In the golden era of Sudbury men’s soccer that was the 1960’s, everyone knew the name: Ferruccio Deni.

Yet if not for some bad luck in timing of a week or two, it is possible that his name might have been far more well-known on a much more global basis.

Such was the potential that the now 82 year-old long-time Sudbury native displayed in the Beautiful Game, dating back to his early years in his hometown of Piran and his more developmental stage (ages 7-16 or so) in the Italian seaside port city of Trieste.

While Deni is of proud Italian heritage, his place of birth now sits within the borders of Slovenia – a fact that is paramount to his story in soccer. In 1954, the town of Piran was annexed to Yugoslavia, effectively casting Deni and his family into the status of refugees.

“After the war, the Allies held that region,” recently noted the man who would go on to spend more than 40 years working at Inco. “Where I am from, more people were killed after the war than during the war. They took some of the land that my grandfather owned.”

Thankfully, Trieste remained largely under Italian rule – and was but 20 kilometres or so down the road. It was here that the young soccer star cut his teeth in the sport, invited to a regional tryout in 1959, something akin to playing for Team Ontario, Deni explained.

“It was my dream to play for A.C. Milan,” he said. “That’s my team.”

In the spring of 1960, Deni would receive his release from the regional team in Bolzano, quickly offered a spot with the A.C. Milan junior crew. “The week after I signed with Milan, the papers came to move to Canada.”

While there was some family discussion about allowing the teenager to remain behind and pursue the pathway of professional soccer, the uncertainty that existed in that area in the post-war era combined with the opportunity that was presented as a British-owned company undertook the sponsorship of some twenty or so Italian families to the sugar beet farms of Chatham (Ontario) and area was undeniable.

For as much as Ferrucci Deni went on the accomplish – and it was plenty, both on the field of play as well as through his career as a mechanic, shift manager and eventually a general foreman – there is always that element of lingering doubt.

“It was always in my mind whether I was good enough to make it,” he said.

Milan’s loss would be Sudbury’s gain.

Though his work/life balance in Chatham would make it next to impossible to progress on the pitch at the same rate he would have in Italy, Deni quickly created a name for himself in soccer in Canada.

“I went out for tryouts with the Chatham Rangers,” he recalled. “I had really bad shoes and lost a toe nail.”

A 5’10” defender and centerback in his youth, blessed with a quickness and a very strong ability to leap airborne, Deni would find himself shifting gears in the new country. “There was nobody at forward on our team who could score any goals, so I had to become a forward,” he said.

And what a forward he was – as folks in these parts know all too well.

Following the three year work commitment to remain in the Chatham area, Deni found himself being recruited by the Italia Flyers in Sudbury, with none other that legendary team manager Carmen Santoro making the trip south as word of the arrival of the talented young Italian spread across the province.

A bit of back and forth ensued, for a year or so – until his pathway veered north - permanently.

In 1963, a stroke of bad luck paved the way for what would become a soccer career in the Nickel City that landed Deni in the Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame in 2011. Hired on by International Harvester the year prior, the recent immigrant was more than a little thankful, the company offering among the best wages in the land.

But a summer shutdown some 12 months later would mean a layoff for Deni and others, the young man opting to reconnect with the Flyers. On a personal level, he would connect with Marta Volpini – the woman who remains, to this day, the love of his life.

“I had intended to go back (to Chatham),” said Deni. “But we started going out, I got called back and though: forget about going back. She was more important than my job.”

The timing was magical as Deni combined with the likes of Eddie Palladino, Mario Zuliani, John Dagostino and the balance of the ’64 Flyers to stage a two-game Eastern Canadian championship set with the St Paul’s Rovers of Montreal that ranks easily among the greatest soccer highlights in the history of our city.

A 2-2 draw on the road earned with just nine players on the pitch for most of the game forced a rematch in northern Ontario. “I remember that 1964 game so well,” Deni noted at the time of his induction to the Hall of Fame more than a decade ago. “We had a couple of thousand people or more at Queen’s Athletic Field.”

“Even before the game, the enthusiasm and support that we were getting from our fans was unblievable.”

Ironically, the man who would lead the NSL (National Soccer League) in scoring in 1971, one of a those years when the Flyers opted to competed in the provincial loop, suggested the best team he ever played on was likely the 1969 Sudbury United. Welcoming a trio of players from the Jamaican national team along with a handful of remaining out-of-town talent, the team enjoyed a summer to remember.

Mixing in a couple of years with the Sudbury Cyclones in the seventies, Deni continued to play for another decade or so, by-passing tryouts with Toronto Croatia and a team in Washington (D.C.) given the career he was forging at Inco.

There is very little in the way of regret in the voice of Ferruccio Deni regarding his journey. It is more of just a casual questioning, the inevitable “what if” that might cause his mind to drift.

“The most important years for any sport development are between 14 and 18,” he suggested. “I am pretty sure if I would have stayed, I would have been a different player. In Italy, in socce, that’s all you do.”