that decade], I remember vividly the times of the great Ignis. But also the championship title of 1999 and the 'Indimenticabili' [the unforgettables] of 2012-13, when we took first place in the Regular Season and came close to snatching the title from Siena were fantastic moments for us."

The retired couple of Sergio Colombo and Raffaella Galmarini is another unique case of utmost dedication among the large Varese fanbase. Affectionately known within the club as the 'EuroTifosi', they have travelled to support the team to every game they have played on the road since 2008, either in Italy or in Europe. They have followed Varese everywhere from Belarus to Cyprus, from Sweden to Turkey.

Varese fans watching the FIBA Europe Cup 2016 final against Fraport Skyliners in the city's main square (photo courtesy of Stefano Benvegnù/Varese Press)

Then are those for whom being a Varese fan became, quite literally, a life-defining choice. Marco Fanfoni, who is now 30, met his fiancée at Lino Oldrini arena, during a pre-season friendly game in the summer of 2007. They never miss a game, even though often times it means he needs to drive as many as 300 kilometres to get to Varese.

"I lived for a while in Rome and then later I moved to Pavia (100 kilometres from Varese) and started working in Ferrara (300 kilometres from Varese) but I never lost contact with my family in Varese, my uncle was the person to transmit this passion for basketball to me," Fanfoni explained. "So every time we play a home game I arrange to take a shift at work that will allow me to go to Varese straight from Pavia and get seated in the stands together with my fiancée."

"The most beautiful thing about Varese is that we are like a big family, you enter the arena and you know everybody, you salute everybody. So you feel the need to go to the gym to see these people, to take in this atmosphere. From then on, it doesn’t take much to get us excited, if a talented player gets going or we play a good game, you cannot wait to go back for the next game.

"Varese fans are very basketball-savvy and of course this means that when the team is not doing well everybody in the stands turns into a professor," Fanfoni added laughingly. "But when you look at other basketball cities like Bologna for example, which now doesn't have either of its teams playing in Serie A anymore, you understand we have to grateful for the fact that we have survived in the top flight through thick and thin."

While every Varese faithful freely admits that the club's budget for the season is modest, their exciting run to the FIBA Europe Cup final last year and their recent qualification to the inaugural Basketball Champions has instilled a generous dose of optimism.

"They have put together a nice team for us this year, we will enjoy watching it and hopefully it will gift us some joyful moments," said Pietro Colli. "We are happy to be back to the Basketball Champions League and we hope to do well at least in the Regular Season, to compete well."

Marco Fanfoni conceeds that EA7 Emporio Armani Milano are firm favourites in the Serie A but is equally optimistic for the season ahead.

"Coach Moretti is a guarantee for the team, his system last year was the key to having a good season despite needing to make a lot of changes," he said. "This year the team was put together early, the Italian players stayed with us, so there is an expectation that we will do better."