From the mists of memory of soccer in Assisi during the heroic years before the war, the narrow rectangular playing field at Piazza Nuova stands out with a glow all its own. The epoch of soccer in Assisi has, always, as its backdrop this little playing field, covered with an unbroken surface of gravel, in the face of which even the most daring of goalies was forced to give up the merest hypothesis of a dive. When Attilio Cangi speaks about those days, a retired professor and Assisi's team's ex-goalie, considered for this reason a sort of encyclopedia of local soccer, he too begins to glow. He remembers that in those years, people used to lay siege upon the field in Piazzanova as if it were a fortress. They would position themselves along the little ascent that connected the field to the changing rooms, located on the premises of the Carceri, and wait for the re-entry of the line-ups. One day, after a particularly heated match, Cardellino, a shoe-maker who had a little shop just below the theater, hiding behind himself the linesman's banner, handed out, with great rapidity and indifference, a series of stout blows to the unsuspecting players from Castello. Encounters, in fact, between the Umbrian teams during those years, consisted for the most of physical conflicts. Once, after a match in Città di Castello, the Assisi fans and those of the opposing team began a series of fisticuffs in Piazza Piazzanova which continued uninterruptedly down into the Piazza del Comune. But they were also years of great talents, of men who were pursuing their dream of playing the game on important fields, with lots of grass and people sitting dignifiedly on the bleachers gazing at them admiringly. Like Vittorio Paolocci, nicknamed the Big Chin, or Rino Tomasssini, dangerous front line central fielder; or like Egri Papi, left wing famous for his powerful kick which burst through the air like a missile. Papi was also famous because it seems he spent a great deal of his time studying the bounces of the "unhinged" balls of those days in the narrow lane in front of his house, elaborating theories and trajectories in his attempt to give his kicks greater force and precision. And then there was Bricocoli, resolute rock of the defense, whose shout "leave it!" rang out in Piazzanova, a threat directed at team mate or adversary alike, at any one, in short, who tried to lay claim to a free ball. Every away game was, as a reuslt, a one-way trip. In Gubbio, the old playing field was a sort of Caudine Forks which the teams had to cross to get to the changing rooms and from above which the public used to hurl anything which came readily to hand. In Marsciano, the nets hung down vertically over the goal posts, and had, in fact, been modelled after nets used to protect pieces of artillery from the period of the war. In this case the public, more or less directly behind the guest goalie, could torment him with various instruments. One Sunday, the Assisi goalie, irritated by the constant torment, stationed himself for the entire match well beyond his white line, only to be taken unawares by a nasty lob unexpectedly flung his way. Piazzanova was, however, one of the most notorious playing fields in the region. Attilio Cangi himself, excellent goalie from the period right after the war, was reproved because he displayed his agility only in matches held away from Assisi. "You try diving in Piazzanova" was his reply. "And besides, my trainer himself has confirmed it: I have a great sense of positioning." Technical gift which, for a goalie in Piazzanova, could mean personal safety. Those were the days of a poor soccer where an unexpected lunch was the equivalent of a fabulous social engagement. Cangi recounts, "I can still see in my mind's eye -- and remember in my heart -- and this became for me a symbol of the happiness we rediscovered after the privations of the war, a pasta alla matriciana offered at a club dinner. I remember that one of our teammates, Carletto Mariani, managed to eat something like seven helpings of pasta and at the seventh, to the general amazement, he went so far as to scrape, with a courageous flourish, the bottom of his plate with a heel of bread. I have not seen anything like it since.

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