A Message from the Calvisano Tourist Board....
By Mrs. Oxenhoper
January 17 2006
Having only just thawed out from the unforgiving Perpignan winds our trepid adventurers (or should that be tepid?) the Oxen’no’hopers as we shall now be known, set off on their quest for rugby Italiano.
After jiggling us between every boarding gate that Stansted had to offer we settled for one that actually had a plane waiting for us and off we went full of hope and white wine along with a decent number of other Leeds fans.
Having tried out our so called Italian here and there we found a bus that took us direct to Brescia in the beautiful winter sunshine surrounded by the most spectacular snow-capped peaks and a rather dodgy smell from the drains (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it).
And so our search for food began and continued and I have to say ended with no more success than in Perpignan-these inconsiderate extended Mediterranean lunches! At least it gave us plenty of time to trawl the streets of Brescia and take in the sights.
Brescia is like a lot of other cities in that it’s multi-cultural and multi-lingual. It has a solemn but magnificent castle dominating the older side of the city, modern architecture standing side by side with classical Italian design, beautiful stone carvings and arched galleys over the narrow winding streets, barred windows, shuttered windows, impressive towers and imposing facades in traditional colours alongside graffiti ridden exteriors with a kebab shop on every other corner, it’s own tiny Chinatown held together by cafes, trattorias and ristorantes, cheap tack and designer labels, wealth and poverty all seemingly hand in hand. All in all Brescia is not the most beautiful Italian city you’ll ever see but it’s not without it’s charm. What you see is what you get, it hasn’t yet sold it’s soul to la turista.
People seem friendly enough and willing to help meaning the language barrier wasn’t so huge. Italian is supposed to be a beautiful language spoken by beautiful people- not this weekend!- just strange guttural noises with a Yorkshire accent. What I love about phrasebook languages is that you can become fluent in useless phrases overnight but the book does not prepare you for one of those rare occasions that you are actually understood and someone starts to converse with you, in Italian of all things and that fleeting moment of feeling smug turns in an instant to an embarrassing haven’t got a Scooby what you’re on about blank stare!
It was either the alarm that woke me the next morning or my ringing head from the plentiful vino rosso consumed the night before but so began another day.A new day, match day and coincidentally my birthday and what more could a girl on her hollibobs in Italy possibly want for her birthday? Yep you got it, 5 points. So after being serenaded by Andrea Bocelli over breakfast (a thing a girl could get used to) we hit Calvisano and all that it had to offer…….
…………..which as it happens in rugby terms wasn’t very much. In fact it wasn’t anything at all! Calvisano itself is a gorgeous little place, sleepy yes but not a problem for us oldies. It is when you get away from the big cities that you find true pockets of real Italian flavour and Calvisano is a little gem.
As we turned up at the ground kick off had already been delayed to allow for a further pitch inspection which automatically set the alarm bells ringing. There was the pitch frozen solid and there we were in the outside bar toasting under huge patio heaters. The irony!
It didn’t take long to decide that the pitch was unplayable and the game was duly postponed. It is hard to describe the sinking feeling of that moment but we only had to look at the players faces to realise that it wasn’t only the fans who had reason to feel hard done by. For us the weekend wasn’t a total disaster we were on the whole having a great time and at least we knew what the next 24 hours would bring- getting drunk finding food, sleep and home early the next morning but the players were just left in limbo.
A lot of the fans found a great little bar, the Bar della sporta with a good host and soon got about making the best of a bad situation. I have to say that I think our fans are a great bunch and we made some new friends along the way-a couple from Rotherham who we dined with later on, a great set of lads from Oxford who are mates with and went to school with one of our players and on that basis alone decided to make the trip and a young lad in the forces in Germany who at the last minute got some leave and spent 1000 euros on his round trip.
There is no doubt that the players safety is paramount and cannot be compromised no matter how many fans or TV crews turn up and this I fully understand. What I’m finding harder to comprehend is why that pitch was still frozen for such a big game-this is the Heineken Cup after all, promoted as one of the premier competitions in the world.
Nobody likes to point the finger especially when you are not privy to all the circumstances but one thing is certain, a lot of people made a lot of effort to make the trip and to support their team and you can only hope that as much effort and conviction went into preparing that pitch, not on Saturday night or Sunday or Monday even, but prior to the original scheduled kick off. If so then there is nothing more to it, it is just one of those things but if not then Leeds as a club and the competition itself have been badly let down.
And apart from wishing the team well for whatever decision is made that only leaves one more thing to say……
Arrivederci !