And what a hard fought match! Both teams play their hearts out, the vociferous support heard miles away, the fans - both local and foreign - mingling and having a high old time together.
The score tied at 3-3, the final outcome is decided just as the referee (the local butcher) is about to blow the final whistle…
Pasquale Guido – blessed by the gods that day – picks up the ball just inside his own half, his body language telling the crowd they are about to witness something special. No one moves, no one breathes, not a word, not a cough…
Elderly Pasquale Guida, his eyes brimming with tears, stares out the window at the main piazza, his thoughts taking him back to that glorious moment in October, 1943. “Si, mi ricordo. C’erano quattro Inglesi tra me e la porta…” he says, his voice barely a whisper, breaking with emotion. ‘Yes, I remember. There were four Englishmen between me and the goal…’
For once, no one tells him to be quiet, the café proprietor letting him have the floor.
The silence is total, all eyes on young Pasquale Guida.
The ball glued to his feet, Arienzo’s future Mayor feints one way and then the other, leaving an English player sitting on his bottom as he sprints past and on down the right wing.
Unmarked on the edge of the penalty area, Salvatore Di Napoli, the big centre forward who has already scored a goal, is screaming for the ball. But Pasquale doesn’t hear him, or pretends not to, his mind on his destiny, his crowning moment. He sends another English player the wrong way and cuts in towards goal, the nervous keeper bouncing from foot to foot and yelling at his teammates to "Knock the Eyetie over if you ‘ave to!"
But the ‘Eyetie’ has other plans, the goal his target. He suddenly stops dead in his tracks to avoid another defender’s sliding tackle, and the man skids on past to end up in a tangle of legs and feet at the edge of the crowd.
Pasquale now has just one defender between him and the goal. And what a defender – my grandfather’s legendary Sergeant Major Jock Winterbottom, who won the Military Cross in Greece for fighting a running battle against several Germans who were masquerading as English Military police. They had been playing havoc with the Allies’ retreat by stopping traffic and generally clogging up the roads, leaving the vehicles prey to the Junkers Ju 87s, the dreaded dive-bombing Stukas.
But Pasquale, oblivious to big Jock’s heroic deeds, bears down on him, flicks the ball through his legs and tears past. Caught flat-footed, Winterbottom tries to recover, but loses his balance and crashes to the ground to the delight of the Italian supporters.
The goalkeeper races out to narrow the angle, but Pasquale tricks him into going one way while he goes the other and walks the ball into the goal just fractions of a second before the referee blows the final whistle.
Arienzo San Felice 4 – British Army 3.
Pasquale Guido – blessed by the gods that day – picks up the ball just inside his own half, his body language telling the crowd they are about to witness something special. No one moves, no one breathes, not a word, not a cough…
Elderly Pasquale Guida, his eyes brimming with tears, stares out the window at the main piazza, his thoughts taking him back to that glorious moment in October, 1943. “Si, mi ricordo. C’erano quattro Inglesi tra me e la porta…” he says, his voice barely a whisper, breaking with emotion. ‘Yes, I remember. There were four Englishmen between me and the goal…’
For once, no one tells him to be quiet, the café proprietor letting him have the floor.
The silence is total, all eyes on young Pasquale Guida.
The ball glued to his feet, Arienzo’s future Mayor feints one way and then the other, leaving an English player sitting on his bottom as he sprints past and on down the right wing.
Unmarked on the edge of the penalty area, Salvatore Di Napoli, the big centre forward who has already scored a goal, is screaming for the ball. But Pasquale doesn’t hear him, or pretends not to, his mind on his destiny, his crowning moment. He sends another English player the wrong way and cuts in towards goal, the nervous keeper bouncing from foot to foot and yelling at his teammates to "Knock the Eyetie over if you ‘ave to!"
But the ‘Eyetie’ has other plans, the goal his target. He suddenly stops dead in his tracks to avoid another defender’s sliding tackle, and the man skids on past to end up in a tangle of legs and feet at the edge of the crowd.
Pasquale now has just one defender between him and the goal. And what a defender – my grandfather’s legendary Sergeant Major Jock Winterbottom, who won the Military Cross in Greece for fighting a running battle against several Germans who were masquerading as English Military police. They had been playing havoc with the Allies’ retreat by stopping traffic and generally clogging up the roads, leaving the vehicles prey to the Junkers Ju 87s, the dreaded dive-bombing Stukas.
But Pasquale, oblivious to big Jock’s heroic deeds, bears down on him, flicks the ball through his legs and tears past. Caught flat-footed, Winterbottom tries to recover, but loses his balance and crashes to the ground to the delight of the Italian supporters.
The goalkeeper races out to narrow the angle, but Pasquale tricks him into going one way while he goes the other and walks the ball into the goal just fractions of a second before the referee blows the final whistle.
Arienzo San Felice 4 – British Army 3.
The crowd goes berserk, the ensuing roar so thunderous the retreating Germans up north fear the Allies have started another major push toward the Gothic Line.
A grinning Pasquale is mobbed by his teammates, carried shoulder high, while the Italian fans cheer their heads off and the English fans applaud a great goal.
The final score of 4-3 will remain a source of pride for generations to come.
A grinning Pasquale is mobbed by his teammates, carried shoulder high, while the Italian fans cheer their heads off and the English fans applaud a great goal.
The final score of 4-3 will remain a source of pride for generations to come.
Years later, in recognition of his role in the historic 'sconfitta degli Inglesi' (defeat of the English), Mayor Pasquale Guida will be voted into office by an overwhelming and grateful majority.
As time passes, the importance of the game is blown out of all proportion, and eventually given full international status, the liberating troops being forced to endure some not so subtle taunting. No longer deemed a simple game of football between Arienzo San Felice and remnants of the British army, it is raised to far loftier heights, the stuff of legends: Italy v England no less!
The café proprietor stops to inform me that still to this day, in Arienzo’s bars and trattorias, and much of Southern Italy, the 4-3 win on October 11th, 1943 (with goals scored by Di Napoli, Hutchins, Smith, D’Alessio, Tuffarelli, McConachie and Guida), is still considered Italy’s first ever football victory over England, and not, as asserted by the rest of Italy, England, Europe, FIFA and the majority of football statisticians, Italy’s famous 2-0 win in Turin on June 14th, 1973, the goals scored by Pietro Anastasi and Fabio Capello.
Yes, all right, but I want to get back to the story, and most of the old timers are talking at once, no one even remotely aware that old Pasquale Guida looks as though he might have kicked the bucket, the emotions of reliving his fifteen minutes of glory too much for his old heart to bear, the smile stamped on his deeply lined face telling me that at least he died happy and is now entering the Pearly Gates, hopefully with that same football glued to his feet…
Wishing to restore his troops’ supremacy over a liberated people and believing football to be the sport of plebs, Ben challenges the locals to a cricket match. The challenge is accepted immediately.
Unfortunately, the Italians think he means ‘croquet’, which they pronounce as crocket (cricket, crocket; close enough, right?).
What follows is a match of equally historic importance, but one of total chaos.
As time passes, the importance of the game is blown out of all proportion, and eventually given full international status, the liberating troops being forced to endure some not so subtle taunting. No longer deemed a simple game of football between Arienzo San Felice and remnants of the British army, it is raised to far loftier heights, the stuff of legends: Italy v England no less!
The café proprietor stops to inform me that still to this day, in Arienzo’s bars and trattorias, and much of Southern Italy, the 4-3 win on October 11th, 1943 (with goals scored by Di Napoli, Hutchins, Smith, D’Alessio, Tuffarelli, McConachie and Guida), is still considered Italy’s first ever football victory over England, and not, as asserted by the rest of Italy, England, Europe, FIFA and the majority of football statisticians, Italy’s famous 2-0 win in Turin on June 14th, 1973, the goals scored by Pietro Anastasi and Fabio Capello.
Yes, all right, but I want to get back to the story, and most of the old timers are talking at once, no one even remotely aware that old Pasquale Guida looks as though he might have kicked the bucket, the emotions of reliving his fifteen minutes of glory too much for his old heart to bear, the smile stamped on his deeply lined face telling me that at least he died happy and is now entering the Pearly Gates, hopefully with that same football glued to his feet…
Wishing to restore his troops’ supremacy over a liberated people and believing football to be the sport of plebs, Ben challenges the locals to a cricket match. The challenge is accepted immediately.
Unfortunately, the Italians think he means ‘croquet’, which they pronounce as crocket (cricket, crocket; close enough, right?).
What follows is a match of equally historic importance, but one of total chaos.
MORE TO COME
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