Naples, August 1989. It is a city in a post-coital daze.
Only a few months back the city’s football team celebrated it’s second league title in as many years and its second in its entire history.
Kicked out of its lethargic malaise by the fleet feet of an Argentinian not much taller than a barrel of wine. Diego Armando Maradona.
I was 9 years old. I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I’ve been to Naples many a time since then, but I can scarcely remember the city so aglow. It was like Rio in carnival time, a celebration of the people. At last, Naples – and Neapolitans – could be proud of their city. For so long, never taken seriously by any one who didn’t live there, derided and ridiculed in equal measure by the rest of the country (the north in particular).
And it all changed because of a football team.
People laugh these days if I mention it. Football’s not that important. But without sounding condescending – it can be and usually is.
The first time I felt any pride in my own abilities was when I was signed up as a 10 year old with a local youth team (Blue Star) and dribbled round the cones in the fastest time out of the group of boys in my age group.
It was exhilarating and empowering.
But on the other side of the coin, sensationalist headlines tend to ignore the positives – school programs, grassroots initiatives, donations to charities and sponsored events or when football is simply used to tackle delinquency and despondency in young people by simply giving them something to do and somewhere to go.
Where am I going with this? Back to 1989, Naples, specifically.
It was there that I saw up close and personal how football affected the lives of individuals of any age. I’m not certain on the statistics but I can bet cautiously that crime was slightly less in those intervening months between the Scudetto victory and my holiday. Social ills weren’t cured, and life was hard all the same, but people were made to forget their problems for a short time.
And for a while – football flags and Italian flags were hanging with the wet clothes on the washlines.
Life was as it always was – the people out in droves, spilling out from alleyways and stalls, car horns beeping, the din of voices haggling and shouting. People working, struggling, living…
But there was an air of optimism too.
I compare and contrast that to Naples today – older, and a little nostalgic for those days. A little heartbroken too…Maradona left, the good times over, only memories regurgitated in the soft-voiced conversations of old men playing cards on the street, of young boys too young to appreciate the cultural significance of what Maradona and his team had achieved, by the pride restored in this city, but since then with the emergence of the Camorra and the unaddressed poverty Naples is a harder place.
It’s less naïve, less idealistic, more realistic. Aware that promises can be broken and dreams can sometimes fade, been hurt too many times since.
But I’m hopeful for the city; the people there are optimistic, cautiously and mortally so, that changes can always come about irrespective of how things happened.
Only a few months back the city’s football team celebrated it’s second league title in as many years and its second in its entire history.
Kicked out of its lethargic malaise by the fleet feet of an Argentinian not much taller than a barrel of wine. Diego Armando Maradona.
I was 9 years old. I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I’ve been to Naples many a time since then, but I can scarcely remember the city so aglow. It was like Rio in carnival time, a celebration of the people. At last, Naples – and Neapolitans – could be proud of their city. For so long, never taken seriously by any one who didn’t live there, derided and ridiculed in equal measure by the rest of the country (the north in particular).
And it all changed because of a football team.
People laugh these days if I mention it. Football’s not that important. But without sounding condescending – it can be and usually is.
The first time I felt any pride in my own abilities was when I was signed up as a 10 year old with a local youth team (Blue Star) and dribbled round the cones in the fastest time out of the group of boys in my age group.
It was exhilarating and empowering.
I was no way the best player but I performed the best on that test and I felt the sense of pride in myself, and my dad. And it was all thanks to a ball.
In today’s celebrity footballer age, the fans are as far removed from the lives of their idols that you forget that football is a sport that belongs to everyone particularly the working class.
In today’s celebrity footballer age, the fans are as far removed from the lives of their idols that you forget that football is a sport that belongs to everyone particularly the working class.
Football is a mobilising agent in helping people transcend social & racial barriers – I’ve seen it as an effective glue firsthand when taking the kids at NACRO out for a kickabout, the street matches we played as kids, and even as team building exercises when you're involved in a Powerleague tournament.
We hear a lot about the negative aspects of the sport – the violence, the hooliganism, the shameless greed of the players and the club, the lack of loyalty and the exploitation of the supporters.
We hear a lot about the negative aspects of the sport – the violence, the hooliganism, the shameless greed of the players and the club, the lack of loyalty and the exploitation of the supporters.
But on the other side of the coin, sensationalist headlines tend to ignore the positives – school programs, grassroots initiatives, donations to charities and sponsored events or when football is simply used to tackle delinquency and despondency in young people by simply giving them something to do and somewhere to go.
Where am I going with this? Back to 1989, Naples, specifically.
It was there that I saw up close and personal how football affected the lives of individuals of any age. I’m not certain on the statistics but I can bet cautiously that crime was slightly less in those intervening months between the Scudetto victory and my holiday. Social ills weren’t cured, and life was hard all the same, but people were made to forget their problems for a short time.
And for a while – football flags and Italian flags were hanging with the wet clothes on the washlines.
Life was as it always was – the people out in droves, spilling out from alleyways and stalls, car horns beeping, the din of voices haggling and shouting. People working, struggling, living…
But there was an air of optimism too.
I compare and contrast that to Naples today – older, and a little nostalgic for those days. A little heartbroken too…Maradona left, the good times over, only memories regurgitated in the soft-voiced conversations of old men playing cards on the street, of young boys too young to appreciate the cultural significance of what Maradona and his team had achieved, by the pride restored in this city, but since then with the emergence of the Camorra and the unaddressed poverty Naples is a harder place.
It’s less naïve, less idealistic, more realistic. Aware that promises can be broken and dreams can sometimes fade, been hurt too many times since.
But I’m hopeful for the city; the people there are optimistic, cautiously and mortally so, that changes can always come about irrespective of how things happened.
I see a kickabout between a group of street urchins, much as I used to kick about with boys my age, and I know that’s a good sign, despite the depressive climate. For a start, I know that while they’re playing football, they can’t be robbing someone.
Naples, despite it’s recent problems – the garbage scandal which revealed the extent of Camorra involvement in legitimate enterprises and the murder of a 14 year old girl – Annalisa Durante – again, by the Camorra (for those that glamorise gangsters please read up on this story), is at least acknowledging them (the first step to any recovery), and at long last we’re seeing progress (the garbage issue is being slowly resolved).
The story of Naples is the story of Maradona, small and overlooked, it grew in stature and took on the heavyweights and won, for a while. Then came the scandals, the failures, and the party was over. But, with time, it is trying to get better. As I type this Maradona is coach of the Argentinian national team – after years of ignominy, drugs and paternity suites. He’s returning to give back to the sport what he took from it.
As a footnote to all this I must add one final thing:
there’s a young man in Naples at the moment called Ezequial Lavezzi.
He’s Argentinian and he’s doing wonderful things for the football team. Is this history repeating itself?
Naples is getting better, starting with the football team.
It’s almost like 1989 again…
Naples, despite it’s recent problems – the garbage scandal which revealed the extent of Camorra involvement in legitimate enterprises and the murder of a 14 year old girl – Annalisa Durante – again, by the Camorra (for those that glamorise gangsters please read up on this story), is at least acknowledging them (the first step to any recovery), and at long last we’re seeing progress (the garbage issue is being slowly resolved).
The story of Naples is the story of Maradona, small and overlooked, it grew in stature and took on the heavyweights and won, for a while. Then came the scandals, the failures, and the party was over. But, with time, it is trying to get better. As I type this Maradona is coach of the Argentinian national team – after years of ignominy, drugs and paternity suites. He’s returning to give back to the sport what he took from it.
As a footnote to all this I must add one final thing:
there’s a young man in Naples at the moment called Ezequial Lavezzi.
He’s Argentinian and he’s doing wonderful things for the football team. Is this history repeating itself?
Naples is getting better, starting with the football team.
It’s almost like 1989 again…
