I drive into the sleepy village of Arienzo San Felice, a small Italian village just North of Naples, my car’s English licence plates cause for interest to the handful of people on the street. They wave as I pass.
Finally, I stop at a café in the main piazza and get out of the car. I look around, and take it all in, then smile as if well acquainted with my surroundings. It’s like bumping into an old friend I haven’t seen for years.
I enter the café, my attention immediately going to an old yellowed black and white photograph of two football teams on the wall behind the counter.
“La partita di calcio più famosa d’Italia!” says the elderly café proprietor with a whimsical sigh. “E la più importante,” he stresses. ‘Italy’s most famous game of football and the most important.’
I nod; I know.
The café proprietor discovers that I am English, on a sort of pilgrimage to Arienzo, and (‘Per l’amor di Dio!’ ‘For the love of God!’) related to one of the Englishmen who liberated the village from the Germans over sixty years ago, the event that sparked off that epic ‘most famous game of football’.
“Come si chiama?” the proprietor asks. ‘What’s your name?’
“Robert Booth.”
The café proprietor gasps, and drops the coffee cup he is holding. It hits the floor with a loud crash, pieces flying in all directions.
Booth? Booth!
“Major Ben Booth è suo…?” The proprietor lets the rest of his question hang in the air. ‘Major Ben Booth is your…?’
“Mio nonno,” I finish. ‘My grandfather.’
“Non è possible! Come stà il Maggiore? E la Nonna? Come stà la Nonna?" 'It's not possible! How is the Major? And your Granny? How is your Granny?'
I shake my head. "Sono morti tutti e due in un incidente di macchina, con mamma e papa, quando io ero piccolo. Per questo sono qui; per sapere di più di loro, della loro storia di amore, della famiglia." 'They both died in a car accident, with Mum and Dad, when I was little. It is why I am here, to find out more about them, about their love story, about the family.'
I am astonished to see he is deeply moved. He turns away to blow his nose and wipe his eyes. Recovered, he turns back to get a better look at me, his rheumy old eyes struggling to focus. Finally, he nods. "Si. Gli assomigli molto al Maggiore!" 'Yes. You look a lot like the Major!'
The news flashes around the village like wildfire and, in no time at all, a crowd gathers at the café, most of them elderly, including survivors of ‘La partita di calcio più famosa d’Italia!’
“Booth!”
The name is repeated with reverence, and a certain degree of wonder, some of the older men and women touching me as if I were a holy relic. Everyone talks at once, the memories flooding back. And the stories. I hang on to their every word; this is why I have come.
The proprietor starts the story: “Il Maggior Ben Booth…”
October 3rd, 1943.
Now the enemy, since Italy surrendered to the Allies at the beginning of September, German troops are rounding up Arienzo’s able-bodied young men and forcing them into the back of lorries. And they aren’t nice about it.
Some manage to escape the dragnet. The lucky ones. But not Giuseppe ‘Pipotto’ Carfora, who is just seventeen years old. He is caught, beaten unconscious and tossed unceremoniously into the back of a truck.
Tecla, Pipotto’s despairing mother, witnesses his beating with her husband and four older daughters, and runs forward to pull him unconscious from the lorry, but a soldier knocks her to the ground.
Her appalled husband and daughters run to help her.
The convoy of tanks and lorries rolls out of Arienzo, taking with it the able-bodied young men the German troops managed to catch, all of whom will end up in German concentration camps.
“Booth!”
The name is repeated with reverence, and a certain degree of wonder, some of the older men and women touching me as if I were a holy relic. Everyone talks at once, the memories flooding back. And the stories. I hang on to their every word; this is why I have come.
The proprietor starts the story: “Il Maggior Ben Booth…”
October 3rd, 1943.
Now the enemy, since Italy surrendered to the Allies at the beginning of September, German troops are rounding up Arienzo’s able-bodied young men and forcing them into the back of lorries. And they aren’t nice about it.
Some manage to escape the dragnet. The lucky ones. But not Giuseppe ‘Pipotto’ Carfora, who is just seventeen years old. He is caught, beaten unconscious and tossed unceremoniously into the back of a truck.
Tecla, Pipotto’s despairing mother, witnesses his beating with her husband and four older daughters, and runs forward to pull him unconscious from the lorry, but a soldier knocks her to the ground.
Her appalled husband and daughters run to help her.
The convoy of tanks and lorries rolls out of Arienzo, taking with it the able-bodied young men the German troops managed to catch, all of whom will end up in German concentration camps.
The villagers line the streets, hang out of windows, the relatives of the young deportees shouting and crying their anguish as they watch the Germans move out.
As the convoy heads across the village square, a man starts to curse the troops. In no time at all, the curses are taken up by others, quickly becoming a unified condemnation of Germans’ tactics that echoes throughout the village.
A youth, a severe limp having saved him from deportation, hurls a stone at one of the tank commanders, who immediately orders his machine gunner to open fire on the hostile crowd, the end result being two dead – the crippled stone thrower and a nine year old girl – and several wounded.
Next day, after four years of war, including daring escapes from France, Greece and Crete, and fighting Rommel’s Africka Korps in the desert of North Africa, and doing his utmost not to get killed, Major Ben Booth drives into Arienzo San Felice at the head of a motley crew of British and Commonwealth troops, and liberates it… Well, all right, so the Germans had driven away the day before, but who cares? - ‘liberates it’ still sounds good.
The villagers pour into the streets to give Major Ben Booth and his troops a hero’s welcome, British and Italian flags everywhere. Where all the British flags (not all perfect, but who cares) have come from is a mystery. Someone must have stayed up all night sewing like crazy.
The Mayor of Arienzo San Felice, with the Italian flag wrapped around his waist, and the rest of the village hierarchy make numerous speeches, not a word of which is understood by Ben and his troops.
The festivities last the rest of the day and well into the night, long after the ‘liberating army’ has gone to bed, exhausted and merry on the wine that the villagers (and the very generous nuns at the local monastery) had stashed away for such an occasion, and that no number of German raids had managed to unearth. Unfortunately, some of the Commonwealth troops, not used to alcohol, behave rather badly, but are quickly forgiven, their exuberance put down to the release of tension from fighting every day. They’re just letting off steam.
A motion is put forward to make the day of liberation an annual holiday. This is greeted with boisterous, enthusiastic cheers from all present, but such a heated discussion ensues (between Republicans, Monarchists and Communists, all of whom are already preparing for the post-war political battle that will follow the Allied victory roughly nineteen months hence) over what to call the holiday, the favourites being ‘Giorno di Liberazione’ (Liberation Day), ‘Giornata Inglese’ (English Day), or ‘Giornata Italia ed Inghilterra Uniti Per Sempre’ (Italy and England United Forever Day), that the idea is quickly scrapped and soon forgotten.
However, following yet another animated debate over the choice of venue between the same Republicans, Monarchists and Communists (anyone’s suggestion cause for immediate suspicion from the others), the Mayor finally succeeds in organizing a game of football, to be played in the village’s main piazza between Arienzo and a mixed team of overly confident British and Commonwealth troops…
The story is interrupted by an old man named Pasquale Guida, Arienzo's ex-mayor, who beams with pride as he speaks: "Si, non dimentichero mai quel giorno..." 'Yes, I will never forget that day...'
But that's as far as he gets. He is shouted down by everyone else in the café, the old timers then urging the proprietor to continue telling the story so they can relive the rollercoaster emotions of that extraordinary match played while the rest of the world was at war.
The proprietor resumes the story while glaring at a chagrined Pasquale, as if daring him to interrupt again.
Everyone turns out to watch the football match, the piazza packed with villagers and British troops alike…
As the convoy heads across the village square, a man starts to curse the troops. In no time at all, the curses are taken up by others, quickly becoming a unified condemnation of Germans’ tactics that echoes throughout the village.
A youth, a severe limp having saved him from deportation, hurls a stone at one of the tank commanders, who immediately orders his machine gunner to open fire on the hostile crowd, the end result being two dead – the crippled stone thrower and a nine year old girl – and several wounded.
Next day, after four years of war, including daring escapes from France, Greece and Crete, and fighting Rommel’s Africka Korps in the desert of North Africa, and doing his utmost not to get killed, Major Ben Booth drives into Arienzo San Felice at the head of a motley crew of British and Commonwealth troops, and liberates it… Well, all right, so the Germans had driven away the day before, but who cares? - ‘liberates it’ still sounds good.
The villagers pour into the streets to give Major Ben Booth and his troops a hero’s welcome, British and Italian flags everywhere. Where all the British flags (not all perfect, but who cares) have come from is a mystery. Someone must have stayed up all night sewing like crazy.
The Mayor of Arienzo San Felice, with the Italian flag wrapped around his waist, and the rest of the village hierarchy make numerous speeches, not a word of which is understood by Ben and his troops.
The festivities last the rest of the day and well into the night, long after the ‘liberating army’ has gone to bed, exhausted and merry on the wine that the villagers (and the very generous nuns at the local monastery) had stashed away for such an occasion, and that no number of German raids had managed to unearth. Unfortunately, some of the Commonwealth troops, not used to alcohol, behave rather badly, but are quickly forgiven, their exuberance put down to the release of tension from fighting every day. They’re just letting off steam.
A motion is put forward to make the day of liberation an annual holiday. This is greeted with boisterous, enthusiastic cheers from all present, but such a heated discussion ensues (between Republicans, Monarchists and Communists, all of whom are already preparing for the post-war political battle that will follow the Allied victory roughly nineteen months hence) over what to call the holiday, the favourites being ‘Giorno di Liberazione’ (Liberation Day), ‘Giornata Inglese’ (English Day), or ‘Giornata Italia ed Inghilterra Uniti Per Sempre’ (Italy and England United Forever Day), that the idea is quickly scrapped and soon forgotten.
However, following yet another animated debate over the choice of venue between the same Republicans, Monarchists and Communists (anyone’s suggestion cause for immediate suspicion from the others), the Mayor finally succeeds in organizing a game of football, to be played in the village’s main piazza between Arienzo and a mixed team of overly confident British and Commonwealth troops…
The story is interrupted by an old man named Pasquale Guida, Arienzo's ex-mayor, who beams with pride as he speaks: "Si, non dimentichero mai quel giorno..." 'Yes, I will never forget that day...'
But that's as far as he gets. He is shouted down by everyone else in the café, the old timers then urging the proprietor to continue telling the story so they can relive the rollercoaster emotions of that extraordinary match played while the rest of the world was at war.
The proprietor resumes the story while glaring at a chagrined Pasquale, as if daring him to interrupt again.
Everyone turns out to watch the football match, the piazza packed with villagers and British troops alike…
MORE TO COME
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