Letter From Bergamo: Under the moonlit Citta Alta, we sup pints with Italian Gunners
Letter from Bergamo
The Champions League is the passionate point of discussion in a late-night bar high up in Bergamo’s old town, or Citta Alta.
Walking uphill on cobbles lit by moonlight, through the imposing honey-coloured Porto San Giacomo, an evocative medieval gate set alongside sturdy World Heritage-listed Venetian stone walls, you eventually reach a welcoming Irish bar, set on a bend.
Inside the busting Tucans Pub – Italian for toucan - are loyal Arsenal supporters, still buzzing from the weekend’s stirring triumph in the North London derby.
Among the number is the engaging Matteo Scarpellini. The Champions League draw was a dream come true for Teo, as everyone calls the popular Italian.
For this week’s clash between Atalanta and Arsenal also represents a match-up between two clubs close to his heart. Because Teo, a proud native of Bergamo, supports Atalanta. And The Arsenal.
“I couldn’t believe it, when it happened,” Teo recounts over his pint of Guinness. “All my life I have been waiting for such a thing. I was dancing round my television, swearing with happiness when they made the draw.”
Teo, who has been attending Atalanta matches at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia since the 1980s, also started supporting Arsenal during the George Graham era, when the Gunners lifted the 1987 Littlewoods Cup final.
“And when Arsenal won the league at Anfield in 1989, I was hooked," said Teo, with a relish all true believers would understand.
“As a kid, I’d always think of Arsenal to play Atalanta, [but] never in my imagination did I believe it would happen."
As the years passed, friendships formed between Teo and North London natives, forged during riotous trips to Arsenal’s long-lost summer training camps in Austria and northern Italy during the early Arsene Wenger era, now repurposed by the club’s recent blockbuster tours to New York and Los Angeles.
“Supporting Arsenal is like a family, the sociable side is important,” Teo insists, as those around the table nod in agreement. “They were happy times.”
So much so, that later, a number of Teo’s Arsenal friends from England would make an annual pilgrimage to Bergamo to catch up with Teo, during the AGM of the Italian Gooners’ group.
Teo, well-known and well-respected in Arsenal and Atalanta circles, planned to watch the first half of the game among his many friends in home end at the now more prosaically-labelled Gewiss Stadium – named after a prominent Italian electrotechnical company – before hoping to enter the away section for the second half.
“It would be my dream,” before adding emphatically: “Atalanta and Arsenal are the clubs of my life, and my heart.”
As the conversation continues, I joke Teo will have to wear one of those infernal half-and-half scarves at the match. Turning momentarily serious, Teo asserts: “I hate those things. They’re horrible.”
Teo also confides his Atalanta pre-match routine occasionally involves a visit to the nearby neoclassical mansion, Accademia Carrara.
Specifically, to view the striking white stone marble sculpture Andromeda. “I like to go there sometimes before home matches for calm. It is a beautiful place,” he shares.
Struck by this intriguing admission, I too make a point of visiting such a haven of restorative tranquillity. Amid the collection’s Canaletto’s and Raffaello’s I find Pietro Bernini’s Andromeda, and lose myself momentarily in its haunting beauty.
The serenity certainly helped as we listened to Mikel Arteta’s pre-match media conference at the revamped Gewiss, with the Arsenal boss revealing talisman captain Martin Odegaard had picked up a ‘significant’ ligament injury.
The stadium’s impressive – and thankfully listed - neo-classical façade, alas, provided no balm after Arteta’s admission, as the realisation dawned the Gunners will miss a vitally important player during such a crucial spell.
However, late-night drinking sessions in the yellow-walled Tucans Pub among sporting obsessives certainly helped in dulling the blow of Odegaard’s absence.
A convivial father and son from north London, drinking pints of Guinness, gleefully recounted leaving the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after the celebrations had died down at the final whistle last Sunday before heading straight to the airport, and a cheap flight to Milan Bergamo Airport.
Talk turned serious for a moment. Unsurprisingly, in a city where thousands lost their lives in the dreadful epicentre of the first wave of coronavirus, the sense of importance in civic pride and the concept of community is imbued in dignified Teo, and in Bergamo itself. “It was a terrible time for everyone,” he says.
Outside, the bright moon shines down on Citta Alta, illuminating Bergamo’s stunning upper town, situated in the foothills of those mesmerising
Alps.
Inside, the barman, a friend of Teo - as is everyone who meets such a force of nature, all absolutely delighted for such an affable character relishing in his own personal nirvana - apologises for having to eventually close the bar, as the evening segues into the early hours.
As thoughts turn to the game once again, pint in hand, Teo, who will start work in a few short hours, says, in joy as much as wonder at the prospect of the two teams of his life meeting: “I can’t lose, can I? I am so happy.” ......
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