Last Saturday I watched on TV the Italian Bowl, the final of the Italian Football league. Seamen Milan defeated 37-29 Rhinos, also from Milan. Unfortunately, as I have always been a fan of the latter. On both sides, among the coaches, there were old acquaintances of when I was first a player of Cociati (Crusaders) Monza and a scorer for Black Hawks Cernusco (who had absorbed Crociati): in Seamen coach Francesco "Tato" Zamzieli, in Rhinos the then player Piero "Mazzarella" Marotta (Piero Mazzarela was a Milanese comedian). It was the first Italian league game I have seen, live or on TV, after 21 years: I felt a bit like Comrade Antonio of "Avanzi" (Remainders) (for whom is old enough to remember this show of the '90s), the one who had been in a coma for 20 years, seeing these players, of whom almost all were not born when I saw my first final and many even when I saw my last one.
I went to see the championship game, which at that time was called the Italian Super Bowl, for 11 consecutive seasons, from 1985 to 1995. The first time in Padua, the last in Cesenatico; Once close to home, in Monza (I lived about 1 km from the stadium), while the longest trip was to Ancona (it seems to me respectively in 1991 and 1986). The first time I was alone: I still did not know anybody in the football environment, in the following years I went with my teammates.
At least for the first 6-7 years there was a double trend: the level of the game was growing, the number of spectators was falling, then the spectators stabilized, the game also worsened a bit. The star of the Super Bowl 1985, the American running-back Pearson, of the Doves Bologna, 3-4 years later was not good enough to play as an American in first division (certainly, he also had got worse). The quaity leap was in 1987, with the arrival of the quarterback (although he was not officially played as such, American QBs were not allowed) Bobby Frasco of the Frogs Legnano: borrowing Dante's words, I called him "a thing come from America to Europe to show a miracle ".
The peak of the spectators was actually in the Super Bowl 1984, played in Rimini, with about 20,000 people, or so it was said. Then I thought that football would soon become the third team sport in Italy, not far from the second (more or less what volleyball has become) and that journalist specializied in football was a profession of the future. When it returned to Rimini in 1990, the spectators were not more than one third, despite the much higher level. That year after the Super Bowl the semi-finals and finals of the Eurobowl, the Champions League of Football were held: they were won by the Manchester Spartans (whose fans spoke an ununderstandable language: the consolation was that even Americans did not understand it) after a beautiful semifinal against the German and the final against the Rhinos Milan. They made the mistake of starting the matches too early, at a time when tourists could hardly been caught, as they were still dining in hotels; there were only those who came to Rimini specifically for the matches.
In addition to 1990, I remember the 1987 edition, very beautiful and close, also in Rimini, but above all in 1989, played in a tense mood. On the field, the qualified, together with the Frogs, were Saints Padua, but instead Seamen were playing, despte playing only one playoff game and losing it. They hadbeen allowed to repeat the game with the Gladiators Rome (quarter-finals) as it started beyond the time limit, but both the Gladiators and the Saints in the semifinals, as a protestagainst that decision refused to play. The event's program said "let's talk about results on the field" and then said that the team which had qualified were the Saints, who before the game were applauded beside the field. The Seamen entered the field as usual with the theme of "Chariots of Fire", but only the shouting of "puppets" and "thieves" could be heard.
In the 1995 edition, I remember seeing a boy from Rome (then I did not imagine that I would soon become from Rome myself) who was the same as I was me 10 years before: 17 years old and at his first Super Bowl.
I do not remember what prevented me from going in 1996, then after I moved to Rome it became more difficult. From year to year I promised to go see a league game again, but so far I have never done. On the other hand I saw a real Super Bowl (2014) and a German final (2010).
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