Italian rivals to meet on the football field
Two Italian clubs will go head to head on the football field today for the 24th year running.
Club Garibaldi aims to foster and promote Italian heritage, language, and customs in Wellington.
Close friend and rival Club Italia, from Nelson, will join them at Wakefield Park at 2pm for the annual showdown.
The game alternates between Nelson and Wellington each year.
Club Garibaldi president Linda De Gregorio said it was a popular event among the Italian and Island Bay communities.
Club Italia’s vice-president and member of 34 years, Francis Miccio, first invited Club Garibaldi to Nelson in mid-1995 after hearing their team wanted a trip away.
He formed a team together and Nelson took out the first game – the tradition had continued ever since.
The rivalry kept the two communities connected, and the memory alive of a young man from Club Italia, with family ties in both cities.
Aldo Cuccurullo, an avid sportsman and member of the Nelson sporting community, died at age 21 from a heart attack. The game had always been held in his memory, and the Aldo Cuccurullo memorial trophy would be presented to the winning team today.
While ‘‘equally important’’, the event always promised to have ‘‘the best feed you’ll have in years’’.
With Garibaldi on home turf, Miccio predicted the game would be a ‘‘keenly contested clash’’.
Wellington lost 4-0 last year and, historically, the previous year’s losers always came back with a vengeance.
Despite this, Miccio couldn’t say which way it would go. ‘‘There will be very little in it.’’
Veteran Wellington player and secondgeneration Kiwi Paul Muollo had played every year bar one, and reckoned the teams were evenly matched.
The Nelson team gave them ‘‘a thrashing’’ last year, but the chance to reaffirm community ties and celebrate their culture was more important.
‘‘The actual games are quite competitive, as soon as we’re off the field we’re all friends.’’
The best part was seeing the younger guys coming through, and Muollo put Nelson’s triumph last year down to some new players. ‘‘You don’t just want old fellas like myself.’’
Most of the players were New Zealandborn and the game and camaraderie kept ties to their Italian heritage, and to their extended community, strong.
‘‘I’m a pretty competitive guy, but it’s one game I know if I don’t win, I’m not upset about it,’’ Muollo said.
Miccio agreed. ‘‘The match each year is great, but the after-match food and socialising at the respective clubrooms are legendary.’’