Back in the day, when I was a young lad, Italy was a staple of the Brits abroad gig. Places like Rimini and Lido di Jesolo were as high on the summer break agenda as Benidorm or Ibiza. Whether Italy eventually priced itself out of the market I am unsure, but they don’t suffer from a lack of visitors from elsewhere these days. The home population remains extremely loyal to their coastal resorts, with August in particular a busy, busy month. The two massive holiday places mentioned above were both on my travel CV in the early to mid ‘80’s, but smaller fringe resorts, Riccione, Igea Marina and Cattolica were all visited too, these are all in the Greater Rimini area. Goodness, I did love a beach holiday, and only three games of Calcio ever clouded those early trips! It really just wasn’t a thing back in those days. The information highway was lacking, and you had to know where you were going and when, largely courtesy of the local newspaper.
In 2018 I astonished my friends by heading to Rimini for two weeks on the Spiaggia (beach) with my Russian girl, although I did manage a playoff Arezzo v Pisa encounter on the road to the sunlounger. Standing in the arrivals hall awaiting her flight direct from St Petersburg at Rimini Airport it was easy to see where the predominant number of visitors were coming from, with a variety of flights from a number of Russian cities. That was subsequently confirmed in restaurants, where menus were quite often only available in Italian and Russian! I guess Rimini and other resorts will require to look elsewhere for business now, but it isn’t necessarily completely Russian free, as Italy and Spain are still issuing travel visas, albeit a need to fly via Istanbul or Belgrade. Believe me, I am a bit of an expert in what is still possible from St Petersburg.
On the outer rim of resorts south of Rimini is the beach town of Pesaro. Here we have crossed the state line away from Emilia Romagna into The Marche. It is a curiosity of English and places abroad that in the first instance we refer to this magnificent region of Italy as The Marche, but it isn’t The Tuscany or The Umbria, so “The” is duly dropped for the rest of this tale!
Marche’s most northerly coastal town has been shaken from its sleepy ways in 2024, carrying the weighty moniker, Italian city of Culture. Now, whether this accolade was bestowed on Pesaro rather late in the day is unknown, but my goodness, the town is pretty much a building site! There are so many areas either heavily scaffolded or dug up. It seems to be frantically trying to get itself ready. Perhaps in February, it was too early for the official opening, but if the idea is to have the place buffed up for the summer market, well, they still have time.
I have passed through Pesaro a number of times, seeing it merely from train windows. The lure to get finally get off here was a midweek third tier, Marche derby versus my boys Ancona. The region has four clubs at this level this season, all of them struggling, with Recanatese and Fermana the other duo.
Vis Pesaro (Vis is Latin for strength) are a club that has been rumbling along since 1898. They went 100 plus years without any financial issues but in 2005-06 this Achilles heel of lower Italian clubs saw them expelled from C, sent tumbling down the Marche regional ladder to start over. Prior to this calamity they had been in the third tier for some thirty years of life. In recovering themselves they were back in the fourth tier by 2010, and eventually got back to Serie C seven years later, where they’ve added another five terms to the thirty previous campaigns at a level they obviously feel comfortable without ever troubling the notion they might break the glass ceiling and reach Serie B for the first time.
I can imagine the boardroom quaffing ahead of this clash, it could easily have featured swapping tales of liquidation and clambering back up the ladder over a glass of Rosso Conero, a delightful local red wine. Ancona have rather embarrassingly been through more names and clubs “mergers” than I care to recollect here. After the giddy highs of Serie A and Coppa Italia final (the last Serie B side to make the final in ‘93/94), every season seems to hold a nervous uncertainty where the club is going. While they remain in Serie C, I stay calm, but seeing them struggling brings out an angst, as ending up in Serie D could be the end of this particular version of the club. It just doesn’t bear thinking about the possibilities.
In winter, Pesaro is still open for business, with the majority of hotels, etc, down at the waterfront. Many choose to take a lengthy break and still aren’t open, but you’ll find enough choice to accommodate all ranges of price. My hotel gave me a largely unused balcony looking out to sea across the empty beach, but the sunset and sunrise were both fabulous. Restaurants were also a bit hit or a miss as to whether they were open by the sea, but in the centre of the town away from the holiday area, everything was open, although I ducked out of going for a local delicacy from the pizza world, a regular gig with an egg plopped in the centre, no thank you!
With a population of 96,000, Pesaro is second only to Ancona in population in the region, where population to football success doesn’t equate with smaller Ascoli Piceno putting both in the shade.These are words largely written with gritted teeth, as they are our biggest rivals. I would break every rule in the Ancona fans playbook by venturing to Ascoli later on this trip, all in the name of a good story!
Pisaurum, as it was known, has been around since 184 BC, being an important staging post on another of those Roman trading routes, this time the Via Flaminia. Piazza Del Popolo in the centre is the hub of the city with Ducal Palace lining one side. Close by is another building that gave the city UNESCO status, the Rocca Costanza, a 15th-century castle. The city centre is a charming yee old worldly place. The city was also a leading light in encouraging cycling, with a huge network of lanes exclusively for their use, although from a suitcase wheeling walkers perspective, I would implore them to revise the pavements or lack of them, as they need to remember people still need to walk.
The trim 5,000 capacity Tonino Benelli stadium is tucked away in amongst apartment blocks in the west of the city on the opposite side of the railway tracks from the centre. A walkway/cycleway that goes under the tracks was one of the many aspects of Pesaro closed for buffing up. Stepping back, a flyway across the railway for transport was visible but had no pavement, a similar issue I came across in Great Grimsby years ago. Thankfully, this attempt to get to the stadium was on an afternoon field reconnaissance mission, where with an evening kick off, any attempt for daylight ground snaps always looks better for the magazine. That effort would prove fruitless with Vis training on the artificial surface when I eventually arrived. But ahead of that, I was still on the wrong side of the tracks. Perplexed, I ended up on platform one of the station, where as luck would have it, two of the local constabulary were hanging around. I asked politely and in my best Italian, but the reply came in English! There is an underpass below the platforms. Great, I thanked them, and I was off, but no?! Where was I from? Why was I going to the stadium? These were just openers. I had to produce my passport with my info being logged into a device? My bag was searched, and it all got a bit unsavoury as my quiet anger grew. When I came back and did the same journey again twice later, I was hoping these guys had gone off shift. It was all unnecessary and left a bad taste. Thankfully, I never saw them again, and while my first trip didn’t bring any joy for internal stadium snaps, the second trip started in a much finer way, more shortly.
Obviously I was here to support Ancona, but I was unsure if it would be a good idea to be in the away section. This was partly because I knew it was an odd end of main stand area where the away fans were housed, and views would be potentially rotten, as well as the post match corralling of the fans back onto transport bound south to Ancona, 84 kilometres away. The close proximity and the derby aspect were always going to see a reasonable away following as well.
Instead I had decided to buy a ticket for the Gradinata opposite the main stand, but what I had forgotten was that the Benelli has no Curva, and even more curiously, the sizable old terrace has obviously been deemed unsafe since last I saw a game here online. Right in front of the old Gradinata was a smaller scaffolded stand. I could see down the street outside that stand, a vast swathe of Pesaresi fans were indulging in beer suppage. This was the hardcore Ultras stand!
What happened next washed away the angst of excessive policing at the station earlier. As the Ancona bus was negotiating a tricky manoeuvre, reversing into the stadium area from a tight street. I was fumbling with my camera and phone, trying to get a photo of the bus where the street lights weren’t spoiling the image when a chap enquired in perfect English if I was from another country, was it that obvious! I told him I was here to write about Pesaro and the match for a British magazine. I also told him I had a ticket, pointing at the Gradinata, but wasn’t sure it was great for watching as a neutral, which obviously was a wee white lie, as I couldn’t be more Ancona if I tried. He told me to wait a few minutes and disappeared. The next thing I know, I am at the Accrediti (accreditation) window, with my passport being handed over again, this time more pleasingly being used to issue me with a press pass. It was a tremendous gesture and allowed me to squirrel myself away high up and away from the majority of home fans, where I could relax and occasionally let my Ancona bias show without upsetting anyone.
A good crowd was in for this vital clash, with encouragement for both teams serving up a constant cacophony from both sides of the field. The game itself played out to almost the same script as I had witnessed in Ferrara versus SPAL in November. Ancona were far superior in the first half and deservedly trotted in at the break, leading one nil. It should have been more, and that came back to haunt within the opening 20 minutes of the second half. A catastrophic piece of defending gifted the equaliser, and still reeling from that, an unmarked header from a corner had Vis and their fans in jubilant mood when they took the lead. Chasing the game again from a point of having been in total control did bring out the best in Ancona, and at times like these, occasionally, the quality in the squad shines through. Eventually, they smacked home the leveller, and having regained the ascendancy, it should have led to even greater resolve to find the winner. However, a raft of substitutions ruined the flow, and both teams shook on a 2-2 draw, with doubtlessly both sets of fans thinking they should have won. It had been great entertainment and an atmosphere without the poison of an Ancona v Ascoli clash.
A draw was ultimately useless to the teams, with both still flirting with the fringes of the Playout zone. It is physically impossible for all 4 Marche clubs to be relegated as only three teams can go down, but losing even two would be a travesty, particularly as Ascoli seem likely to drop down a level too.
Remarkably, once the dust settled on 2023/24, all four Marche did end the season in the play out slots! However, an 8 point gap rule saved Ancona, sending Fermana down. Vis Pesaro survived after a titanic struggle with Recanatese. Ascoli did get relegated, too, but their only Marche opposition will be Pesaro, as Ancona’s Malaysian owner didn’t pay the necessary registration bond for the new season. This meant Ancona have been replaced sadly by Milan U23, with local businessmen being tapped up by the mayor in the hope of registering a new business SSC Ancona with a one tier demotion, but that has yet to be resolved, even if a hero of the ’90’s heyday, Massimo Gadda has been lined up to manage the new entity. My nervousness proved to be founded once more.
None of these issues are a problem for Pesaro, whose year as Italian City of Culture, sees the seaside town move up to being the second team of Marche, and putting one over Ascoli will allow them total bragging rights.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 