Tucked away in the North West corner of Tuscany, Lucca is a real jewel of Italy, just a wee jewel with a population of 95,000. Once the Republic of Lucca, Independent for nearly 500 years from 1160, and believe me, with the most amazing, intact city walls of the renaissance era, it is a thing of wonder. They are without doubt the most sturdy fortifications I have ever come across, and you can walk the entire circumference of old Lucca upon its ramparts, affording exquisite views of the city and its many towers. One of these, the Giunigi Tower (which you can climb) has its very own roof top forest!! If you have oceans of time, and the weather is in your favour, it is possible to spend an entire day on the wall, as refreshments and lunch can all be provided for up there too!
Lucca is around one hour twenty minutes from the Tuscan capital Firenze by train on the Viareggio route, or 40 minutes if you are travelling up from Pisa. The railway station is just outside the old city wall, and crossing a little square at its entrance, then across the busy city ring road, if you follow the wall to the left a few hundred metres it will bring you to the main gate of the old city. If time is short, just within these gates you’ll find sufficient places for a bite to eat, either at street level or up on the wall. Taking a part wall walk is one way to see a little of Lucca en route to the stadium, and about a quarter of the way round the city wall having turned left as you look out on modern Lucca above the main gateway is an excellent way to get a flavour of the city. Essentially having negotiated the first of the substantial corners of the four available on the circuit, the next downward path after that is where you want to alight back down towards the old city, but double back on yourself at the base on a path that will lead you through a labyrinth that maybe once was Garrison accommodation in the wall out onto the flat grasslands that presumably once housed a moat that is the exterior decoration of the Lucca wall. You will easily see the floodlights of the Porta Elisa Stadium from here, named after the gate to the old city on that side of Lucca. The stadium is tucked in behind a Petrol Station just across the busy ring road in front of you. Indeed, if you have no time at all for sightseeing, turn right on the ring road outside the railway station and follow it round to this same point. Neither walk will take more the 20-30 minutes. However, if you can at the very least give Lucca a day, the Piazza’s, the many churches and towers as well the relaxed ambience, they will all be a welcome escape from the maddening crowds of Florence and Pisa. Lucca gets its fair share of visitors, but only the more adventurous kind! You can enjoy a beer or a meal in the astonishing elipse of apartments that form the beautiful Piazza Anfiteatro, where many a bar and restaurant will be found. If you come across Puccini arias playing in a Piazza, it is merely because the Lucchesi are rightly proud of their famous son who wrote Madame Butterfly and La Boheme. My musical recollection of Lucca will always be “Eye of the Tiger”, belted out brilliantly by two blokes in the main square on nothing more than varied lengths of plastic drainpipes, played with paint brushes!! Elton John is due in town to play one of the large Piazza near the main entrance in early June this year as part of his farewell tour, a more sumptuous setting I could not imagine, save the Verona Ampitheatre perhaps!
But this is not a musical publication so lets get on with the calcio, after all that’s why we are here!! Lucchese as a club were founded in 1905, a most splendid year for clubs being founded as Ancona started that year too! The club went along relatively quietly for thirty years before winning Serie B in 1936, thereby being promoted to Serie A for the first time. It was a lofty perch they retained for three years before being relegated just ahead of the outbreak of WWII. Post hostilities settling down they won Serie B once more in 1947, this time managing five seasons nibbling at the top table. Alas, since 1952/53 they have never troubled Serie A again, and decades of second and third tier action ensued until that modern day Italian blight on the CV, bankruptcy, not once but twice (2008 + 2011) in quick succession visited this prosperous cities football team. As they plummeted to the sixth tier at one point, the Tuscan Eccellenza league, the turmoil spawned an extraordinary number of name changes; SSD Sporting Lucchese, ASD FC Lucca 2011 before settling on AS Lucchese Libertas 1905 to this day. Ahead of the visit of near neighbours and rivals Pisa for this encounter, the local fans must have been having a nervous panic! A relatively solid start to the new, albeit delayed Serie C campaign had been wiped out at a stroke with the FIGC slapping them with an 11 point deduction for either late submission of accounts, or rogue accounts, or maybe both as a number of clubs got small points deductions. Matera were the second worst offenders with eight points slashed away, but Lucchese hit the big one unfortunately. It was an adjustment of league placing that saw an upper mid table side plummet to last ahead of Pisa coming to town. Whether fearing the worst and rallying under a call to arms, or it was merely the visit of a local rival, the crowd was considerably swollen for this encounter. Indeed, the mere two portholes selling tickets, and the laborious nature of having to individualise each ticket, you had to be both patient and be there early to avoid missing the kick off, which I am sure many did!
The atmosphere in the ticket queue was understandably muted, but if only my Italian had been better I would have embraced those around me with a William Wallace-esque speech of inspiration regarding my last sighting of Lucchese last season at Arezzo, a game the visitors won 1,0, but subsequent to that game and much nearer the end of the season, Arezzo were docked 15 points and even had two games postponed while they fought a winding up order. The deduction put Arezzo in the relegation zone, but they stayed up on the last day and are jousting away at the promotion end of the league this term. From unfortunate issues like this people rally and from adversity can rise something more worthy!
Stadio Porta Elisa (capacity 7,385) has a fine covered main stand with its very own unique flag tower that always reminds me of a similar, if taller version at the Centenario in Montevideo, FIFA’s home of football! Opposite the main stand is an uncovered seated stand, the Gradinata, and the Curva at either end are both uncovered as you’d expect, but of a suitable depth to allow for a good number of fans, affording an arousing atmosphere and this one would not let us down! I had been at a game here once before in April 1990, a sleepy midweek afternoon kick off for a low key Coppa Italia Serie C encounter with an ambitious wee club destined for loftier places in Chievo Verona, with the Flying Donkeys easily winning 2-0. The atmosphere for the visit of Pisa on a more traditional Sunday could not have been more contrasting. The quiet sophistication of Lucca is left at the turnstiles as an incessant bombardment of insults were traded between the two sets of fans. Pisa have bigger rivals in Livorno, but as they are in Serie B presently, local rivalries with Pontedera and Lucchese will have to do for now. They had a huge visiting support, and the Ultras at both ends kept up the singing, the flag waving and the flares throughout! The local Ultras seemed troubled on two fronts, with a need to make the Pisans feel unwelcome, but occasional dashes to the perimeter wall to explode anger at the police outside the stadium was necessary too. The police had long scampered further away before the game ended!
Amid the cacophony of derby noise a cracking match was played out with no quarter given by either set of players as well as the tifosi. Lucchese, perhaps given their points deduction (since increased to 16, having been through 5 then 8, but Matera were slapped with a season ending 32 points as the FIGC get angry with non conforming clubs post the Pro Piacenza debacle!) seemed a little more desperate, which doesn’t always lead to free flowing football, and many of their attacks would break down at the edge of the box thanks in part to misplaced passes, but that alone would be unkind to a well organised defence by the visitors. Pisa are in the mix nearer the top end of the league, and while the automatic promotion place seems unlikely, they’ll be well placed for a go at the protracted play offs come May. The three points that went south to the stadium near the Leaning Tower came from the only goal of the game near the end of the first half, at the Pisa end of the stadium, and once tucked away, mayhem broke out including the players climbing up the fence to celebrate with the fans! The lead was nearly doubled in the second half, and the goal was awarded before player power from the Lucchesi towards the linesman led to a change of mind!! Bouyed by this reprieve the home side gave it one or two last hoorahs, but Pisa stood firm.
If you have never been to Lucca I would implore you to give it a whirl, it’s well worth a day or more of investigating, and if calcio is in town, get yourself along!!
Football Adventures with James Rendall 