Robur Basket Saronno

A 1955 club in a factory town

Robur Basket Saronno has been registered with the Italian basketball federation since 1955, which makes it the fifth-oldest club in Lombardy and comfortably the oldest sporting institution of its kind in Saronno, a town of around 40,000 people on the railway line between Milan and Varese. It plays in white and blue, and since 1983 it has played at the Centro Sportivo Monsignor Ronchi on via Colombo — the PalaRonchi, a municipal sports hall rather than an arena, with the court, the benches and the crowd all within a few metres of each other.

The club's modern identity was shaped in the 1980s by Charlie Yelverton, an American forward who had played in the NBA before leaving the United States, and who arrived in Saronno as a player and stayed roughly two decades as a coach. He took the first team up to Serie C Nazionale in 1985 and brought an American-inflected approach to a club that had previously been strictly provincial. The youth programme that now carries the club was set up in that same period with his backing; it runs as a satellite organisation and today registers more than 300 players across eight teams, from minibasket up to Under-19, plus a development side in regional competition.

The climb, and then two drops

The trophy record is a lower-division record, and the club does not pretend otherwise: a Prima Divisione title in 1972/73, Serie D in 1985/86, then three Serie C Gold championships in 1915/16 — corrected, 2015/16 — followed by 2020/21 and 2022/23, with the Coppa Lombardia won in 2022 and again in 2024. The 2022/23 C Gold title was the one that mattered most, because it started the run that carried the first team as high as Serie B Nazionale by 2024, the fourth tier of Italian basketball and the highest level Saronno had reached.

That stay was short. The club came out of Serie B Nazionale after the 2024/25 season, having played 37 matches and averaged 80.8 points a game without ever looking settled, and dropped into Serie B Interregionale. The following season went the same way. Saronno finished 2025/26 in the relegation play-outs, lost a semi-final 78-71 — more precisely, fell 71-78 to Jadran Trieste in mid-May — and then met BluOrobica Bergamo in the play-out final, a best-of-three with survival as the prize.

Bergamo won the opener 78-74. Game two, at the PalaRonchi on 25 May 2026, went to extra time at 63-63 before Bergamo closed it 76-69; Odiphri, Polanco and Sergio scored 18 apiece for the visitors, while Acunzo had 15 for Saronno and Pellegrini and Redaelli 13 each. Under coach Ansaloni, with a squad that mixed senior professionals and prospects on loan from Cantù's development programme, the club had been relegated in two consecutive seasons and was formally out of Serie B altogether.

Reinstated, rebuilt, and back in

The relegation did not stick. Saronno was reinstated through a repechage over the summer of 2026, helped by a vacancy created when Progetto Ma.Go withdrew from the division, and on 21 July 2026 the federation confirmed the groups: Saronno in Group A of the northern conference, a 15-club pool drawn from Lombardy, Piedmont and Sardinia. The local press flagged the obvious consequence immediately — two trips to the islands, Esperia Olimpia Cagliari in November and Pallacanestro Sennori on 22 December, which for a club of this size is a logistical problem as much as a sporting one.

The rebuild around that reprieve was done quickly. On 14 July the club presented a reshaped technical staff for the youth sector; on 27 July it appointed Marco Coppo as sporting director; in early August the second team's promotion to Divisione Regionale 1 was confirmed with its own group. The first team went to Matteo Bonassi, assisted by Alessandro Girotto, with a 14-man roster deliberately weighted towards Under-19 players alongside returning seniors — Matteo Molteni, Bogdan Zimonjic, Acunzo, Redaelli, Pellegrini, Bagordo, Panceri, Pavese.

Pre-season gave an honest reading. On 19 September, in the last friendly before the league started, Sangiorgese — a division above — led 50-29 at half-time and won 93-76, with former Saronno player De Capitani in their line-up. The coaching staff used it to spread minutes rather than to chase a result.

Two rounds, two very different nights

The season opened at home on Saturday 26 September 2026 at 21:00 against Nervianese, a fixture close enough geographically to count as a derby, and it produced the best night the PalaRonchi has had in some time. Saronno went 9-1 up through Zimonjic, trailed 18-14 after the first quarter, led 46-40 at the break and then pulled clear to 66-50 by the end of the third. Nervianese responded with an 18-2 run built on Balconi's three-point shooting to level at 68-68, before Acunzo converted a basket and the foul for the decisive 2+1. It finished 77-73, with Acunzo on 16, Zimonjic 14, Redaelli 11 and Molteni and Bagordo nine each.

Round two, on 4 October, was the correction. The first away trip of the season took the squad to Riso Scotti Pavia, one of the group favourites, and Pavia settled it inside the opening ten minutes with a 10-1 burst before winning 104-66. Molteni scored 22 for Saronno; Pavese added nine, Panceri and Acunzo eight each. Neri led Pavia with 20, backed by Zanetti, Fazzi, Savio and Pellegrini in double figures.

That left the club at one win and one defeat, fifth in the group, with Molteni averaging 15.5 points through two games. The gap between the two performances — competitive for forty minutes against a neighbour, outclassed by a budget side — is a fair description of where Saronno sits in this division after being handed its place back.

The PalaRonchi on a Saturday

Season tickets went on sale on Monday 21 September through the club's Ticketmaster page and over the counter at the PalaRonchi administrative office, which opens Tuesday to Friday afternoons. A full-season pass costs €90, dropping to €50 for existing members under a family scheme; a single match is €10 and under-16s get in free. The campaign was pitched on the idea of one team pulling together, which is also roughly the club's operating model: it has publicly asked for more sponsors and more volunteers to carry the cost of running a Serie B side.

Not everyone was persuaded. The comment threads under the ticketing announcement in the local paper carried straightforward complaints that the prices sit high for the level of basketball on offer — the sort of argument a club that has just been relegated twice and reinstated once can expect to have with its own support.

The fixture pattern favours the home crowd early: eight of the first fifteen rounds are at the PalaRonchi. December is the test, with five matches in eighteen days after a bye week, ending with the trip to Sennori on 22 December.

What the next few months decide

Nothing about the 2026/27 season reads as a push for promotion. The stated shape of the project is a young roster under a new head coach, a new sporting director, a second team learning its trade a division down, and a youth system of 300-plus players that the club itself describes as its main asset. Survival in Serie B Interregionale on merit, rather than by federation paperwork, would be the meaningful result.

The group makes that harder than it needs to be. Pavia have already shown what the top of the pool looks like, the Sardinian fixtures cost money and legs, and the margin for error in a 15-team table with play-outs at the bottom is narrow. The derbies — Nervianese, the Varese sides — are where Saronno has historically got its points, and the opening night suggested that much still holds.