Just over an hour south of Roma on a fast train sits a true jewel of Italy, the small city of Caserta, with its lavish Royal Palace. Regular readers will have come across the team from here previously as Casertana have been in a few of my tales before, having featured three times; in Messina mostly recently; Francavilla Fontana, and even more obscurely Monterotondo, just outside the capital.
I had been to Caserta for the first time earlier in 2024, alas just a cheeky shuffle to the Stadio Pinto in an effort to bag one of the clubs natty dark blue and red striped shirts, before heading back to Benevento for a game that evening. It took that sort of effort to get one, as the club don’t answer E mail, indeed, they don’t even tell you when the shop in the stadium is open, I took a punt, and it worked.
You will rarely walk out of a railway station anywhere and be greeted by a more incredible sight, the Reggia di Caserta. This extraordinary building was built in 1752 by the House of Bourbon, together with Two Sicilies (whoever they were?!- which sparks Pythonesque banter about the man who was putting an expedition together to build a bridge between the two peeks of Mount Kilimanjaro!) for the King of Naples, Charles VII, who would tog down to Charles III when he became King of Spain. The notion that Napoli had its own royal dynasty really does prove the point of just how pretty non-unified Italy had been. It was all just a bunch of feifdoms back in the day.
If a building could speak volumes for excess, this is the one. Maybe Italy’s lesser known answer to Versailles. The gardens are magnificent too, although as I write, despite having now been in Caserta twice, I still haven’t manage to get inside! I put my hands up and admit on that first afternoon trek, making sure I got a Casertana shirt was my number one priority. Of course, like many retail outlets in Italy, they love a siesta, and they merely opened the shop at a leisurely 16,15. I just got lucky, as I had been plittering about taking snaps of as much of the Pinto as I could manage before I noticed a door had opened. There was no advert suggesting a club shop was up the stairs, I merely headed inside and up, thinking I could get a keepsake of the pitch. However, a wee door to the left was open, and a few shirts were visible on hangers, a result!
With my transaction complete, I noticed a fence had appeared to stop anyone from reaching the top of the stairwell and the main stand seating area. The team were out training, and no one was allowed as much as a peek, let alone take a snap. Happy enough with my trek to the stadium, I set off back to the Reggia. However, the time was against me as I discovered, with only 40 minutes until they closed. The woman at the kiosk said that the last tickets were sold one hour before closing. It begs the question, why was she still in the booth? Was she really just after a swift getaway on a winters eve? I decided to kill time before my train back to Goodwind (literal translation of Benevento!), supping an Aperol spritz in a very friendly little bar near the palace. Whilst quaffing, I resolved to come back, but what I didn’t know at the time would be that it would merely be seven months later, on the final stop of a monster tour of Italy.
My friend Lidiya and I flew in to Napoli on a mere one hour hop from Palermo, duly leaving the Campania Special, Football Weekends magazine with an eccentric, but delighted Napoli supporting taxi driver (they are all slightly bonkers in the cab driving world of Naples in my experience), before whisking off on the 45 minute train run to Caserta. The plan on such a glorious afternoon was to lob the luggage into hotel, and while I whisked off to get a brief for that nights action from a nearby bar, Lidiya would freshen up for a Reggia gardens photo shoot.
The purchasing of a ticket in Italy can often be fraught for us Brits, and online buying for Casertana doesn’t exist. The various drop-down box packages for IT seem to vary, and they have too many variations of name for these islands, or, in the Caserta case, we just don’t exist?! The exasperated kiosk owner called the club, and a lengthy debate went on. Meantime the local fag pack were swarming around me (they don’t queue in Italy), desperate to buy cigarettes! Next thing I notice, his computer is being operated remotely, and a minute or so later, he is ready to press print. I do like a proper ticket, rather than the print at home pieces of paper, but this one will be treasured, Nationality; Edinburgh! I am headed back to Caserta for a third time in the calendar year in December, and I think I will need to take the ticket with me, just so the poor chap who will be left to serve me can do a similar thing. Independent Edinburgh though, I like that idea!
Finally, we were off to the palace, more than two hours before its winter closing time. Surely, in September, with more light, we might even have even longer, but no?! Many a museum or public building is closed on a Monday in Italy, I was wise to that. We pitched up on a Tuesday, and in the realm of, you couldn’t make it up, while the palace is open six days a week, not on a Tuesday! We had enough time to get up early before our 11am train north the next day, so we kicked the can over to Wednesday. Meantime, we went back to the hotel, as Lidiya fancied a shower and spruce up before going to dinner, ahead of me abandoning her for the love of calcio. It was a very nice hotel, allegedly 4 stars, but a post shower plugging in of her hairdryer fused the entire room! Her day was complete, Caserta was most certainly not king in her eyes!
Our pre-match outdoor table for a meal had the added entertainment of watching a full sized single decker bus get stuck trying to turn from a narrow street into a slightly less narrow street, but one parked car meant it couldn’t turn. The queue behind the bus grew, and the police were at their wits end until the unassuming owner of the car blocking the turning ability just sauntered round the corner. The pace of life in the south is slower, more laidback, and open to occasional hilarious incidents. I love it.
The walk from town centre to the Stadio Pinto is a very flat and a straight walk, about 20 minutes further away from the palace. Taranto were in town for a third tier joust. Neither club had made a great start to the season, a flip side for both after fine campaigns last term. For Casertana, the 2023/24 season had been their first back at this level for a little while. It was an object lesson in don’t despair of the largely futile Serie D play-offs. Despite finishing a lowly 5th and just scrapping into the mini 4 team competition, they duly won it, thereby taking their place on a list of clubs available for Serie C should someone go bust, and their is always at least one. In the case of Casertana, what swung their promotion was detailed plans, signed off by the local council for a football stadium built on top of a shopping mall. Not exactly unique, but in Italy, yes. A year and a half down the line, that plan seems to have been shelved, and maybe it was fast tracked with a view to bumping the club up the pecking order. I have no idea, and it is merely my own speculation, but I was delighted to see them step up. I like Casertana, and Serie C is the very least level they should be playing at.
I have noticed a number of times recently, in stadia and online, that the away fans arrive quite late, maybe 10 minutes into the game. Are they being deliberately held back by police? It does make for an extraordinary entrance, and in case of Taranto, almost the entire entourage were topless, racing down the steps with a ferocity and anger that fused the home fans into an immediate response. These two sets of fans do not like each other. Taranto Ultras boycotted 2022/23 at home, were back last season, but are at the same home game avoiding gig this term, making the away games even more tasty.
There might have been some form of strip search for flares in the away section, but the home knowledge of how to evade scrutiny doubtlessly helped, as an array of flares were thrown towards the away fans. Thankfully the Caserta Ultras are bereft of any Olympic javelin throwers, as they all came up short on the considerable distance, but they did achieve fogging the view of the game from the away end for a while, as a lack of wind on a balmy night meant the smoke was hanging around.
In truth, those unable see portions of the first half were the lucky ones, it was humdrum at best, woeful at worst. However, the second half was a much more lively affair. Casertana, having come from two down in the second half at Messina days earlier, set about Taranto in similar fashion, albeit here it was all square. They duly got the requisite brace of goals to win comfortably, including a scandalous penalty, but in truth, Taranto look completely out of sorts and are an early candidate for bottom place, and the solitary relegation spot. I sincerely hope not, the Puglian seaside city has even more potential than Casertana, but if the fans can’t unite behind the owners, for as long as this dispute has been going on, progress becomes unsustainable. Everyone filed out happy from the home end, although I suspect the police would have a challenging time on the far side of the stadium.
Incidentally, despite all the nonsense with my ticket, while I had my passport in hand, with no street light outside the ground, no one checked. The barcode went green on his zapper, and I was in.
Lidiya had perused the shops in Caserta post meal on the way back to the hotel, and she was stunned by some of the prices quoted. The lady has fine taste, but even she was baulking at some of the lofty ticket numbers. I hadn’t necessarily thought it, but perhaps Caserta is a richer town than I had first given it credit.
We set the alarm early, so as not to miss the palace before we left. The sight that greeted the morning just added to the notion that a curse exists for me with this pavilion. The rain was extremely heavy, maybe not biblical, but it was decided to have another hour snoozing before a leisurely breakfast and forget going to La Reggia. Ironically, while violently dark clouds sat over the palace, when we pitched up at the railway station for our train, it was dry, so we had to make do with distance keepsakes of the facade.
Casertana v Potenza scheduled for the first of December will see me back here, perhaps early enough to get into the palace even during its winter timetable. It’s a Sunday fixture in Caserta, so all being well…… but this is Caserta, and anything can happen, as you can see.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 