What attracts me most when I go around following a match in the stands is looking for a possible match. Whether it’s a postponed or early match. Let it be a basketball game, my old love to which in recent years I admit I have dedicated less time than in the past. Almost by chance I notice that after the football derby between Treviso and Mestre, at PalaTaliercio The National Serie B match (third level of the basketball pyramid) between Basket Mestre and San Vendemiano is scheduled. This strongly piques my curiosity. I remember blurry images seen above YouTube, of the Mestre team involved in the derbies in the 1980s against Reyer, between Serie A1 and A2, and I know that it has been refounded a few years ago. But, apart from a few images of the fans present in Livorno during last season’s playoffs, I don’t have much other information. To be honest, I didn’t even know that the red and whites had managed to return to the historic Cavergnago facility. The match is also postponed to 7pm, so for me everything is really extremely convenient and easy: once the match of To do I head to the station and in just over twenty minutes I’m in Mestre, ready to reach the building.
Let’s go back for a moment: in Mestre the ball began to bounce in 1958, when the club was founded on the pitch of the church of Sant’Antonio, in Marghera. As early as the following year, the club moved to the Montedison Dopolavoro, also in the Marghera area, continuing a growth path that in the 1960s would take it to the second level of Italian basketball, as well as playing the first derbies with Reyer. The request from the public and the need to make use of structures more suited to the categories being played means that the red and whites move to the CONI building of Via Olimpia, in Mestre, subsequently dedicated to the late Davide Ancilotto. However, with the historic, first, promotion to A1 (1973/1974) this facility also became non-approved, forcing the Mestre players to temporarily move to Castelfranco Veneto. This was until 1978, when it was inaugurated – precisely by the will of the club, which subsequently handed it over to the Municipality of Venice – the PalaTalierciothen used from 1990 also by Reyer, unable to play at PalaArsenaleno longer adequate to the safety regulations in force at the time.
The first year of A1 culminated with the relegation following the play-offs in Genoa against Fortitudo Bologna and Virtus Roma. At the end of the 1970s the club risked returning to Serie B due to a relegation obtained on the pitch, but was taken over by the then owner of Alessandria, Pieraldo Celada, who transferred the Piedmontese A2 title to Veneto and gave new life to Mestre. Celada, in fact, will be a cross and a delight for the club, restoring lifeblood for a decade, that of the 80s, which will see Mestre permanently in A2, with three new brackets in A1 and two participations in the Korac Cup, but then favoring the cessation of all activities when in 1989 he transferred all the players to Desio, a company which in the meantime he had taken over and brought to A1. The title of Mestre will instead pass to Montichiari, effectively sanctioning his death.
These are the years in which the derby with Venice was repeatedly disputed, inflaming the Taliercio and growing a rivalry that already exists in football. In a historical period where the ultras have definitively gained a foothold in the stadiums and have also begun to take root in the arenas, obviously there is no shortage of organized groups following the Griffin (symbol that takes up the figure of the same name stamped on the Provvederi Palaceto). In this case, the names that will distinguish the epic of the red and white fans of the time are Prima Linea, Vecchia Guardia Ultrà, Club Aleardi (from the name of a street in Mestre) e Fighters, all located in Curva Nord. While in the South the Indian Pit.
Despite all its positive and stimulating aspects, basketball – in its bureaucratic and managerial sphere – is often a ruthless sport with little respect for the tradition of a club and a city. Where it is very difficult to restart from a failure and where it can take years before seeing your shirts and your brand on the parquet again. In the case of Mestre, twenty will be needed. In fact, we will have to wait until 2009, when the team will be re-founded by a group of fans (with Claudio Prosperi as president) and registered in the Promotion championship. Subsequently (2011) they will pass the hand to Guglielmo Feliziani, current president and majority shareholder, who will begin a painstaking work of regrowth, first of all by moving up in category.
Mockingly, just like in the first years of life, the “pitch” problem is back in vogue for the red and whites. Initially it is played in the school gym Gritti, and then moved to the Trivignano building. The ever-increasing desire is to set foot again Taliercio. A desire that is also corroborated by sporting results, which see the Griffins move up the slope until you conquer the B National. The dream becomes reality on May 14th this year, when thanks to the agreement with the Reyer concessionaire, Mestre returns to its historic facility to play the playoffs against Pielle Livorno, in front of 2,500 spectators. Agreement which is confirmed and renewed also for the current season, the first after 34 years to see Basket Mestre involved in an entire championship of the regular season a Cavergnago.
The rebirth also involves a reawakening of that fringe of fans and ultras who never gave up upon the death of their team. In the early years they are the boys of the Nialtri Band to rekindle organized support, the group was created following their dissolution North Curvethen joined by Red and White Youth, 7 May, Bissuola Group e Old guard. Anyone who follows the ball a bit knows well how many and what difficulties there are in following up one’s militancy, with groups which even in the third series respond to a vertical subdivision of the country (which means being able to go to Ravenna, but also in Ruvo di Puglia) and often impossible hours or midweek shifts. Yet the Mestre contingent tries to be present everywhere, despite the average age being conspicuously high and the generational change being something delicate and difficult to carry forward in a complex reality like that of Mestre and, above all, in a context where basketball is good levels has been missing for twenty years. Yet, conveyed into the Youtha bevy of young people are trying to lay the foundations for the years to come, which is not to be underestimated at all.
All this undergrowth of information and stories entices me even more to pop into an arena where, moreover, I have never set foot until now. Of course, I don’t expect the public on special occasions, but I’m interested in experiencing first-hand the stubbornness of those who – as they sing in one of their choirs – “with Reyer in A1, they ask me why…”. Then the beauty of these realities is that there are not too many mental worries in entering the heart of the event: with the request made less than twenty-four hours before, I find my pass without problems and I calmly set off on the parquet, settling down under the basket and taking photographs without any exaltation that reminds me of this or that rule dictated by the League or by some other sheriff. The Taliercio Furthermore, it is a truly beautiful structure, which in some ways reminds me of the good old one PalaTiziano From Rome. Plants of the past, collected and in favor of noise. Not cathedrals in the desert.
The opponent of the moment is Rucker San Vendemiano, a club from the village of the same name in the province of Treviso which at the starting line is among the most accredited for the jump in category. An important match therefore, although the guests cannot count on any form of organized support. The four quarters go away in crescendo, both on the pitch and in the stands. The quintet in the red jersey gains more and more confidence as they go on to win a good victory, while in the stands the Curva Nord practically never stops singing, with the peak reached in the last two quarters. I was mentioning the conspicuously high average age: if on the one hand there is the question of generational turnover mentioned above, on the other it is always suggestive to note how people who in the past spent part of their youth giving prestige to the history of the city’s fans , has not forgotten its origins at all but, on the contrary, has put itself back on the front line without hesitation in the attempt to give a future to its curve. It seems equally obvious, as also happens in football, that results and sporting continuity will be fundamental between now and the next few years to give life to a new trend of Mestre enthusiasts.
Finally, it is always nice to note the synergy between football and basketball. In fact, more than one person stopped at the stadium on their way back from the trip to Treviso. A symbiosis which, at whatever latitude it occurs, strengthens the sense of identity and allows a human and aggregative exchange between the two entities.
It ends with the home players under the sector, receiving applause and hugs. Maybe this won’t be the season that brings Mestre back to A2 (or maybe yes), but certainly with Taliercio found and a hard core of support that seems to have its own solution, the path taken is the right one. And let me say that with the many improvised and questionable realities seen in A1 and A2 in recent years, every now and then the return of some historic brand is a breath of fresh air. This season will certainly give Grifone supporters the great opportunity to take a further step from a participatory and proselytizing point of view. And why not, looking at those old videos from the 1980s, as a passionate fan of any match, who knows, maybe one day he might come back here to shoot during a derby against Reyer…
Simone Meloni
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2023-11-03 19:00:00
#Basketball #MestreRucker #San #Vendemiano #alive #reborn
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