The Wanderer
This article is part of a series containing extracts from the book shown below, first published in 1999, which Grays Athletic FC have kindly been granted permission to reproduce:
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss
Published by Sphere an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group www.littlebrown.co.uk a Hachette UK Company – www.hachette.co.uk

Club Historian, Chris Turner recently lent me the book to read, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I asked the publishers if I may have permission to publish extracts in our club programme as I thought our readers would find in interesting. I was informed that, sadly, Joe McGinniss (pictured above) had passed away in 2014, so it would be a matter for his estate to consider my request. Although the publishers were, understandably, looking for a payment, I was very pleased to receive agreement through his family that no charge would be made, as they were happy for a community club, such as ours, to publicise Joe’s excellent work. Thank you to Joe’s wife, Nancy and her family for allowing the club to share his amazing story through our Official Match Day Magazine.
TIME TO MEET THE PRESIDENT OF CASTEL DI SANGRO CALCIO
After Joe had tasted live football in the San Siro watching A.C. Milan, he moved on to the rather more earthy experience of life in Castel di Sangro – a small-town club who had amazingly risen up the football ladder to reach Serie B, just one step from the pinnacle of the best league in the world – the Italian Serie A.
Joe had already met Giuseppe, the club’s brand new “assistant for external relations”, whose English was not good. Joe had requested an interpreter via La Societa, the organisation that owned and operated Castel di Sangro Calcio – the town football team - at least for the start of his season with the club and for a meeting with Signor Gabriele Gravina, its president.
A lady was in the hotel lobby where Joe was staying. She rang his room, waking him from many layers of sleeplessness and jet lag. “This is Barbara and I am in the lobby. Would you like me to wait for you here?” Joe replied, “Well sure. Wait for me there. But why? I mean, who are you?”
“Oh, you don’t remember? In your fax you said you hope that La Societa would find an interpreter for you.” “I am so sorry,” she said. “If this is not convenient, we can meet at a later time. But President Gravina has invited you to dinner at the pizzeria at 9 pm and I thought that before we went there, I could give you a brief tour of Castel di Sangro.”
“Yes, of course. Or at least you could show me where it is.”
“Don’t worry,” she said laughing. “It is not far.”

I met her in the lobby – an attractive and smartly dressed woman of perhaps forty. She introduced herself. She grew up in Castel di Sangro, then went away to university, then lived overseas in England and Tunisia. She had also spent time in America, but came back to Castel di Sangro because her mother was ill and was now a translator of medical texts and journals for several large pharmaceutical companies with big offices in Rome. She would spend three working days a week in Rome and two in Castel di Sangro. An impressive lady, with only a slight Italian accent.
“What about the miracle?” I said. “The miracle did happen, didn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. The miracle happened. For three months it is the only thing anyone can talk about. Myself, I think it may prove a bad thing, leading to false hopes and worse disappointments, but I am in a very small minority. For almost everyone the miracle has brought the first smile to the face for many years. It has brought hope. It has brought faith. It has brought self-respect. And now it has brought something else.”
“Which is?”
“You. The American. And now you too will be part of the fairy tale: the mysterious stranger from afar. We hope be brings us more good luck, but we can’t be sure.”
And if not?” I asked. She shrugged. “Non si sa mai,” she said. “One never knows.”
As we drove to Castel di Sangro, which turned out to be only 12 kilometres down the road, the early-evening light was gauzy and soft – the way my head felt – and broad vistas extended from either side of the road to even higher, snowcapped mountains in the distance.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Bellissimo,” Barbara agreed. “Unfortunately, the town itself is not so much so. In the war, first the Germans occupied and the Americans bombed from the air. Then, when the Germans left, they bombed from the ground all that remained.
“We are a small town, but for many miles around we are the only town. So the people from the villages, which are even smaller, come here to shop. Very few of us are rich, but nobody starves.”
“But where our soul was when I was a girl now seems empty. The landscape, the mountains, they are beautiful. But they are outside us. We never have recovered from the war. So many of our people fled, so few came back. They came back to find rubble. We should have twenty-five thousand in this town, but we have only five. Maybe the miracle will change all that. This is what Gabriele – Signor Gravina keeps saying. But for me, I do not see how. Because, you know, even a miracle is not forever.”
She parked in what was obviously the centre of town. It was as non-descript as she had said. It was not ugly, but inarguable drab. That didn’t matter to me. I had not come to buy postcards. What pleased me was the scale of it: manageable and small. One could survive here without a car. A good pair of shoes, a warm coat for cold weather, an outergarment for protection against rain and it seemed one could walk to any possible destination within the town. The sidewalks were filled with walkers spilling out into the street. ‘This is the time of the passeggiata,” Barbara said. “everywhere in Italy, in early evening, almost everyone turns out for a walk. No destination, no purpose. The charm of the passeggiata is that it has no purpose beyond itself.”
I gazed at the throng of people.
“The short man, with the long coat and the big cigar – he is the owner of Castel di Sangro Calcio. Gabriele Gravina, the president, is married to his niece. The tall men on either side of him are his bodyguards.”
“Wait a minute. The owner of the football team needs bodyguards?”
“He HAS bodyguards. I did not say NEEDS.”
“But why does he have them and who is he?”
“You have not heard his name? Oh, but you will. He is the la presenza occulta – the hidden presence, behind everything. Not only the miracle, but everything in Castel di Sangro.
“But what does he do?”
“Signor Rezza? It is not what he does, it’s what he CAN do and also how much money he has.”
“How did he get so much money?”
“I would not know,” Barbara said evenly. “It is not my business to ask a man why he is rich. He is a businessman. Maybe he has worked very hard.”
“Okay, but just tell me why he is…occult.”
“For many reasons Signor Rezza does not wish publicity. He wants to create the appearance that he is far removed from La Societa. The miracle is a simple, happy story for the newspapers, but maybe Signor Rezza is not so simple.”
“You said a businessman. What sort of business?”
Many sorts. First was the construction business, in Napoli.”
She smiled again. Then we joined the hundreds of others in the passeggiata.
I spotted a sign “albergo” – even I knew this meant “hotel”.
“Barbara – look right there. A hotel. I thought there were no hotels in Castel di Sangro.”
Barbara stopped walking, sighed, the looked at me. “Signor Gravina knew of course this was here, but he preferred to arrange the Best Western for your comfort.”
“Well, I appreciate that and I will thank him, but I simply can’t be twelve kilometres out of town.”
“If you insist, we can step inside and have a look, but our government ranks all hotels in the country. Five stars, four stars and so on down.”
“Yes, yes. So how many for this one?”
“Zero.”
It was a grim cube of concrete, painted in a dull rust colour that might be called crumbled brick. It was the “Hotel” Coradetti and the proprietor was a man who did not smile. The room would cost forty dollars a night and I would have to pay cash in advance for two weeks – no credit cards!
I agreed and began to count out the money as Barbara told the proprietor I would move in on Monday.
We then walked down an alley that led to what appeared to be the main street of Castel di Sangro. We turned right into a small parking area, jammed with cars parked so close together that it seemed none of them would ever get out. On one side the Sangro River, which seemed more like a stream, flowed slowly. On the other side was Marcella’s. Earlier, Barbara had referred to Marcella’s as a pizzeria, but it seemed a full-scale restaurant. It also provided a further answer to my earlier question about where all the people had gone. Anyone who was not at home must have been here, for the single dining room was noisy, hot, smoke-filled and so crowded that I didn’t think Barbara and I would be able to walk across it, much less find seats.
She glided through the throng like the native she was and I followed, muttering, “Scusi,” whenever I bumped into or stepped on someone, which was about every step I took. There must have been 500 people in a space designed to hold no more than 100 and all seemed to be simultaneously smoking cigarettes, eating, drinking and speaking as loudly as they could.
A wave of jet lag washed over me and I felt my hold on reality starting to slip. Then I felt Barbara pulling my arm. We’d been standing next to a single long table that dominated the back of the room. From somewhere, two empty chairs were produced. Barbara motioned for me to sit.
As I did, a whole pizza appeared in front of me, as if by magic. An instant later, someone filled a glass with red wine and placed next to me an empty glass a full bottle of mineral water. “-duce you to Signor Gravina.” That was Barbara’s voice. I turned in her direction and found myself facing a trim and handsome middle-aged man, wearing a suede jacket and blue jeans.
He was smoking, speaking into a cell phone, sipping from a wine glass, talking to woman next to him and taking a bite of pizza all at once. Somehow, he managed to smile at me and to raise a hand in greeting.
I smiled and waved back. Then in my left ear, I heard a warm female voice and turned to see a short blond woman standing over me, wearing an apron and grinning at me. In the noise, I could barely hear her, much less have any hope of understanding.
“Marcella,” Barbara said. “She says she welcomes you here as if you were her son.”
“Thank you,” I said loudly. She nodded smilingly. “Tell her thank you,” I said to Barbara.
“No, you say it yourself. You must start sometime. Very simple. ‘Grazie. Molte grazie.’ ”
I tried it. “Ah, prego!” she said and leaned forward and hugged me.
We turned back to the head of the table. Signor Gravina was free, or at least as close to it as he apparently would be on this evening. Still smoking and speaking into his cell phone, he reached out a hand and shook mine, nodding at me. Then he placed his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and spoke quickly to Barbara. Then he nodded at me again, took a quick sip of wine and still speaking into the phone, stood to embrace a man who’d just walked up to greet him.
Barbara stood immediately and said, “All right. Now we can leave.”
“You mean that was it? My introduction to Signor Gravina?”
“Well, yes, for tonight, because you can see he is very busy. But he just told me that tomorrow he will come to get you personally at ten o’clock in the morning at the Best Western. I too, will be there. In the car there will be time for conversation.”
“Good. But wait – in the car to where? And what do you mean ‘leave’? We just got here and there’s all this food.”
“That is the problem. You cannot eat it. I will explain. Take one or two slices of pizza and you can eat them in the car.”
With another clumsy wave in the direction of Signor Gravina, who did not seem to notice and awkward smiles in the direction among whom I’d been briefly seated but had not met, I stood and tripped my way back out of Marcella’s, saying, “Scusi…scusi…scusi,” all the way.
Once outside, I said to Barbara, “I think besides being tired, I’m really confused.”
“Of course,” she said. “This was an unexpected development. Even I am very surprised. And for you, it is a very great honour.” “What is?” “I will explain in the car,” she said and we were quickly on our way back to the Best Western.
“Tomorrow,” Barbara said, “because of its historic significance, Signor Rezza – not simply Signor Gravina – wishes to celebrate by having a special lunch for his family and close friends at his personal club in Pescara and Gabriele just told me that YOU are invited.”
“That’s wonderful. How gracious of him.”
“Yes,” Barbara said. “It is a high compliment. If there are five thousand people in Castel di Sangro, probably four thousand nine hundred and ninety have never once shared a meal with Signor Rezza.”
“I’m truly honoured.”
“More important than honoured,” Barbara said, “is to be hungry. Signor Rezza becomes very displeased – very, very displeased – if he sees that someone at his table has not finished everything on the plate.”
I laughed.
“This is no joke,” Barbara said. “You will risk giving great offence to Signor Rezza if you do not finish everything you are served. And to do so at such an occasion as the luncheon tomorrow – well, it simply must not occur.”
“You are serious.”
“Very much so.”
We had reached the Best Western and Barbara pulled into the parking lot.
“When I was a little kid,” I said, “I used to hide my peas and string beans under the dining room rug.”
Barbara smiled, but shook her head strongly. “Do not attempt any tricks tomorrow. Signor Rezza is always watching. Or if not him, one of his bodyguards. Good night.”
The Wanderer