It is located in the Province of Salerno, in the area better known as Cilento Castellabatean Italian municipality of 8,655 inhabitants, made up of various hamlets; Santa Maria di Castellabate, located in the lower part of the city, is the largest. In the Cilento town, famous for the film “Welcome to the South”, plays the Polisportiva Santa Maria, a club founded way back in 1932 on the initiative of Valentino Izzo, the then mayor of Santa Maria di Castellabate.
The Santa Maria del Cilento Sports Center, whose colors are yellow and red in honor of Rome, plays its matches in the facility named after the engineer Antonio Carrano, an illustrious local figure who started the process of re-founding the historic association starting from the 1950s yellow Red. The recent history of the Polisportiva still seems to be linked to that glorious past: the current president, Francesco Tavassi, is in fact the nephew of the engineer Carrano. The walls behind the goal echo the history and tradition of the club, the murals recall history through the football symbols and well-known faces of the club.
Today the Santa Maria del Cilento sports club, thanks to the commitment, not only economic, of the current ownership, has managed to fulfill the dream of landing in Serie D, moving from the regional championships to the fourth series, a luxury for the small Cilento centre. These small realities However, they often clash with infrastructural problems which limit their possibilities or, even worse, prevent them from fully living their dreams. It happens, in fact, that newly promoted teams are forced to seek hospitality elsewhere, effectively frustrating the legitimate expectations of entire communities who, after having nurtured the desire for promotion, are forced to always follow their favorites away, even when the matches theoretically they should be played at home. The Serie D League (but more generally whoever governs football) often sets access requirements to the various category levels which in fact cancel out what has instead been achieved on the pitch and, not infrequently, it happens that the “moving” also corresponds to the category jump: do you want to play in Serie D?, then find yourself a compliant stadium, larger, more spacious and more comfortable, capable of holding thousands of spectators, who, as the facts prove, will never, ever populate the facility, do you want due to the lack of appeal of the category, or because the catchment area is so small that the problem is not the capacity but the potential that the square in question could offer. In short, give up your 50 m2 house and look for a 200 m2 house, even if you end up living there alone. The paradoxes of “modern” football, very formal and not very substance-oriented. We are therefore not surprised if, just to cite a recent example, this summer we witnessed the Lecco case, a club almost excluded from Serie B due to a “pair of turnstiles” that were not up to standard.
Common sense will have prevailed, or everything will have passed hushed in the dreaded offices, but It’s nice to know that the Santa Maria Sports Club plays its matches in Santa Maria del Cilento and not for example in nearby Agropoli as Gelbison, a club a few km from Castellabate, is forced to do. The Giallorossi, fortunately, have managed to remain among their people, and this in itself is news, because in the land of quibbles and rigid rules, getting to live the Serie D dream at home is indeed news.
The Cilento club therefore plays its matches in the small home stadium which, in addition to having a small stand for local fans, has a sector dedicated to visiting fans which can contain just over 200 fans; However, the low capacity does not seem to be a problem, in fact at least up to now there have been no registrations sold out and the management of public order, despite the absence of turnstiles or cameras, did not create any particular problems for the police. In short, you can do it if you want.
In short, it would be equally nice if one day Sassuolo, Feralpi Salò or many other sports teams could also play their home matches within the walls of their own city and not constantly away.
Moving on to the news of cheering About 150 Altamurans arrive from Altamura jubilant and happy to cheer on their team who regained the lead on the previous Sunday. When the teams take to the field, their sector, low and narrow, is colored with scarves and flags; this is also news, because in the new drift that accompanies the ultras movement, being colored has almost become a disgrace and people prefer to go around anonymously, when then there is little that is anonymous, if you dress in identical brands and everyone in a perfectly recognizable form.
The match is a red and white monologue, the Murgians closed the first half with a clear 2-0, while in the second they spread, giving three more goals to the unfortunate opposing goalkeeper. Cheering obviously changes score depending on the progress of the race: when the team suffers you try to make your opponents feel like they’re breathing down their necks, when your favorites dominate 5-0 then you lower your guard and think more about having fun.
The hosts don’t focus on numbers, they are objectively few, but after a few minutes from the start they try to make themselves heard and even if they are small in number, they show off a good performance. At 5-0 they take down patches and banners and watch the final moments of the match in religious silence, reserving a few whistles for their players who sadly gain the locker room.
Michele D’Urso
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