The Wanderer
This article is part of a series containing extracts from the book 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) 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.

FROM AMERICA TO CASTEL DI SANGRO
The day before I travelled from America to Italy, I got a fax from a man called Giuseppe. The news it contained was not good. It said:
As I’ve promised, I take you the details of your arrive. It is not easy to go from Rome to Castel di Sangro; we are in a montain zone – 800 m on sea level; much than 200 km from Rome and you’ll take the train to arrive.
If you are at 7.35 am on Fiumicino Airport in Rome, you’ll be able to take a taxi to go to Termini Railway Station to take the 11.50 train from Rome to SULMONA. The arrive is on 15.06 pm. Sulmona is at 150 km from Castel di Sangro and I’ll be at Sulmona station. Excuse me, but I’m very busy in this days before the first match of the championship for some manifestation about Castel di Sangro and it is very impossible for me to be at Rome as I want…But we are mointain people and, don’t worry, we are used to combact against difficulties. As Lilliput people in a Giant World.
So Guiseppe would not meet my plane after all. I flew to Rome anyway, of course, but as soon as I wheeled my luggage cart through customs, and the horde of cab drivers descended upon me, I picked the first one.
“How much to Sulmona?”
“Five undred thousand.”
“Four,” I said. He motioned with his thumb. “Follow me.” And so I was off to the Abruzzo, well in advance of the 11.50 from Rome.
Italy is composed of twenty regions. Some are legendary, others extremely popular with foreign tourists and still more, though not as well known to outsiders, prized by the Italians themselves. And then there is Abruzzo.
Frommer’s 1996 guide to Italy describes it as “one of the poorest and least visited regions” in the country. “Arid and sunscorched…prone to frequent earthquakes, the Abruzzo is…impoverished and visually stark.” It is a region, says another guidebook, “in which there is little to see and even less to do.”
This reputation was not acquired overnight. As for the inhabitants, the English travel essayist Norman Douglas wrote in the early years of the twentieth century that “their life is one of miserable, revolting destitution.” Frommer’s pointed out more recently that “many of its people have emigrated to more prosperous regions,” leaving behind only “clannish local families,” described in another book as “atavistic and introspective”.
I was no tourist. For better or worse, I had business in the Abruzzo. My destination was the remote town of Castel di Sangro, which some contend means “castle of blood” in the local dialect. The town is shielded from outsiders by what one reference book describes as an “inaccessibility extreme even by the standards of the Abruzzo.” It is located almost 3,000 feet above sea level. Winter lasts from October to May and in all seasons bestial winds gust down on it from higher mountains above.
On one side, Castel di Sangro is bordered by the Abruzzo National Park, which still contains wolves and brown bears, as well as more than thirty species of reptile. On the other side lies the immense and silent Valle della Femmina Morta, or “valley of the dead woman.” Strangers to the region who ask how such a name came to attach itself to such a vast and empty expanse reportedly receive only shrugs or the shaking of heads in response.
Beyond the valley rises La Maiella, an enormous limestone massif cut by deep and treacherous canyons and containing more than fifty peaks, the highest of which, Monte Amaro, or “the bitter mountain,” reaches an altitude of almost 10,000 feet. Again, the origin of the name has been lost in the mists of time and legend.
‘This is a landscape,” warns yet another guidebook, “that should be approached with caution.” Or, in the alternative, not approached at all. Yet so deep in the grip of mania was I that I was not only approaching, but preparing to plunge into its core: alone, knowing no one, speaking not a word of Italian, yet committed to staying for more than nine months.

My arrival came on a warm Saturday in early September 1996. The driver dropped me at the deserted Sulmona train station just before noon. All seemed tranquil and pleasant. Leaving my mass of luggage in the somewhat drowsy custody of a ticket agent, I walked into the centre of the city – population 25,000 – ate a moderate lunch and returned to the station. I napped intermittently for an hour or two, lying on the platform next to the tracks, my head resting on a duffel bag and dappled sunlight falling on me through late-summer leaves. In mid-afternoon, I heard a train whistle in the distance. My train. The 11.50 from Rome. I looked at my watch: 3 pm. Right on time. Leaving my luggage again, I walked to the front of the station, looking for someone who might be Giuseppe, hoping that some new “manifestation” had not prevented him from coming to Sulmona.
Just then a small, battered automobile entered the parking lot at high speed and jerked to a halt. Out bounded a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, with dark hair and an alert look in his eyes.
“Giuseppe?” I called. He looked at and recognised immediately that I must be the American. He looked puzzled. “Joe?” he said. “Yes, yes, all my bags are just around the other side.”
“But the train. She is not arrive.”
“No, no, but I get ride. Not important. Here, I’ll drag the bags around front.”
Giuseppe seemed perplexed but did not pursue it. If a man pursued everything that did not make sense, he’d never get anything done.
We were now off to Castel di Sangro in his tiny car, or so I thought. Giuseppe drove at what felt to me like a recklessly high speed, but I’d soon learn it was well below the norm. I couldn’t tell whether not being able to see the road through my suitcases made it better or worse.
Before I could even attempt conversation, I heard a shrill chirping next to me and Giueseppe pulled a cellular phone out of his pocket and began speaking even faster than he drove. As soon as that call was concluded, he made one of his own, looking intently at the buttons, not at the road, as he tapped them in rapid succession. He spoke for only ten seconds, then signed off with a quick burst of “ciaos”. Immediately he made another call, then he received two more. He made one and then received three in a row. I was trying to keep score. “Ciao,” he would say towards the end of each. “Ciao…ciao, ciao, ciao.”

As I would soon learn, one of the fiercest everyday competitions among Italians who speak to one another by cellular phone is to see who can cram the most “ciaos” into the close of a conversation. To win an undisputed victory, you must not only have muttered the word more times than your conversational opponent, but also have gotten in the last “ciao” of all, clicking your OFF button even as you utter the word.
Eventually, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, looked at me and said, “Excuse.” Clearly, the time for our conversation had arrived. “I no understand too much the English, no? I have not speak this. Is easier to have write, yes? Not for the speak.” I said, “But Castel di Sangro. Much far? We go to Castel di Sangro?” He replies, “No. I take you for arrive Roccaraso. But you no worry. Not far.”
“But I’m going to Castel di Sangro.” Giuseppe shook his head. “Not possible. Castel di Sangro no hotel. Roccaraso many. You Best Western Roccaraso. You sleep. At later I call with you. Very busy this days. But Best Western okay, okay? You no worry.”
The he took another half a dozen phone calls. He eventually pulled off the road. Looking out of my side window, I could see, sure enough, a Best Western motel.
Stumbling out of the car with suitcases falling all around me, I could see that we were on a strip of roads lined with motels. Which were separated, it seemed, only by sporting-goods stores that had pairs of skis and colourful ski parkas in the windows.
“Don’t worry. No problem. Don’t worry,” Giuseppe said. “Much events for me now. You have sleeping. I calls later. No problem.”
“What time, Giuseppe?” I pointed at my watch. “At what time will you call?”
He tossed both hands upward and exhaled sharply. I think I was supposed to understand that my question was impossible to answer. How could he know when he would call when he had much events and was very busy this days?
“I have a room here?” I asked. “Si, I tell you, no problem.” “Okay, good. But, Giuseppe – where is Castel di Sangro?”
“You don’t worry. She not far. Ciao, ciao.” “Okay, ciao”. “Ciao, ciao, ciao.” “Ciao, ciao, ciao, Giuseppe.”
“Si. Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao.” Then he rolled up his car window and drove off, already making a new call on his cell phone.

I retain clear memories of what my life was like before. In many ways, I suppose it was better. My children respected me. My wife and I shared numerous interests. I had friends. I enjoyed music. I read books. That I would grow suddenly obsessed with “football” – the term used throughout the world to describe the sport that is called “soccer” in America – seemed no more likely than my becoming an astronaut.
There was nothing gradual about it. I simply woke up one morning in late spring of 1994 suddenly overwhelmed by enthusiasm over the fact that the United States that summer would host the World Cup. That I had never seen a single match in all my life did not seem relevant in the least.
Desperately craving information in that pre-internet age, I made forays to obscure bookstores far afield, returning on good days with volumes that contained not only statistical summaries of all World cup matches played since the tournament was first held in 1930, but also descriptions and analyses of the twenty-four national teams that would be competing in America. I began blurting out names like Frank De Boer, Gheorghe Hagi and Gabriel Batitusta and statements such as “Did you realise that this is the first time Norway has qualified since 1938?”
My doctor, who also a friend, watched a preliminary match in my company and at its conclusion only half jokingly attributed my condition to a ministroke, one that – while leaving all motor functions intact – had apparently disabled that portion of the brain that normally protects Americans against any appreciation of soccer or even interest in the sport.
Less than two weeks later the World Cup began. From the first day, I was drawn irresistibly to my television set, watching matches both live and taped at all hours. Germany, as defending champions, opened the tournament against Bolivia. In the second half, Bolivia sent a wild-eyed, long-haired substitute named Etcheverry, who within thirty seconds was ejected for what the referee deemed an excessively violent tackle. I grew irate. “What?! I screamed at my set. “That’s unbelievable! He can’t be sent off for that!” It was as if I been born and raised in La Paz, such was my anger – the irrationality of which was compounded by the fact that at that point I had only the most passing acquaintance with the rules and thus no basis for questioning the referee’s judgement – much less from the top of my lungs.
Worse, between matches I would babble on to family and friends about Stoichkov of Bulgaria, Dahlin of Sweden, Bergkamp of Holland, Bebeto of Brazil, Omam-Biyick of Cameroon and even a chap named Saeed Owairan of Saudi Arabia. ‘Did you see that goal against the Belgians?!”
America was competing, but I must confess that patriotism played no part in my obsession. I was as enthralled by the draw between Spain and South Korea as by America’s shocking upset of Columbia. When I learned on short notice that tickets were available for a 25 June match at Foxboro Stadium, outside Boston, three hours from my western Massachusetts home, it mattered little that the two teams playing would be Nigeria and Argentina.
Nor, despite my coming to admire the Nigerians immensely, was I overly disturbed, by the fact that Argentina had won. It was the sheer spectacle and grandeur of the event: the passion, both in the stands and on the field; the colour, the flair, the intensity; as well as the grace, athleticism and subtlety involved in the playing of the match itself.
Circumstances restricted me to only one more live match, in Foxboro on 5 July. Again, one team was Nigeria, who had survived the round-robin first phase despite the loss to Argentina. This time the opposition was Italy, who had played so poorly in the first round that it was only by the thinnest of statistical margins that they had qualified for the single-elimination phase, in which the sixteen remaining countries would compete.
My second live match was looking as if it would become one of the more significant upsets in football history. With only two minutes remaining, Nigeria led 1-0. The capacity 55,000 crowd had screamed themselves hoarse, had been swept along the entire gamut of human emotion and, as the end neared, were as emotionally exhausted as were the players physically.
Then a slight and graceful Italian named Roberto Baggio, employing a deft, controlled flick of his right foot, scored a goal. The same Baggio scored again in extra time and Italy won. A Buddhist who stood only five foot seven, weighed only 145 pounds and wore his hair in a ponytail, the twenty-seven-year-old Baggio had salvaged the pride of his nation.
Now my obsession had a focal point. Four days later in the quarter-final against Spain, Baggio did it again, scoring with only two minutes remaining to give Italy a 2-1 win. He then scored two astonishing goals within four minutes to assure Italy of a 2-1 triumph over rugged Bulgaria and a place in the World Cup final against Brazil.
Unfortunately, Baggio had damaged his hamstring in the game so severely that he left the pitch in tears, convinced that he would not be able to play in the final four days later. Indeed, he was not fit to play, but with so much at stake, he took the field anyway. He hobbled through ninety minutes of scoreless play and then through thirty minutes of goalless extra time.
A penalty shoot-out followed. Of the first four players from each side to kick, three Brazilians, but only two Italians were successful. Baggio was the fifth and last Italian to try. He missed also and Brazil were World Champions. The picture of him standing alone in the centre of the Rose Bowl, head bowed, one hand held to his tear-filled eyes, struck me as so poignant that for days afterward I could scarcely eat or speak. I wasn’t even Italian!
In mid-September, my wife, Nancy and I went to Switzerland in the hope that some Alpine hiking might clear my head. One afternoon, we arrived at a small village on the shore of Lake Lucerne and, from a distance of at least fifty yards, I spotted a copy of La Gazetta dello Sport at a newsstand. La Gazetta is the best of three daily Italian papers devoted almost entirely to news and rumours of the world of “il calcio”, which is what the Italians call football – literal meaning – “the kick”. It is printed on shocking-pink paper with jet-black headlines. On that tranquil Saturday afternoon its effect on me was electric. With one quick glance at the front page, I learned that A.C. Milan were playing a home match the next day against powerful Lazio of Rome. After that, I needed only five minutes of scanning timetables to know that it could be done.
As I explained to Nancy, if we got up at 5.30 am, caught the first ferry, got a fast train to Zurich, then switched to the train to Zurich airport, we could make a 12.30 pm flight to Milan, from where we could take a taxi to the Milan Stadium, the San Siro, in time for the 4 pm match. Afterward, we could take a cab back to the airport, catch the last flight from Milan to Zurich that night and be back in the Alps the next day.
That’s what happened. We reached the San Siro a full hour before the match began. We experienced true mass hysteria for the first time in our lives. Wave upon wave of urgent, driving, throbbing passion, exemplified by the bursting red flares, billowing pink smoke and deafening chants from the 70,000 Milan fans by whom we were surrounded, washed over us and crashed against the stadium’s concrete decks.
This match did not involve the national team. That group was essentially an all-star squad brought together for the relatively infrequent competitions among countries, who returned to their respective clubs to begin the nine-month Italian league season.
Nor was it in any way like watching a world cup match. This was war! Lazio was the enemy, notwithstanding that three members of the Lazio squad had played for the national team only two months earlier and had been supported with the same fervour with which they were now scorned.
The thousand or so Lazio fans who had somehow acquired tickets and come up from Rome were guarded by at least that many police; hemmed in on all sides in one far corner so that none of the flare-throwing, chanting “milanisti” could bet at them to do harm.
It must be acknowledged that not only did Italians learn to play footfall better than then the people of almost any other country in the world, they also infused the game with a raw, untamable passion which – as we were witness to at the San Siro – manifested itself on a weekly basis to a degree that was roughly equivalent to the sum total of that produced by all the sporting events, rock concerts, political protest movements, born-again Christian revival meetings, civil rights demonstrations, anti-war rallies and all other public displays of emotion ever to have taken place in America.
The intensity hit its first peak as A. C. Milan, in their distinctive red-and-black-striped shirts, took the field. The second and third – each twice as high as the one before – were attained through the brilliance of a dreadlocked Dutchman of Sumatran heritage, one Ruud Gullit, who scored two glorious goals for Milan; the second – which gave Milan a 2-1 victory – coming only seconds before the end of the match.
Dancing joyously around the thronged parking lot afterward, in the company of thousands of Italians of all ages who’d obviously been “milanisti” since birth, or at least since the day of their baptism – it being customary in many Italian families not only to name the baby during the ceremony, but also to decree which “calcio” team he will root for all his life, Nancy and I bumped into an especially exuberant cabdriver who, once he deduced that we were Americans, come all the way to Milan just for the match, insisted on driving us to the airport free of charge.
In that first pure rush of “calcio-induced” ecstasy, we did not foresee the dark side: that my obsession would only worsen, to the point where this recreational pursuit would become the force that dominated my life and would inevitably send me tumbling far down from the pinnacle of joy that magical afternoon at the San Siro represented and onto the distant windswept plains of Castel di Sangro.
Read the next steps of Joe’s journey in our Coggeshall Town Official Match Day Magazine on Saturday 2 February.

The Wanderer