European football seemed so exotic in the 1970s. The only foreign games we saw on the telly were the World Cup and Liverpool's glory nights in the European Cup under the floodlights, with the commentary sounding like it was being spoken through a car
dboard tube.
Exciting and different – and being from the North East, we didn't get to see any actual games featuring foreign opposition in the flesh. The Anglo-Italian Cup was just before our time but what a great competition that must have been to watch.
Of course now we can all see the Italian games on Channel 5 ( and drool over Laura Esposito) on a Sunday – except for in the Coquet Valley where they still can't get reception!
Paolo Rossi, Maradona, Liam Brady – what a League Serie A seemed. But it wasn't just us Northumbrian kids who were fascinated by the Italian game in our youth.
Gretna star Ryan Baldacchino told NE65: "I really enjoy watching Italian football. When I was younger, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I used to watch it all the time and I still follow it now.
"I've been over to training camps in Italy at previous clubs and seen first-hand how they've trained and the high standard of the facilities over there. All the Italian players seem to be like athletes – they're fast, strong, and they keep the ball. It seems very technical and I've always liked and admired their game.I like both Spanish and Italian football, but the Italian game is probably my favourite kind of football due to the technical aspect of the game."
And tricky winger Baldacchino, who was born in Leicester in 1981 to a Maltese family, continued: "I've played with a couple of Italian players before, who have come over and they have said how technical the game is over there. And I've been to Italian League games, at Genoa a couple of times, and it was quite scary. The actual hatred between the fans is intense and with them sharing the grounds – the city teams share the grounds over there – the rivalry between the local teams is much more than I've seen in this country.
"It's almost like a Rangers and Celtic scenario for every city, and I think that hasn't helped for the fan troubles that have happened over there."
Former Bolton, Blackburn and Carlisle player Baldacchino is best mates with Kasabian songwriter Sergio Pizzorno – no mean footballer himself – and is often on the continent with him.
The world just seems so much smaller now. When we were kids the only pasta we had heard of was spaghetti hoops.
But I still long for the magic of those games that we watched as children, enthralled by the ticker-tape billowing down off the terraces, the explosion of fireworks and strange hostile atmospheres in the ground.
The wide-eyed excitement of innocence.
