This article is the fifth in 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.
LUNCH WITH THE OWNER AND PRESIDENT OF CASTEL DI SANGRO
Sunday morning was cool, yet filled with brilliant sunshine. It was the kind of day that makes a man feel like buying a new pair of skis, but I resisted. I also resisted any thoughts of breakfast. I was even afraid to drink water. I had been advised that if I did not finish everything I was served, the owner of the club, Signor Rezza would very, very, disappointed.
Not for the first time, I was puzzled. I’d looked at a map and had seen the city of Pescara, where my guide, Barbara had said we’d be going to lunch with Signor Rezza, was well over 100 kilometres from Castel di Sangro. It seemed an awfully long way to go just for lunch, especially when as soon as the meal was over, we presumably would be rushing back into the mountains to be in Castel di Sangro in time for the 4 pm match - the club’s debut game in Serie B.
It was 10 am when the club president, Signor Gravina swung swiftly into the drive of my hotel in a dark blue Lancia, wearing even darker sunglasses, smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone. Seeing the president of the club in the clear light of day for the first time, I was even more struck by his rangy good looks – something on the order of Kirk Douglas. His wife, Signor Rezza’s niece, sat next to him, a short and rather plump woman with a very sweet smile. Barbara was in the back seat.
The Gravinas, she told me, had two teenage sons, but they would not be coming to lunch because there was not enough room in the car. Gabriele Gravina had insisted on driving me to Pescara as one means of displaying the warmth with which he welcomed me to Castel di Sangro. Driving me also meant taking Barbara too, because neither Gabriele nor his wife spoke any English.
“Because the ride to Pescara is somewhat long,” Barbara said, a new formality having crept into her syntax in the presence of “il presidente”, although he couldn’t understand a word she was saying, “Signor Gravina has requested that I accompany you in order to facilitate conversation.”
“Right, but I can’t talk to him while he’s on the phone,” I said. “No, but you could comment to Signora Gravina on the beauty of the region and on the fineness of the weather. You also could inform her, as you informed me yesterday, of your schedule. That you must go back to America in three weeks but that you will return here as quickly as possible and stay until Christmas and then remain with the team until the end of the season, next June.”
“Scusi.” I leaned forward and tapped Signora Gravina on the shoulder. She turned again, startled by the physical contact.
“This is beautiful!” I said, waving my hand I what I hoped was an all-inclusive gesture. “And the weather – couldn’t be better!” I smiled. “In three weeks I have to go home, just some odds and ends, but then I’ll come back and stay until Christmas.” I smiled brightly.
Barbara said a very few words in Italian, presumably translating my spontaneous remarks. Then a burst of rapid-fire Italian came from over Gravina’s right shoulder, directed apparently to the back seat.
Barbara listened attentively. “Signor Gravina wishes to know if your accommodations last night were satisfactory.”
“Yes, absolutely, but You’d better tell him I’m moving to that Coradetti dive tomorrow.”
Babara did, which precipitated a series of short conversational back and forth. “Signor Gravina regrets you have done this as, in his view, it is not suitable for a man of your station. This was why he booked your room at the Best Western.”
“Yes, but please explain to him that I have to be downtown, near everything, especially the stadium. I looked on the map and the Coradetti is only about three or four blocks from the stadium.”
Barbara shook her head. “On this most special morning it would not be appropriate to mention the stadium.”
“Why in the world not?”
“It is what you would call, I think, a sore point.”
“Barbara, we are going to sitting in the stadium at four o’clock this afternoon. That is, if we get back from lunch on time.”
I would have thought that someone who comes all the way from America to write a book about the miracle might have done a bit of research in advance.”
“I was in a hurry to get here. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”
‘This is not the time to have to have that conversation, not here in Signor Gravina’s car, as he is most graciously driving us to the luncheon being given by Signor Rezza.”
Hearing his own name and that of Rezza mentioned in the same sentence, Gravina turned more fully toward the back seat.
“Grazie mille, Signor”. I said.
All the while, I should mention, Gravina was driving the Lancia down a two-lane road at a speed approaching 120 mph. I was the only one wearing a seat belt.
“There is no stadium,” Barbara said.
“What?”
“I think you will need to learn how to say ‘What’ in Italian. You might try, ‘Che?!’”
“Okay, but what – I mean ‘che’ did you just say. About no stadium?”
“Well, yes, there is a stadium, but it cannot be used. The regulations of Serie B require that all stadiums be able to seat at least ten thousand people and our old stadium had room for four thousand, so much construction work is being done. Unfortunately, this work has not been completed. For today, the match will not take place in Castel di Sangro, but in Chieti, where Gabriele Gravina has quite cleverly procured the use of a stadium and which is a city quite near Pescara. For this reason, Signor Rezza has chosen to eat lunch in Pescara.”
“I find this hard to believe. First, there is no hotel, now there’s no stadium?”
“Many in Castel di Sangro find it hard to believe also. It is not a comfortable situation.”
“So, they’ve had all summer to add six thousand seats, if that’s what they needed to do. How come it didn’t get done?” I enquired.
“The money for the construction was to have come from the region and from the province. Gabriele declares that this money did not arrive. Others suggest it did, but it may have been diverted elsewhere. Signor Rezza and Gabriele have many business interests in addition to Castel di Sangrio Calcio.” [Editor: Calcio is Italian for “Football”].
“Are you saying they stole the money that was supposed to go for the stadium?”
“Of course not. I would never make such an accusation against either Signor Rezza or Gabriele. I am only relating the theories of others for background purposes.”
“But why can’t Rezza use some of his own millions to add the six thousand seats? You said Rezza was a big construction guy in Napoli? One phone call and a guy like that has his six thousand seats I overnight! No stadium? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’
“Please!” Barbara said. “When you raise your voice in that fashion and especially when you mention the name of Signor Rezza, it is disconcerting for our host and hostess in the front seat.”
‘What, you don’t want me to say their names because you don’t want them to know we’re talking about them? I mean, che?”
“Che?” Barbara said.
“Yes, at the start of what I just said I said, ‘What’, and I should have said, ‘Che,’ I mean, at the start of che I just said.”
“No, it is not so simple, this use of che. Please. Forget I even mentioned it. When we have a formal lesson, I will explain. Also, please recognise the problem of the stadium is all too well known in Castel di Sangro and throughout the Abruzzo. In our present company and in the company of our host at lunch, it would be most inappropriate for you to raise this topic.”
Barbara put a cheerful lilt back in her voice and smiled broadly and spoke nonstop to the Gravinas.
“Okay,” I said. “What the che did you tell them?”
“I said merely that you were wishing to emphasise to me how important it was to be sure that Signor Gravina and Signor Rezza recognised the full extent of your gratitude for the extraordinary hospitality they are showing you. I also said it is a regional attribute of people from certain parts of America that when they are very pleased, they use a tone of voice that can be mistaken for indignant.”
“Wow. I’ll bet you didn’t learn that in any classroom.”
“What is that?”
“How to bull***t. If you’re telling the truth, you’re doing a hell of a job.”
“Please,” Barbara said, blushing ever so slightly as she smiled.
I leaned forward once again. “Grazie mille,” I said again.
Gravina nodded briefly. His wife smiled.
“Mangio! Mangio!” (Eat! Eat!) I added. They stared.
“What did you just say?” Barbara asked.
“Nothing important, Barbara. I’m just practicing.”
The temperature in Pescara was at least thirty degrees warmer that it had been outside the Best Western. I guessed that maybe ten degrees resulted from it being noon and no longer 10 am, but that the other twenty could be attributed to the difference in altitude from Castel di Sangro’s 3,000 feet to sea level. In early September this was not significant, but as I thought ahead to the long, cold, windy weather, I had my first moment of true appreciation for Swinburne.

Soon we arrived at the lush and tranquil Sea River Club.
“Why does it have an English name?” I asked Barbara as we entered the restaurant.
“They think that makes it seem more prestigious. Many Italians foolishly believe that using English terms is a sign of sophistication.”
“Does Signor Rezza speak English?”
Her lips tightened as she surpressed a smile. “Signor Rezza does not even speak Italian. Signor Rezza looks and he gestures and he gets what he wants.”
In that moment, Rezza’s eyes fell upon me. Actually, the old man’s eyes do not so much “fall” upon one as “jump” at the object of his attention. He was smoking a cigar that was at least nine inches long. He was not more than five foot six and was slightly stooped and had a large round belly. But no images of Santa Claus formed in my mind. Rezza’s bristly grey hair was cropped short as that of a prison guard, his face was more square than round and his lips formed a line as thin and steely as a garrotte.
On either side of him stood the men who presumably were his bodyguards. One, in his twenties, must have weighed 300 pounds with none of it fat. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and I could see that his forearms were of about the same circumference as my thighs. The other man, much older, was cadaverously thin, slightly stooped and wore, paradoxically, sunglasses as well as a dark brown trench coat.
“The older one doesn’t look like much of a bodyguard,” I whispered to Barbara. “In fact he looks like he needs one.”
“Yes,” she said. “But he’s retired carabiniere – the tough-guy police. And he’s the one with the gun.”
If Rezza himself nodded to me, it was done with head movement of less than an inch. More likely, it had not been done at all. Certainly, his expression did not change. His mouth did not open. His gaze did not soften. Cigar in hand, he just stood there.
“Please tell Signor Rezza,” I said to Barbara, “that I am very honoured to be included in such special company on such an auspicious occasion and that I wish him and his team the greatest success possible, not only for today, but for the entire forthcoming season. Also, you might mention that I am glad we are eating at a restaurant called the Sea River Club, not because of the English name, but because I am especially fond of fish and it’s hard to get good fresh fish where I live in America, being so many miles from the sea. Also, that –”
I was interrupted by a grunt from Rezza. He was looking at me with, if possible, an even less inviting expression on his face.
“He wants you to stop talking,” Barbara said. “He does not like men who talk too much. He likes men who know how to eat and who know how to keep silent.”
“When did he say all that? He just grunted.”
“I have known Signor Rezza for many years,” Barbara told me. “I can interpret his grunts.”
Then she turned to Rezza, uttered about six rapid words, smiled broadly and led me away.
“So,” she said, seeming relieved. “Now the formalities are over.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Only to please excuse you; that you were simply nervous about the match.”
“What you said, though. It sounded different. It was very quick, but it was different.”
“Yes, I was not speaking in Italian. I spoke to Signor Rezza in dialect.”
“Dialect?”
“The “abruzzese” dialect. It is what he understands best. The dialects of Puglia and the Abruzzo are what he’s always spoken. Italian was taught only in the schools and Signor Rezza has had very little schooling.”
“In the traditional sense,” I said.
Barbara smiled. “Yes. In the traditional sense.”
Fortunately, the group was large enough to be divided among several big tables and I was at the table headed by Gravina, which enabled me not to speak to him during the lunch, rather than not to speak to Signor Rezza. Of course, I did not speak to Signora Rezza either.
What I did was eat. I ate every morsel of every course served to me and there were at least eight of them. I did not drop so much as a fishbone on the rug. The fish and seafood – ranging from Adriatic oysters to Adriatic lobsters and including at least half a dozen types of fish I’d never encountered before – were the best I’d ever been served. They were accompanied by three different white wines and followed by champagne.
At the end, Signor Rezza lit a new cigar and stood. Signor Rezza looked at his watch. Immediately, the older bodyguard nodded to the younger, who broke into a half trot as he left the dining room for the parking lot to bring around Signor Rezza’s car.
Throughout the room, conversations stopped in mid-sentence. Everyone stood. Nodding and grunting in the direction of the hovering maître d’, Signor Rezza began a slow, penguinlike walk from the room, the smoke from his fresh cigar rising like that from a brushfire. Behind him, people scrambled to follow as closely as possible without it appearing that this was what they were trying to do.
Gravina mumbled rapidly into his cell phone as he walked. He’d not once removed his sunglasses, so it was only from the twitching around his mouth that one got the impression that as the hour of the match drew near, he was suddenly nervous enough to eat his newest cigarette instead of smoking it.
It was 3.30 pm and Castel di Sangro’s historic, even miraculous debut in Serie B would kick off in only half an hour. Unfortunately, nowhere near Castel di Sangro.
Look out for the next instalment of the story as the game takes place in the city of Chieti, a few miles inland from Pescara.

The Wanderer