Campione d'Italia!

....and here is the t-shirt!

When I was in Naples recently the always-frenetic joyful vibe was even more celebratory than usual. Of course! The soccer-loving city had beaten Milano and secured the nation’s championship. People were going crazy. Street decor had reached a fever pitch with each window decorated in blue, streaming ribbons, flags hung from walls, banners adorned the streets, and beautiful Neapolitan laundry was vying for space with bright blue coloured bunting on the city’s clotheslines.

It was impossible to walk more than a block without finding someone selling Naples’ football paraphrenalia, hats, tee shirts, and the like which was convenient for me, as I was searching for a Napoli soccer champion tee shirt to bring home to husband Alan.

Luca Marchiori of Luca’s Italy, and cookbook author/journalist/columnist Orlando Murrin, in the streets of Napoli, getting ready to help me choose a T Shirt. If you look closely you will see that Orlando is super-gentleman par excellence, shlepping my green polkadot handbag when it got too heavy for my delicate shoulders.

I felt like we lived a whole lifetime, perhaps two, Luca Marchiori, Orlando Murrin, and I, plus the street vendor, discussing the pros and cons of each type of t-shirt, hat, and other memorabilia, there on via Toledo buying that shirt! We discussed size, and the vendor pulled a passerby off the street, and measured him up t-shirt wise, to see which size would fit Alan. We discussed colour—i had my heart set on the iconic blue (white was also on offer, but nah, too bland) with white letters spelling out NAPOLI, and perhaps Maradona’s iconic line-up number: 10, which was retired when he was.

But there were no blue t shirts with white letters spelling Napoli; I began having a nervous breakdown, Luca and Orlando supporting me through this new challenge. Meanwhile, the vendor saying: “you don’t need the name Napoli on it, when they see the words Campione d’Italia, everyone already knows!

While I digested this, I had a Flashback. A buncha years ago, as part of a group road trip to Napoli and its surrounding area of Campania, our bus broke down. In truth it broke down before we had even hit the road. But this was Naples, where anything is possible no matter how unexpected or, in other areas, impossible and little things like a broken down bus are so trivial as to be brushed aside.

Not to worry, though, there is a new bus, we were told by The Chamber of Commerce (our hosts). When it pulled up we recognized it by its colours and symbols; this was the SSC Napoli Football Team’s touring bus. It was off season, they explained, they could spare it. Even the driver who was ready (and delightfully eager) to take us where we wanted to go, doubled as a member of the football team.

Travelling on that bus gave us all a taste of what it must be like to be a superstar: wherever we went, we were cheered. On the motorway, in towns, even villages, locals waved, when the bus rolled in and we trotted down its steps, we were cheered. People came up to us for selfies, cameras snapped wherever we went, all convinced that we were, for real, part of the Naples football team.

Then there was the time when Naples reached the world cup finals, and an impromptu endless parade snaked through the streets. Everyone on vehicles, giddily gathered and piled high: whole families, including the dog, on a vespa, crowds of people waving from the roof of a bus. What looked like at least 10 people were squeezed into Fiat Topolino. It was insane, an exciting, deliriously happy insanity, all on the move, on vehicles, cheering, screaming, singing, blowing horns, blasting music as loud as they could.

So we had happy memories of Naples’ football team which was one reason I had searched for a tee shirt for Alan in the first place. When I gave it to him, though, he felt that no one in Waterlooville would know what it meant, how much it meant, regardless of what the street vendor has told me.

And it didn’t even have the world NAPOLI on it, so no one would even know who it was referring to, he continued. Still, right then and there he took off his shirt and slipped on his brand new Campione d’Italia foodball jersey/teeshirt. “I love it, but really, no one will realize its significance.” I get it—its an area of big football supporters, but local and national, not international.

Still, he wore his blue campione d’italia teeshirt through the town, he wore it eating spaghetti, he wore it tramping in the woods in search of the first berries, he wore it working in the garden, he wore it and he wore it and he wore it. As negotiating the shirts purchase in the streets of Napoli seemed to last a lifetime, so too did it feel as if a lifetime passed the first day that Alan wore the shirt.

The blue cotton was now infused with sweat, and dusted with soil from the garden and forest; there were blotches of cappuccino (only a few dribbles), a smudge of dog food, and a drop of blood from shaving. In other words, a lifetime of dirt in one day. “I think I can get another day’s worth of wear from it before washing” Alan said the next morning when he scrambled into it before I could put it in the wash. Then we headed up the hill, into the little town of Waterlooville to run errands.

Along the way, Alans glasses fell off his head and when he went to pick it up, realized that one of its lenses had popped out. “I’ll stop in at the optician, they’ll fix it.”.

I replied: “I’ll be at Poundland next door” (just so you know I’m not a snob, or proud, or fancy). Exactly 2 minutes later, Alan came running into Poundland, catching me inbetween putting a huge white chocolate Toblerone into my basket and reaching for a lovely clear glass V-shaped bowl which I thought would be perfect for chilling Malabi in ( A milky pudding topped with fruity or flower-scented sauce, also known as Mullallebi in Turkey and Iraq, Mahalabia in Egypt, Mahalabiyeh in the Levant, and Malabi in Israel).

Alan was jabbering excitedly: “You won’t believe what just happened! I went into the optician with a screw loose” (his phrase not mine) “and the guy cried out: “Napoli!”. Not only did he know that they are the Champions of Italy, no need to even have their name on the shirt, but he wants to meet you, too.”

His name is Salvatore, and it turns out he is from Naples and hadn’t been back since the pandemic. He was returning to Naples in a few weeks, and seeing the tee shirt made him emotional. Understandable, it made US emotional too. So much excitement, maybe more than Waterlooville has ever seen! I thought: in Naples there is more excitement in one day, than in an entire year, no make that 5 years, in Waterlooville.

And when we left, after exchanging addresses for good pizza, where to avoid on Capri in high season, and other bits of crucial information, Alan said: “Lets go wash my shirt. And when its dry, lets give it to Salvatore”.

I actually think that any piece of freshly washed clothing Neapolitan enjoys hanging on a line to dry. If a piece of laundry can be happy, I swear that this shirt was so happy it was singing to itself as it bathed in the rays of the sun.

The tee shirt, dried in the Waterlooville sun smelled as clean and pure as if it had dried in the Southern Italian sunshine. Alan said: “Now I give it to our Neapolitan friend.”

So once again, we trudged up the hill, this time with a clean Campione d’Italia tee shirt, as well as a copy of my book A Taste of Naples. Returning to Naples, seemed to be exactly what the tee shirt and book wanted; they wanted to go home. Like Salvatore.