Stabia Wasps - Recent History and a Problematic Year

This weekend, at the Bath match, the Drunken Wasps have the pleasure of hosting Gianandrea de Antonellis, the current President of Wasps Stabia Rugby to some deserved hospitality. "Stabia Wasps" as many of you know have been great long distance followers of London Wasps, and delegations from them have frequently travelled to London to attend our functions. Their home ground used to be a well positioned municipal stadium with a view to Vesuvius. When a few of us were over there in 2009 we were royally treated and it's now our turn to repay the favour.

However, since then, the fortunes of their Club have taken a turn for the worse.  I'll let Gianandrea fill you in himself.

"Is possible to win a Regional cup and, few months after, be forced to leave the championship?

Yes, if you are in Italy – and, particularly, in Southern Italy – and if you have to deal with a mafia mentality.

The recent history of Stabia Wasps Rugby is a good example of this: after years of “wandering” from one field to another one, often changing district, looking for a pitch to play the weekly match, we had found an abandoned field with a ruined peasant house, which was property of the Church.

The Bishop gave us permission to use it for a year and we transformed the peasant house into a Club house (with a snack point, an office and locker rooms) and the potato field in a good regular rugby pitch. What luck for a team that, until the year before, had to beg the Mayor for the chance to play in Castellammare’s stadium, and only then when the soccer team left it free!

But immediately we began to see that the situation was not so fortunate …

I said before that we are in Italy, and in Southern Italy, too.  Italy, the Land of Bureaucracy: the Italian Rugby Federation doesn’t discern between big clubs and little ones, and is, in fact, not interested in developing the “rugby culture” in the South, but just in supporting the great teams of Northern Italy. We can’t criticize this policy, but we have to admit that it isn’t good in order to develop the love for rugby in all Italy.

In fact – also in Northern Italian regions – we have seen the stadiums sold out for last November’s test matches for the national team on three Saturdays, but half empty the day after for the Celtic Cup (to say nothing of the Italian Championship).

Why? Because the Six Nations or All Blacks vs. Italy is considered an “significant event”, but we have not the rugby culture that makes You English appreciate just as much a simple Under 12 tournament.

So – in my modest opinion – considering a little team in the Italian third division to be at the same level of “Zebre” or “Benetton” (when they speak about fees and taxes) is not – I repeat – the best way to develop rugby in all Italy.

On top of this, we live (and play) not only in Southern Italy too. That means some things more.

First of all, a “soccer mentality”. Almost all parents think that the best way to gain money is to introduce their boys into a soccer team “to become like Maradona”. Nobody thinks “How nice if my lad will kick like Wilkinson!”.

Around soccer there are big economic interests from the top clubs to the bottom league: the very same day, on which “our” rugby field was ready, we received a “strong” request from a little, local football team (playing in the equivalent of the sixth division) in order to share the field. “We have money for 300.000 euro at year”, they told us. We answered: “With half of such a sum, we could be in the first division”.

Second: difficulty searching for a field, in a land (the Sorrento Peninsula) that is very beautiful indeed, but only a narrow strip of ground pressed between mountain and sea, with the highest Italian density of population…

So, it was quite “natural” that, as soon as we found “our” field, immediately a lot of people would like to “share” it with us. In Italy we say, more or less: “asking the permission as thin, and after sitting as fat”. We were forced to concede two days a week to the soccer, and in few months the two days became three, four and finally seven…

Why didn’t we protest to the Bishop immediately? We arrive at the third point: the presence of mafia (or similar).

Many of us preferred not to denounce the intimidations and the Congregation of priests that allowed us use resolved to close the field and wait for a better time…

So we emigrated to a village five miles away: not a great problem for the seniors, but a big one for the Under 10, 12 and 14…

It is very sad for me to remember the continuous problems that arrived every day and also the continuous farewell of players and members of staff… in a few words, we arrived at the end of the championship with just 13 players (so you can imagine why we lost all the matches) and with no pitch: then the Italian Rugby Federation decided that our field was five meters shorter than the regulations and we should abandon the championship.

We could play in another town, it is true; but if was difficult to gather 15 people in our city, do you believe that would be easier to do it 50 miles farther away?

Now, the (un)happy few remaining have decided to re-start from the Under 12s, with the hope to be, in some years, able again to contend the first place in the senior championship!"

Gianandrea will be in the Honours Suite for lunch and will be in the Main Stand Block B for the game - after the game ends we'll be out and about in either the Vere or the Wasps Nest - look for me and he'll be close by! I'm sure he'd like to get acquainted with as many DWs as he can find.