Close to the historic city centre of Florence, slightly off the beaten track, there is a bar called Antico Beccaria. The local is the quintessential football pub and distinctly partisan in nature. As a home for Fiorentina supporters, it’s walled are adorned with purple decor, the menu includes panini named after current and former players, and you can even buy bottles of Birra Fiorentina, a violet-coloured beer that comes in a bottle emblazoned with the club emblem. Then there are the customised receipts, which do not wish you the usual “arrivederci” at the bottom but are marked with “Juve Merda” (“Juve Shit”).

As the owner of the bar acknowledges, the message is tongue in cheek – a playful reminder of Fiorentina’s public enemy No1. But such sentiments are woven into the fabric of Florentine society. Anti-Juventus graffiti is visible across the city and anti-Juve scarves are plentiful on match days.

This aversion to the Turin giants is not uncommon. As the most successful club in Italy, they attract envy, enemies and admirers the length and breadth of the country. Florence, however, is a one-club city. Those native to the Tuscan capital look no further than Fiorentina and they are proud in the knowledge that they harbour no Juventus fan clubs. Perhaps only Rome, which is exclusively consumed by the Lazio-Roma divide, can boast the same footballing insularity.

Fiorentina supporters have rendered their city a “zona anti-gobbizzata” (“anti-hunchback zone”). The term “gobbi’ is commonly used to disparage Juventini. Depending on which myth you believe, the slight is either a reference to Juve’s fortune (Italian superstition has it that hunchbacks are lucky); Juve’s guilt of being weighed down by stolen titles; or to their supporters, many of whom developed hunches as a result of their backbreaking work in the Fiat factories of Juve’s owners, the Agnelli family.

It is not uncommon to see Fiorentina supporters wearing T-shirts that read “grazie a Dio non sono gobbo” (“thank God I’m not a hunchback”) and, at the heart of their animosity, lies accusations of theft. In 1928, the Juventus thrashed Fiorentina 11-0 in the first competitive fixture between the two clubs. Relations were not off to a good start and an equally painful 8-0 defeat for Fiorentina 25 years later only aggravated matters. Nonetheless, the rivalry between Turin and Florence was relatively nondescript until the title race of 1981-82.

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Heading into the last game of the season, both clubs were tied on 44 points at the top of Serie A. Fiorentina travelled to Cagliari, who themselves needed a point to avoid relegation, while Juventus faced Catanzaro, who were sitting comfortably in mid-table. With both games goalless in the second-half, Francesco Graziani thought he had broken the deadlock for Fiorentina only to see his goal dubiously disallowed for a push on the goalkeeper. Fiorentina were unable to break down Cagliari and had to settle for a 0-0 draw, while Juventus found a late winner against Catanzaro, courtesy of a Liam Brady penalty. The awarding of Juve’s spot-kick was indisputable, but Catanzaro had also been denied what looked like a certain penalty in the first half.

Fiorentina’s burning sense of injustice was palpable and their talisman, Giancarlo Antognoni, fired the first broadside. “They robbed us of the title,” he claimed. Juventus fans celebrated their 20th Scudetto and in Florence they coined the slogan “beglio secondo che ladri” (“better to be second than thieves”).

Eight years later, tensions were fomented when Juventus beat Fiorentina in the Uefa Cup final. Again, the encounter provoked controversy. With the first leg in Turin tied at 1-1, officials missed a blatant push by Pierluigi Casiraghi on Fiorentina’s Celeste Pin, allowing Alessio Angelo to fire the home side in front. The game finished 3-1 and, as Juve coach Dino Zoff gave his post-match interview, Pin walked past and yelled “ladri” (“thieves”) in earshot of Zoff and the microphones. Juve’s goalkeeper Stefano Tacconi later reminded Fiorentina that, while they might win the war of words, his side would win on the pitch. He was right. The Bianconeri lifted the Uefa Cup after a goalless draw in the return leg in Florence.

But worse was to come for La Viola. Rumours had circulated that Fiorentina’s president, Flavio Pontello, was considering the sale of the club’s prized asset: Roberto Baggio. Predictably, their arch-rivals were willing to pay his then world-record fee of £8m. The Divine Ponytail joined Juventus shortly after the Uefa Cup final and a furore erupted in Florence.

Fans laid siege to the club’s headquarters and reports described bricks, chains and Molotov cocktails being thrown by the riotous fans. In the two days following the transfer, president Pontello was forced to take refuge in the Stadio Artemio Franchi, while 50 injuries and nine arrests were recorded. When Baggio returned in his new colours, the city was on edge.

Giancarlo Rinaldi, a Viola fan who was in Florence at the time, recalls the hostility: “The atmosphere was the most intense I can ever remember before a match, with huge tension and a genuine air of menace on the streets. Florence was still hurting after that transfer and there was a real fear that things might spill over into violence.”

Baggio was subjected to a barrage of whistles, jeers and abuse during the game. Despite this, when Juventus were awarded a penalty, he symbolically refused to take it. Baggio was later substituted and left the field embracing a Viola scarf that had been hurled at him by the crowd, waving it in the direction of the Curva Fiesole (the stronghold of Fiorentina’s ultras). Unsurprisingly, the gesture only served to antagonise the situation further, with Juventus fans also left less than impressed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roberto Baggio playing for Fiorentina against Juventus in the Uefa Cup final second leg in 1990. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images

Since these episodes, the rivalry has simmered and spluttered. In 2012, the hierarchies of the two clubs even came to blows after Juventus made a late bid to hijack Fiorentina’s pursuit of Dimitar Berbatov. In the end, the Bulgarian snubbed both clubs, but this did not stop the Fiorentina owners (the Della Vale brothers) from claiming their rivals “knew nothing of the values of honesty, fair play and sporting ethics.”

But what makes this fixture all the more fascinating is the way in which it captures the differing identities and perspectives of both sets of fans. For Juve supporters, games against Fiorentina are ostensibly just another hurdle they must overcome in their race for the title. “From our perspective, the fixture against Fiorentina is significant, but not defining,” says Juventus fans Arjun Pradeep. It is not a Turin derby and neither does it possess the prestige of a Derby d’Italia against Inter, which has often had direct implications for the title race. “This rivalry is felt in Florence more than it is in Turin,” concludes Arjun.

As such, some Juventus fans have adopted a haughty nonchalance when it comes to playing Fiorentina, confident in the knowledge that even if they lose, they will have bigger matches to worry about. This perceived hubris riles and motivates their rivals. “Florentines like to deflate big egos and they don’t come any bigger than some Juventini,” says Giancarlo. Indeed, Fiorentina revel in their status as underdogs and successes are treated like cup final victories, as evinced by the celebrations following their famous 4-2 triumph over Juventus in October 2013.

This is not to say Fiorentina don’t share fierce rivalries with other clubs. The cross-border Derby dell’Appenino against Bologna is a colourful affair and their regional clashes with Tuscan foes such as Siena serve as symbolic re-enactments of the medieval battles fought between the two city states. But unlike Bologna or their Tuscan foes, Juventus have been an omnipresent and omnipotent adversary.

“The significance of this match simply cannot be underestimated for Fiorentina fans,” says Fiorentina fan Chloe Beresford. She acknowledges that the rivalry is shaped by the histrionics of 1982 and the infamous Baggio transfer, she is also quick to point out that the Florentine repudiation of Juventus is inextricably tied to their local identity: “Florence is a one-team city and one which is regularly invaded by hordes of foreign tourists. The football team – with its unique purple kit – is a part of the city which still exclusively belongs to its people and they defend their identity with fierce passion.”

This local patriotism, or campanilismo in Italian, is inescapable and often manifests most explicitly within football. “Everyone is well aware of what they see as the characteristics of the city but also what they are not,” says Giancarlo. “Juve – and their fans – epitomise a lot of the qualities Fiorentina fans see as entirely alien. For me, that is at the heart of the rivalry.”

These qualities are deemed so alien, that Viola ultras have been known to perform a peculiar “de-hunchbacking” ritual on former Juventus players who sign for Fiorentina. Marco Marchionni, Angelo Di Livio and Moreno Torricelli are all said to have experienced this ceremony, in which players receive a membership card for the Gruppo Storico, a prominent group of ultras on the Curva Fiesole. But such passion can become suffocating and at times the rivalry has become a morbidly obsessive relationship that has proved unhelpful to the club. At its most reprehensible, this has led to violent clashes and even a minority of Viola fans taunting their rivals about the Heysel Stadium tragedy, which claimed the lives of 39 Juventini.

Unsurprisingly, this has magnified the importance of the rivalry from a black and white perspective. Adam Digby, author of Juventus: A History in Black and White, is well placed to comment. He has experienced the game in both cities and believes that “because it means so much to fans of the Tuscan side, Juventus fans want to beat them in order to not watch their opponents celebrate”. This is especially true when the two sides meet in Florence, where games take on a more volatile atmosphere.

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Pogba guns down Fiorentina. Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

This attitude has also been embodied by the players. During Juve’s 4-2 defeat in 2013, both Paul Pogba and Carlos Tevez goaded Viola fans by mimicking the machine gun celebration of legendary Fiorentina forward, Gabriel Batistuta (whose celebrations always seemed particularly fervent against Juve). Antonio Conte did the same during his Juventus playing career and later, while head coach in Turin, he claimed it would be provincial of Juventus to regard Fiorentina as one of their main rivals. The response from Fiorentina fans was Tuscan humour at its best: they mocked Conte’s hair transplant by sporting wigs the next time he was in town.

Fortunately, this kind of satire has become the weapon of choice for both sets of fans. But the two clubs remain a long way from reaching a detente and the acrimony remains, especially in Florence. The hunchback T-shirts will continue to be sold, the graffiti will be sprayed and the receipts will be printed. With its inherent baggage, evocative memories and vastly varying identities, this is a rivalry that will endure. And that makes Fiorentina v Juventus one of the most intriguing fixtures in the Serie A calendar.

• This blog first appeared on The Gentleman Ultra

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• Thanks to Giancarlo Rinaldi, Chloe Beresford, Adam Digby and Arjun Prandeep