‘Don’t worry,’ says one of my companions, sensing my apprehension at the growing gathering of Bianconeri shirts on the other side of the window. ‘There will be no trouble.’

Sure enough, the expressions on their faces are, far from anger, ones of utter bemusement. Some offer benign smiles, others wave in a mocking manner.

One or two perceptive types raise pointed fingers to their temples to suggest we are in need of getting our heads checked, that we are all at least one panini short of a picnic. They are probably right.

For seven priceless and peculiar days I followed football the Chievo way. Subscribing to the ideals of their unique breed of tifosi is effortlessly easy. The relationship is in danger of lasting a lifetime.

During those days I’ll meet the Guinness-supping President Luca, his best friend Paolo the postman and a doctor with Bart Simpson hair. I’ll pretend to know the words to a Chievo song for the Italian TV cameras, as those around me draped in yellow and blue perform some sort of demented dance.

I’ll look on dumbfounded as the Chievo players have the balls to take a 2-0 lead over Juventus in the Stadio delle Alpi, only to lose 3-2 to a dodgy late penalty. Most of all, I’ll learn that donkeys can fly.

The extraordinary rise of Chievo from the amateur ranks of Italian football to Serie A seems fairly ridiculous. We’re talking about a tiny suburb north of Verona. Chievo – population 2,700 – is the smallest community ever to produce a Serie A team. This in itself is remarkable but even the most cursory of glances at the route the club has taken makes the tale stand taller still.

The club began life as an after-hours factory team in 1929. And for a long time they remained in the virtual obscurity of regional calcio. Then in 1986 something stirred. Paluani Chievo – as they were then called – achieved the breakthrough of promotion to Serie C2, finally arriving in the professional ranks. The first chapter of a fairytale – there is no more suitable word for it – was penned. Chievo’s remarkable odyssey to the heady heights of Serie A has taken just 15 wondrous years.

In only their third C2 season, Chievo won promotion to C1. The switch meant new, more salubrious stadium surroundings too. Chievo stopped playing matches at the local ground – little more than a public park – and flitted to Verona’s Bentegodi, home of big neighbours Hellas.

After six campaigns in C1, Chievo were promoted again in 1994, under the guidance of Alberto Malesani. Now it was the brave new world of Serie B. For the next six seasons Chievo got by, finishing 13th, 14th, 7th, 11th, 11th again, and 13th.

Then Luigi Del Neri – a dead ringer for Rene from Allo Allo – arrived on the scene. In only his first season Chievo finished third behind Torino and Piacenza. This ensured a place in Serie A and the fantasy of clashes with Juventus, Roma and AC Milan became a reality. The dream came true and donkeys took to the skies.

Last weekend Chievo thrashed Piacenza 4-2, their third win from four in their debut Serie A season. The 2,700 inhabitants of Chievo are still adjusting to it all.

The fans are indebted to Del Neri, a journeyman coach who has kicked around calcio for years but had never stumbled upon something quite as big as this. To gain entry to Serie A in his first season at the helm was an awesome achievement. Now he finds himself pitting his tactical nous against the likes of Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello and Hector Cuper, only without their limitless resources and supernova stars.

Del Neri’s objective for this season is to guide Chievo to 14th place. In other words the bare minimum required for preserving their new-found status. Even that is a daunting task. Having brought Chievo to these heights, I ask Del Neri if he has any fear that the honeymoon might soon be over and that reality will bite when they get on the wrong end of a couple of thrashings. ‘Hopefully it will be honey all season,’ he says, ‘although maybe a bit of moon if we get relegated.’

This is standard talk from the man who, when asked what it felt like to be top of the table prior to the Juve game, said that only a drunk might have imagined such a scenario. After the home victory over Bologna, Del Neri said: ‘We are living a dream. I only hope that we don’t wake up too early.’

It may well be that Chievo are eventually shaken to their senses, but the limited squad that Del Neri has carefully assembled has the collective sensibility, fortitude and obdurate nature to cope with whatever is flung their way. While the club remains on a sound financial footing, they cannot bankroll big Serie A stars. They make do with what they have but, somehow, together they seem far more than the sum of their parts.

Del Neri describes his team’s approach as ‘bread and salami’ football. It is not chianti and truffles. He did acquire goalkeeper Cristiano Lupatelli from champions Roma in the summer, since when you are in Chievo’s situation you need someone strong and assured as the last line of defence, when the Batistutas and Shevchenkos of this world are threatening to burst your net.

The rock in the centre of defence is the captain Maurizio D’Angelo, who has been with the club for 12 years, since those far off days in C2. Perhaps their most ‘famous’ conscript is Eugenio Corini, the former Juventus midfielder, another anchor who seems forever at hand when the going gets tough.

Massimo Marazzina is the man they aim for when a swift attack is needed. The striker had indicated that he might prefer not to remain with this tiny club, even once they gained their miraculous promotion. Perhaps he will now stick around.

For a modicum of flair – Chievo play with few frills – there is young Brazilian winger Eriberto. Now he finds himself up against Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta. It is a daunting task, but Chievo’s players have discovered that nothing is impossible.

Del Neri, who subscribes to the Arrigo Sacchi ‘school’ of football, operates a 4-4-2 system with wide men bursting forward to support the attacking axis. For now it is working. Cynical observers wait for this beautiful bubble to burst, but there is no evidence of that happening so far.

Watching the Chievo carnival with a mixture of vexation and disbelief are the still-stupefied followers of Hellas Verona, long the pre-eminent team in the city. Hellas secured their one and only scudetto in 1985. Few successes have ventured their way since, but at least of the two teams playing home matches at the Stadio Bentegodi, theirs could lay claim to being the more feted. Until now.

Their hegemony is threatened and the vociferous fans of Hellas do not like it one bit. This becomes clear to me when I meet them at the Bar Bentegodi in the shadow of the stadium’s Curva Sud shortly after 10-man Hellas had fought out a scrappy 1-1 draw with Perugia.

If you start talking about Chievo you risk provoking a sharp response. The most common criticism is that 99 per cent of Chievo fans are not fans of Chievo. They all, I am told, really support Juventus or some other Italian giant.

Then there is the perception that Chievo represent the romantic while Hellas stand for, well, hooliganism, racism and calcio’s other manifold social ills. This gets their goat. A hard core of Hellas fans are pretty good at getting angry. For some, aside from the football, there is the perennially-popular pursuit of biffing police over the head.

Along with Atalanta, Brescia and Genoa, the Hellas Verona tifosi have, rightly or wrongly, gained a reputation for indulging in violence. As with several Italian clubs, such as Lazio, they are associated with the extreme right of the political spectrum.

Last season Hellas Verona president Giambattista Pastorello said that he dare not buy a black player for fear that it would infuriate the club’s racist support. His comments encapsulated Italian football’s most shameful sicknesses and drew much unwelcome attention towards Hellas.

Pastorello did in the end venture into the market, purchasing the Colombian Johnnier Montano. He became the first black player to represent the club for many years. It is a far cry from the inclusive culture of Chievo, the antithesis of Hellas. The antidote.

The author Tim Parks lives in Verona and has written a book on Hellas and their tifosi. He stands with them in the Curva Sud every home game. In the Bar Bentegodi he tells me about the camaraderie among Hellas fans on away trips and offers an insight at odds with the unsavoury reputation that precedes the Hellas support.

Whatever their manifest foibles, he would not swap joining them for the more sedate atmosphere that permeates their small city cousins. ‘Chievo are a joke,’ he smiles. ‘A frightening joke.’

When Chievo were promoted to Serie A, a joke put about by Hellas fans nearly backfired in spectacular fashion. For years the Hellas fans had mocked their tiny neighbours, displaying signs that proclaimed: ‘The day there is a Verona derby in Serie A will be the day donkeys fly.’

The donkeys will take to the skies on November 18 when the first Serie A Verona derby takes place. And it is Hellas who are fortunate to be able to fulfill that fixture, having only avoided relegation in a late great escape in a fractious play-off with Reggina.

After years of insufferable taunting it is payback time for Chievo’s modest band of fans. Most of those on the bus to the Juventus game are decked in the club’s yellow and blue colours, but some have, in addition, imprinted on their assorted baseball caps, flags, t-shirts and coats even, the words Mussi Volanti. Flying donkeys. The airborn asses of Chievo are not stupid. Nor are they without a sense of humour.

Mario Gibellini, the club’s press officer, has a sense of humour. He is also a great lover of country music, his other great passion besides Chievo Verona. Over a bowl of risotto he asks me how Raith Rovers are doing and outlines the timetable for the weekend trip to Turin to see Chievo’s first Serie A encounter with Juventus.

The next day we drive through mid-morning traffic to Chievo itself. There’s a sign with a sketch of a flying donkey on the road into this quiet suburb. Our first destination is the Bar Pantalona. Its frontage has several yellow Chievo flags draped over balconies.

Inside a group of elderly men sit round a table drinking vino bianco, debating the issues of the day. Paolo, the photographer, takes their picture. One of them whacks another over the head with a rolled up newspaper for no immediate reason. Two cyclists wander in to munch on pastries. And slowly Cheivo’s calcio fanatics begin to arrive for refreshment before the four-hour bus trip to Turin.

Augusta behind the bar offers me a salami sandwich. She runs the Pantalona with sister Elide and her son Marco. I hear their story. The Chievo players used to come here every day after training to enjoy her mother Maria’s cooking. This was when the team played in the tiny local ground before they moved to share the Bentegodi with Hellas.

‘For many years my mother worked for the club,’ says Marco, ‘every day until midnight, very hard. The players came here for their spaghetti. They called her Maria ‘Pantalona’. It was a nickname you see. Different days now.’

The bar clears just before 2pm as the hired buses arrive in the nearby Piazza Chievo under a large clock tower. Five full coaches will make the trip to Turin. Old and young, male and female, congregate under a perfect blue sky whose brightness matches their faces. There is much flag waving and the chanting begins. “Gialloblu … Forza Chievo Verona Gialloblu.” The odd passer-by pauses to observe the commotion.

The journey is barely underway before everyone on bus No.3 knows there is a giornalista Scozzese on board. Much ciaoing takes place as I meet the fans. Straightaway the impression put across is of a genuine family club.

Pasquale Cornetti, 20, and his two sisters Lucia, 24, and Rosario, 17, are in this together, though Pasquale points out that he has been a fan the longest. For Mariotto Stefania, 22, this is her first sampling of the Chievo experience. ‘My friends have spoken about Chievo very highly. I had followed the team on TV but wanted to know the other supporters on such a great day as this. For me this is the baptism.’

Alberto Piubello, 38, evidently has Gialloblu blood coursing through his veins. His hair is dyed custard-coloured too in honour of the occasion. Not only are Chievo preparing to face Juventus but the match is also, surreally, a top-of-the-table clash. Chievo have surpassed expectations by claiming the scalps of both Fiorentina and Bologna.

I ask Alberto if they can make it a trio of triumphs. ‘I hope to win but I don’t know. I hope 1-0, in the last minute. That will do.’ A doctor by profession, Alberto has spent the past several years working in Cameroon. He informs me that friends sent over football jerseys and boots for a team to play in Africa in Chievo colours. Money was also raised for hospital equipment.

When Alberto first heard of his team’s ascendancy to Serie A he had some trouble believing it. ‘I thought it was a joke. But I came back for the 10-day celebration feast in the town. This too is incredible. Now you can see that the donkeys are flying.’

Some song breaks out on the bus, a song I wish I knew and understood the words to. The TV cameraman, hitherto unnoticed, rises from his seat to capture the moment and a man with a microphone conducts some interviews. The noise increases and everyone is now on their feet executing a synchronised jig that is not far off the Hokey Cokey. I can do this part. I mouth vague approximations of the lyrics.

Small-scale pandemonium continues inside the Stadio delle Alpi. The Chievo fans have the most modest of sections and do not fill even that, but they are big in spirit and this is their night. When the impossible happens and Marazzina twice breaches Gigi Buffon’s goal in an unbelievable opening spell, the Gialloblu fans hug one another with uncontained delight.

The front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport had pitched this encounter as ‘Davide Contro Golia’ complete with illustration of Corini peering up and taking aim with his sling at Juve’s monolithic defender Lilian Thuram. Having been hit by Chievo on the pitch, Juve fight back and equalize before Marcelo Salas nets a cruel penalty decider.

Despondency did not immediately set in however. The Chievo fans are soon bellowing out their favourite hits all the way back to the awaiting buses. The mood on the return to Verona is more sombre, though there is plenty of tiredness in the air too. It says much about Chievo’s rapid progress that the fans feel crushed by this narrow defeat to Juve. Some want me to believe the handball for the penalty had been a figment of the Juve-favouring ref’s imagination. I believe them, sharing in their frustration.

Student Alberto Noventa, 27, prefers to focus on what the day meant to him. ‘It is better this way. There is no violence, nothing offensive. It’s a new way to live. The people are happy even if they are tired after these miles. This is all about family and children. We have something new that has been started by Chievo.’

After rolling into town in the early hours of Sunday morning I take leave of my new friends. We shake hands and bid goodbye. Apart from the courteousness, the other thing that struck me was that I could not remember seeing anyone at any time drinking on the bus. They didn’t need to. These people were high on an infectious happiness.

The night after the morning after, I make for the Balmoral Bar – yes, really – in central Verona to meet the man most responsible for Chievo’s success, Luca Campedelli. With me already are Paolo Messina and his girlfriend Roberta. Paolo will be delivering mail come the morning but for now he is posting orders to the bar for more Guinness.

Luca arrives with his wife Chiara, and Paolo makes the necessary introductions. He also makes big ear motions in Luca’s direction. ‘There is your flying donkey,’ he roars, pointing at Luca. The president does have fairly large ears but I am more struck by how ordinary he looks. In sweatshirt and jeans he could be any 32-year-old guy.

Luca is a quiet talker and he weighs his words carefully. He relates his childhood fascination with Subbuteo, British football strips and grounds and his love of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. He also tells me of the time when, driving past Stirling, he saw a sign for ‘football traffic’. He took the route to Forthbank and upon arriving at Stirling Albion’s ground asked someone where the club shop was. They laughed at him. He becomes lyrical about Celtic Park. One of Luca’s wishes is that he be buried nearby ‘in eternal repose’ as he put it. He has shares in both Manchester United and Celtic.

We’ll talk football again the next day, but for now Luca wants to relax. Having worked up a sufficient appetite we go to the San Matteo restaurant inside a converted church for late-night pizza. The restaurant is packed but Luca’s well-known face prompts an outburst of enthusiastic applause from all corners of the room as we are ushered to our seats. A bashful Luca does not know where to look. Paolo the postman teases him some more.

Paolo is in a predicament because of some split allegiances. He is a life-long Hellas Verona fan but, as Luca’s friend, now finds himself parked in a VIP seat on match days next to the Chievo president. This causes him no little consternation and Luca much amusement.

Matters will come to a head in November on derby day. Paolo is perplexed as to what to do should Hellas score. To make matters worse, derby day is also his 34th birthday. He fears his Hellas pals in the Curva Sud will prepare a special greeting on a giant banner for his specific attention. The message conveyed will not presumably be one of many happy returns.

The next morning, at the Chievo offices, Luca Campedelli looks every inch the businessman, albeit with a tiny club badge pinned to his suit jacket. Soon he is off to Milan for a TV interview. The previous week Channel 4’s Football Italia crew had dropped by. Besides football matters Luca must keep a keen eye on the business which funds much of Chievo’s work and supplements the lire from TV revenue.

Luca’s company Paluani, which makes Pandoro Christmas cake, has its name on the team shirts. Between confectionery and Chievo he is permanently occupied. But all the work is to one end: to honour his father. Luigi Campedelli was the original guiding force behind Chievo. Were it not for his work the club would not be where they are today and his son knows this more than anyone.

Luca’s father died of a heart attack on September 15, 1992. Days later the grieving young son was already adjusting to the twin roles of running Paluani and presiding over Chievo. The Serie A game with Juventus was notable also for it falling on the anniversary of Luigi Campedelli’s death. With thoughts of his dear father never far away, Luca felt his presence keenly in the delle Alpi that night.

‘The club for me is like my father. I think if I can guide the club then OK, my father is happy, but if I guide the club into bad water I think my father doesn’t like it. So I hope to continue to make the best for the club.

‘It is important for me to honour the memory of my father. I think he was happy to see his team play that way against Juventus because I think we made a great game and the players honoured the jersey. I imagine my father would be happy but I think he knows the final results before me.’

Football helped him know his father better. Day trips watching Chievo as a youngster were instructive. ‘It was a way to know my father because he was busy with the company and had not much time. But on Sundays I would go to grounds with him and his friends. I listened to them talking. I would hear the history of his youth. So I fell in love with football and then with Chievo Verona. That is why.’

The president points out a strikingly colourful mural on the wall of the room we are occupying, depicting figures from Chievo past and present, including Luca’s father and his own good self. ‘For me it makes a beautiful picture. I think that only if you know where you started can you go on.’

A space has been reserved on another wall for a painting of the 2000-2001 team that won promotion from Serie B. Luca does not know if the team will remain in Serie A, but his perspective on that is typical, if partly borrowed.

‘I think Nick Hornby speaks a good truth. Every September a new season starts. I think it is possible for us not to be relegated but it isn’t the end if we are. We must follow the moment and make something extremely special. But we must stay like we are too. We can’t become a Juventus or Inter. We are Chievo Verona. The spirit is to not surrender that.’

Last season Chievo sold 1,300 season tickets. This time the figure has already passed the 4,000 mark, more than the population of the town itself. The news is spreading. Luca respects the fans as they do him. Like the team, they fill him with pride.

‘Our supporters are real supporters. I don’t know why a supporter must kick someone or punch another. I think the supporter must only support the team. That’s it and at the end of the game they are a normal person. It is not a matter of life and death, but some think so.

‘For me it is the wrong way to think. Racism and discrimination are wrong. I don’t distinguish between white, black, Jew, Muslim or Catholic. I think only if he is a good or a bad player. Our supporters are an example. If Chievo Verona are the only ones who want to change the world they can change it a little bit.’

Candid but controlled. That is Luca Campedelli. There is another one too though. The Luca that ties himself in knots of anxiety long before his team take to the field. His friend Paolo told me how every Friday night the two of them and their partners meet in the same bar, the Highlander. They take the same table and the same seating arrangements. The routine soothes Luca on the eve of a match.

Nothing can help him, though, once the moment of reckoning arrives, or even in the lead up to it for that matter. ‘For four hours before and after a game I get nervous. I talk to myself. Anyone sitting near me in the stadium would think I’m a crazy person.’

Before he leaves for Milan, crazy Luca presents me with three Chievo shirts, the home (based partly on an early nineties Manchester United top), the away and a third change strip.

When he is gone I meet briefly with Marco Pacione who once led the line for Juventus in the same side as Michel Platini, Michael Laudrup and Ivano Bonetti. He played for Juve in Europe against Barcelona when Steve Archibald was at the Nou Camp. Asked about this clash, Pacione says simply: ‘Archibald scored, I didn’t.’

He has worked for Chievo since 1995 on team matters, helping with player issues and was also the sole press officer until Mario arrived. Pacione enjoyed Chievo’s night in Turin immensely. ‘It gave me great satisfaction, most of all to see Chievo fight openly with the strongest team in Italy.’

Coach Del Neri extracted much pleasure from the evening too. He made no fuss about the Juve penalty which to most seemed a gross injustice. He is happy to make a fuss about the fans, though, the small but devoted band of Chievo followers who bring a bit of the Gialloblu to every game.

‘They are fantastic. They are different from other supporters. It is the same for the fans as it is the team. They both rely on values that others don’t rely on so much, ones that are maybe out of fashion. Support the team. Do not insult others. Be glad when you win and if you lose there will always be another match.’

It is the sentiment of former president Luigi Campedelli, inherited and understood by son Luca who guards it with integrity. It can be glimpsed in the behaviour of both the team and the tifosi. It is simply the Chievo way and it shall not change.

This article appeared in Scotland on Sunday in September 2001.