Monday,
November 19, 2007
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
hillside town of
They
tend to like all things Scottish here in the Garfagnana
region of Tuscany from where the great ice cream and fish'n
chip shop families went forth in the early 1900s: the Nardinis
and the Castelvecchis
to their seafront temples of gastronomic delights in Largs,
the Cosiminis
to Kirkintilloch, the Runuccis to Maryhill in Glasgow, the Serafinis to Paisley
and the Polliccis to Girvan.
A
screening of the Italia and Scozia
contest La Partita Insieme (the game of togetherness)
was held at the
Telegraph.co.uk
-
By Robert Philip
November 19, 2007
It
was when Tom entered resplendent in his magnificent Murray of Atholl kilt and specially commissioned Tartan Army sporran
that Rinaldo Mazzanti's
interest was pricked. "Would I be allowed to wear a tartan and, if so,
which one?" he asked solemnly. He was assurred
it would be proper.
They
tend to like all things Scottish here in the Garfagnana
region of Tuscany from where the great ice cream and fish'n
chip shop families went forth in the early 1900s: the Nardinis
and the Castelvecchis to their seafront temples of
gastronomic delights in Largs, the Cosiminis to Kirkintilloch, the Runuccis to Maryhill in Glasgow,
the Serafinis to Paisley and the Polliccis
to Girvan. The
hillside town of Barga styles itself as "the
most Scottish place in Italy", every inhabitant, it seems, boasting a
Scots granny or at the very least of being one of the many Italian Scots who
have returned to the land of their ancestors.
· We had made the winding and frequently
hair-raising descent from Barga to the village of Gallicano in the valley below where a goodly proportion of
the 3,200 inhabitants were crammed into a plastic bubble within the spacious
grounds of the local sports centre to watch, as the posters promised,
Italia and Scotzia contest La Partia
Insiene (the game of togetherness) on a schermao gigante. I had
blithely assumed schermao to mean screen whereas, in
fact, it turned out to be an old white bed sheet hanging on a pole from
the ceiling. The first image to fill said bed sheet
was that of Alex McLeish who, as I remarked to her indoors, was clearly feeling
the strain given the fact that he appeared to have aged 100 years during our
short absence. "They're not wrinkles," she hissed at my lack
of expertise in all matters domestic. "The screen needs an iron run over it that's all..."
Hardly
had the strains of Flower of Scotland and Inno di Mameli (Hymn of the People) died away when the locals found
something else Scottish to drool over " our defence " earning me a kiss on both cheeks from Sabrina Puccetti. "My baby, my Fabio, my world, my universe
(she was very theatrical our Sabrina) is 20 months old. When he is born I wrote
to Toni and he send Fabio a signed Fiorentina
shirt. Now he play for Baer Munich - yeuch. But maybe he will send Fabio his Italian shirt if I
write. Of course, Fabio will wear an Italian shirt of his own in the 2026 World
Cup. You like Toni?"
"No,
not at this particular moment, Sabrina..."
One
irritating aspect of watching football on Italian television is that every
time there is even the briefest stoppage, they squeeze in another advert,
for anti-dandruff shampoo, mineral water (advice ignored in our little corner
of Tuscany), or whatever. "Actually, I think that adverts are the best
bit," opined the lady of the house amid the spell during which
Half-time
brought platters of pizza in every conceivable variety (baked in a nearby
restaurant's wood-burning oven) and the opportunity for a stroll around Gallicano's impressive sports centre which should
be a source of shame to successive British governments. A full-sized
football pitch... two five-a-side pitches..a
hockey pitch... a skateboard park... an indoor heated swimming pool... two
tennis courts... all this in a village of 3,200 remember. Rinaldo
was surprised that I was surprised. "Every community in
" No, not at this particular moment, Rinaldo..."
Pizza
al Proscuittio washed down with plastic tumblers of
Pro Secco,
then came the moment our tiny brigade of the Tartan Army had been playing for
with ever increasing zeal, the Barry Ferguson wonder-goal that briefly renewed
hopes of
Accustomed
or not, having suffered and survived a terrific pummelling,
such was the relief when the winning goal went in seconds from the end that our
previously blase Italian friends a'hooped
and a'hollered with Caledonian fervour.
As we took our farewells, under the moon and star-lit snow-capped Alpine peaks,
Sabrina bestowed kisses upon my cheeks and intoned: "I cry for you
Roberto. I no cry for me," she added grinning before recovering her
look of monumental sympathy....
Ci c hanno fregato,"
(We waz robbed, muttered Roberto).
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