MILAN - "You need to have a screw loose upstairs if you want to play in goal." That was the theory of Leigh Richmond Roose, a Welsh keeper for Stoke City at the turn of the 20th century. The powerful custodian presented his theory to Vittorio Pozzo when the national team head coach was in England studying football in its homeland.
Pozzo was impressed by Roose, who loved taking risks and didn't seem to be afraid of anything. Madness, yes, but a healthy dose of bravery too. Those were the same attributes that Pozzo discovered around 25 years later in a goalkeeper at Brescia. His name was Giuseppe Peruchetti, known simply to his childhood friends in Gardone Val Trompia (just outside Brescia) as "Bepi".
In 1936, Pozzo called him up to the national team for two matches against Austria and Hungary. That summer, Ambrosiana-Inter bought him to replace Carlo Ceresoli, after the latter joined Bologna. When he moved to Milan, Peruchetti was 28 and had suffered a hard life. An orphan, he held a series of blue-collar jobs, before becoming the Brescia goalkeeper and setting a club record of 749 minutes without conceding, which would stand for 79 years.
Peruchetti was not lacking in courage and madness. He became famous for coming out to punch corners clear, at a time in which people really got amongst goalkeepers. He had unusually good reflexes - reactions and athleticism that allowed him to dive from one post to the other. Indeed it was claimed in Gardone Val Trompia that he could cover the width of the goal in a single dive. And, as we know, you need a screw loose to be able to fly.
With Ambrosiana-Inter, a side featuring the magnificent Giuseppe Meazza, he won two league titles and a Coppa Italia between 1936 and 1940. His star turns won the hearts and minds of supporters and the press, who dubbed him the Black Panther on account of his agility and the colour of the kit he usually wore. He loved to entertain team-mates with card tricks and hated to set up a wall to defend free-kicks. He preferred to watch the ball flight and outfox the opposition player by "giving him the eyes". He wanted to have space to dive. There are countless tales about Bepi, who was quick-witted as well as being fast on his feet. His mates in Gardone used to say that when he had a quiet game, he would fight boredom by sitting by a post or even perching atop the crossbar.
After four seasons as a player, he became the coach of Ambrosiana-Inter along with Italo Zamberletti. He only served one campaign in the Nerazzurri dugout, before resuming his playing career. He did so for Juventus, for whom he played between 1941 and 1944, winning the Coppa Italia along the way. He didn't play at all in the final year of his career, however. Beginning on 10 October 1944, with "Beppe" as his moniker in battle, he served as part of the partisan militia in the Langhe Second Division. There he was taken prisoner by the Arditi special forces and jailed in Alba. He was sentenced to death but managed to survive after the conviction was reduced to a prison spell.
After surviving the war, he coached Reggina before returning to the area surrounding Brescia, where he continued his career in football. He worked as a scout and coach of AC Beretta and went on regaling his friends with anecdotes about his personal feats. "I enjoyed 22 unforgettable years in football, despite two concussions and breaking my meniscus twice. That's without mentioning the gunshot wound to the lungs I suffered during the war," he said in an interview in 1987. But that's who Peruchetti was. A candid daredevil, willing to do anything just to fly. He died on 21 May 1995, after falling from the window of his home in Gardone Val Trompia. That proved to be the final tragic flight of Bepi Peruchetti, the Black Panther with a tiny screw loose upstairs.
Davide Zanelli
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