You can’t sing the praises of Montalcinello’s beauty, its hills, its peace and quiet, without first making a pilgrimage to this temple of sport. Admire this photo taken this morning: it’s not a contemporary art installation, it’s our kids’ multi-purpose field.
Here in Montalcinello we’re cutting-edge. Why waste money on synthetic turf, maintenance, or pointless comfort? We offer a “full-immersion” experience in concrete. Boys and girls are asked to take on an extreme challenge: playing football on a surface where calling it “concrete” is a compliment, with posts that defy gravity and nets in tatters. It’s a kind of football “Survivor”; stuff that the favelas of developing countries look at with envy saying: “But don’t you wreck your knees?”. Don’t worry, the knees have been scraped for years.
But the real mystery isn’t the condition of the pitch. The mystery is how the Municipality of Chiusdino managed to spend a sum between 500 thousand and one million euros to redo the “Bruno Belli” sports facility…. (correct me if I’m wrong) and meanwhile, for decades, couldn’t find a few thousand euros to give even a minimum of decency to the hamlet’s field. They poured concrete to ask our kids to play on it. But at this point, wouldn’t it have been better to make it a parking lot? It’s clear that when you talk about Montalcinello, your lack of love pushes you to do things only on the cheap. At this rate, the whole community will move off to Radicondoli. You’ve truly worn us out with this policy that empties the hamlets to get them used to your town center.
And our community... well, we’re good at “eat and drink”, at fairs and parties. That we do very well. But networking to get something from the Municipality or from calls for funding? That’s a sport that, in my view, the Pro Loco has failed to play over the last decades. It hasn’t managed to energize and unite the village around shared goals to pursue that weren’t just eat and drink; so, faced with this lack of ambitious vision, the Administration took advantage of it to leave Montalcinello in a state of neglect.
So, come to Montalcinello. Not only for the view, but to feel the thrill of playing in a parallel reality where football is an extreme sport and urban decorum is just an abstract concept.
Bruno Belli sports facility in Chiusdino
