Lion who enjoyed a taste of Italy
ANDREA Gazzi’s grave lies on the Inner Hebridean island of Islay, a long way from the fishand-chip shop he left behind in Gorseinon. The explanation as to how the Bowmore New Parish churchyard came to be his final resting place is to be found in a maritime disaster during the first summer of the Second World War, one made all the more poignant when put in a rugby context.
Gazzi would never have heard of the game when he migrated a century or so ago from his native Bardi in northern Italy to find, like so many of his compatriots, a rewarding market all over Britain for their cafes, ice-cream parlours and chippies.
Some were believed to be sons of fathers who had fought alongside the Allies during the First World War. Mussolini’s catastrophic decision as Italy’s fascist dictator to change sides at the start of the Second exposed Gazzi and hundreds more in Britain to fatal consequences.
As civilian internees they were rounded up, squeezed alongside German prisoners-of-war aboard a former ocean liner, SS Arandora Star, and deported to Canada. Barely two days after leaving Liverpool without any submarine escort, the ship sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic west of the Aran Islands within halfan-hour after being torpedoed by a German U-boat.
More than half of the 1,600 passengers lost their lives, 48 from the small town of Bardi, among them Gazzi at the age of 39. His body had been washed ashore on Islay two months later, in September 1940.
Tragically, he never lived long enough to see the rugby dynasty he had created for Gorseinon simply by settling there. Initiated by Gazzi’s son, Louis, it is still thriving almost a century later in the hands of a veteran scrum-half who never knew when to quit, Andrea’s grandson, Andrew Gazzi.
Along the way the family played an active role in sending the most famous of Gorseinon’s rugby sons to superstardom in both Union and, for much longer, in League. Lewis Jones, renowned for his electrifying pace and deadly goalkicking, remained indebted to the old pal who taught him how to put the ball between the posts from anywhere and everywhere.
“I perfected my kicking technique with practice,’’ Jones wrote in his autobiography King of Rugger. “That I was able to do so I owe, in great measure, to the tolerance, patience and terrific enthusiasm of my lifelong friend Louis Gazzi.
“In the days when we were in the Gowerton school and Welsh Secondary Schools’ XV together, he used to accompany me on hours-long practice sessions on the Gorseinon ground.
“We’d start off on the 25 and work back to the halfway line, kicking from almost every angle. If I missed a particular kick too often, we’d talk things over in an effort to discover where we were going wrong.
“I owe Louis Gazzi a great debt. Such sessions, I’m sure, would have been both physically and mentally intolerable had I been on my own.’’
Lewis reaped a rich harvest from the seeds sown by Louis on the practice pitch. Sixty years on from his last match for Leeds, Jones is still to be found in the all-time top ten points scorers in British Rugby League: 3,445 in 12 seasons.
The old pals rejoined forces for a special event in the Gorseinon clubhouse before another local boy, Leigh Halfpenny, set off with the Lions to New Zealand in 2017 just as Jones had done on the first post-war tour there almost 70 years earlier.
Lewis died in Leeds last month at the age of almost 93. Louis, a centre who played for Swansea, Llanelli and Neath, passed away seven years earlier in his late eighties.
“They grew up only a few yards apart and remained the best of mates all their lives,’’ says Andrew Gazzi. “Lewis had such speed that nobody could touch him, my dad included.
‘’He spent a good couple of seasons playing for Swansea, Neath and Llanelli. He would have played for Wales but for the devastating loss of his father when Louis was only 11 years old. My grandmother, who came from Piacenza, brought him up and when he was old enough my dad ran the business.
“After running the fish and chip shop, my grandfather became the first turf accountant in Gorseinon. My dad, who was born in Whitehaven but spent virtually his entire life in Gorseinon, was the second.’’
Gazzi III has stretched the family’s Gorseinon link in its ninth decade. He raised the endurance levels for scrum-halves the world over to a ridiculous extent by playing on into his sixties.
For his 60th birthday, Gazzi treated himself to a sky-dive, not for any self-aggrandisement but purely for the altruistic reason of raising funds in aid of the stricken son of a club physiotherapist. “Now I’ve got to think of something daft for my 70th,’’ he says. “It’s still a while off…’’
A more pressing family occasion falls this summer, the first week of July marking the 84th anniversary of Andrea Gazzi’s cruelly premature death. Those mighty proud to ensure his name remains synonymous with Gorseinon are planning another pilgrimage to the grave in the Hebrides.
“Lewis Jones reaped a rich harvest from the seeds sown by Louis Gazzi out on the practice pitch”