THE ORIGIN OF THE MIGHTY BICYCLE KICK

[Caniggia]

Probably all of us recognize very well the mighty Bicycle Kick in so many albums Panini. But almost probably several collectors not from Italy (and also younger from my country) don't know the origin.

In Italy we call "LA ROVESCIATA DI PAROLA" in english "THE PAROLA'S BICYCLE KICK".

Carlo Parola was a player of Juventus, the imagine of Panini was taken during the match Juventus-Fiorentina in 1950, so 10 years before the birth of Panini! The picture of Parola was already famous before Panini, but with stickers started to be mighty.

At the beginning, Parola didn't ask any royalty to use this picture. Later (with suggestion of Giampiero Boniberti, at that time President of Juventus) the player made a deal with Panini and they payed 10 millions italian lire for that (i'm not sure about period, I think in the 70's)

 

[Pavle]

Wow, fantastic story, thank you so much for sharing it. It deserves to be on this site. I was aware that Panini´s logo was actually Parola, but had no idea about the match from which it was taken. Also the story about licensing sounds interesting. Seams like Parola decided to take a bit of cash from the side

Any idea how much 100 million Italian lire is in euros or dollars now? At least approximately?

 

[Caniggia]

sorry @Pavle i have putted one 0 more! was 10 millions of italian lire, current amount shall be around 150 millions (more or less) of lire now, so that means around 75000 euro. Not so much now, but 40 years ago was different.

 

[Caniggia]

anyway Parola was not going on goal, was a defensive action

 

[Caniggia]

Also the colors: red shirt, white shorts, yellow/black socks was not a casual choice, because was not similar with any italian team... now maybe is different, you can check how is similar with BICYCLE KICK of Francesco Totti, not?

 

[Pei]

Great story, I didn't know it, thanks for sharing !

For all those years, did they make any changes to this logo ?
Is there a sticker used or printed by Panini for the whole picture ?

 

[Caniggia]

You mean whole original picture? i don't think so. And logo is still the same, I don't know if they have changed for other national championship, probably yes because i'm quiet sure there are teams with this kind of shirt/shorts somewhere... and I should check if in some italian packet they have changed something, but if i remember well never happened

 

[Mariano Arias]

In Old School also appear the name of the photographer: Mr Corrado Bianchi. The match finish 0-0. Because this play Parola get the nick name of "Mr. Rovesciata" (Mr. Bicycle Kick). Excelent Post

 

[dantzig]

Parola's pointy finger on his right hand gives another style

I thought a bicycle kick should always be backwards, but Wikipedia tells me that it can also be sideways... Thought those were "volley shots".

 

[Agustín]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this!

 

[beto18]

Today we remember 19 years of the death of Carlo Parola and I justly have an article that I want to share in the forum with all of you. Carries more information about this beautiful story that @Caniggia told us a while ago.

“LA ROVESCIATA DI PAROLA”​

It was an afternoon on Sunday, January 15, 1950 to be exact: in the city of Florence - Italy in a football match for Serie A between Fiorentina and Juventus.

Although the game ended tied 0-0 and there were no goals but something unexpected happened: Juventus player "Carlo Parola" in the last passages of the game, kicked the ball with a spectacular acrobatics and luckily for all of us, there he was the photographer "Corrado Bianchi" who could take this fantastic photograph.

​

11 years later: in the year 1961 in the city of Modena - Italy, the PANINI publishing house was born with a logo consisting of a knight in armor, which carries a spear in one hand and a shield in the other.

But a couple of years later, they decided to use the image of Carlo Parola's acrobatics to create his official logo that is printed on most of his albums dedicated exclusively to football competitions.
This logo is present, either on the cover of your albums or on one of your stickers and also on some of your envelopes.

"Carlo Parola" an extraordinary Italian footballer who in his position as central defender or defender liked to ward off the ball from his area with that kind of acrobatics.
Of all the ones he did, the most famous is the one of this image, better known as (in Italian: "LA ROVESCIATA DI PAROLA") considered the most famous photograph of Italian football of all times and this acrobatics will also remain forever in the history of the PANINI publishing.

 

[Suisse]

La rovesciata di Parola , 0.23mn