Saturday 7th September 2024 ko 20:45

Serie C Girone (Group) B

RIMINI FC 0

DELFINO PESCARA 1 (Ferraris 85)

Att 3,981 (2,005 season tickets, 1,976 match tickets) at Stadio Romeo Neri

Entry €22

Programme/ Team sheet online only

We’d flown in to Rimini-San Marino airport the previous Wednesday evening and together with the other passengers on the flight were faced with something unusual. There was absolutely no onward transport, the buses had finished for the day, and there wasn’t a taxi to be seen. I found the number of a local taxi firm and eventually a stream of cabs arrived to take the flight to various hotels in the Rimini, Riccione, and Cattolica area. We finally got to our hotel, dumped our bags and had just enough time in the end to grab a Piadina, it’s a good job restaurants in Italy tend to close late!

We were in Rimini on the recommendation of our friends Per and Bettan from Stockholm who visit here annually. That is a little piece of internationalism that may make little or no sense to anyone else but Robyn and I, but I choose to see it as proof positive that friendly people attract friendly people whatever the location or culture. We saw it in spades in both San Marino and Italy during our 6 days there. And of course, my feelings towards Sweden and its people are well-known!

Now I’m sure most people will see Rimini as one end of a quite wonderful 14 mile strip of white sandy beaches, and the line of bars and restaurants along Viale Regina Elena cater for the tourists beautifully. Do call in at the Ristorante Mala Strana, no this blog doesn’t get paid to advertise, but the seafood is lovely as the staff were kind. Use it as an excuse to try a Piadina, the flatbread with a filling is a real staple of the Emilia-Romagna region.

But please dear reader do take time to head towards Rimini Old Town, and visit both the Tiberius Bridge and the Arch of Augustus. Both are named after the Roman Emperors that comissioned them, and both form part of the city’s badge. It is worth commenting that the bridge only still survives because the German commander based in Rimini refused to blow it up when ordered to retreat in 1944.

Those two icons also form part of the Rimini FC club badge. They play at the nearby Romeo Neri Stadium, named after the first ever Olympian from Rimini who won 3 gold medals in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics for gymnastics, having also won silver in the 1928 games in Amsterdam.

The stadium, originally named the Stadio Communale, was built in 1934 during the time of Mussolini, and the facade of the main stand is a classic piece of 1930’s Rationalist Architecture. In the next few years the stadium will be completely rebuilt, minus the running track, with only that wonderful facade remaining. We saw something like it in Tirana with the Air Albania Stadium using the old Qemal Stafa Stadium’s monumental staircase. Come to think of it, that staircase was rationalist too!

One legacy of the previous Thursday’s events at San Marino vs Liechtenstein had provided us with was online ticketing via Vivaticket. Football at the 3rd tier in Italy does require ID which was checked as we entered the stadium so don’t forget your passport!

Buying via an account allowed us to have that information logged before we flew out which did save time later. If you’d prefer to pay in person there are plenty of tobacconists in town that sell tickets and the club’s ticket office does too, albeit with rather restricted hours. You’ll still need that ID though!

I did smile when I spotted there was a small reduction in entry fee for Robyn as a woman. I can’t see €2 being the difference between anyone going or not going to a game but Robyn’s middle name is Donna, which is by coincidence the Italian for “Woman” I’m not convinced the security detail saw the irony as he checked our passports.

Don’t see these rules as the Italians being difficult either, we were treated courteously and we’d had a real, literal lift from our hotel too.

We’d attempted to book a taxi to the ground, but the good folks at the Hotel Luxor decided to use the family car to get Robyn and I to the ground instead, and refused our attempts to give them anything for their trouble! Mind you they couldn’t exactly refuse the box of chocolates we gave them as we checked out a couple of days later. And of course this free advertising!

There have been several iterations of Rimini’s football club and financial issues do seem to be a running theme. The original Libertas Rimini club was founded in 1912 but after a bankrupcy became Rimini Calcio in 1938. They made it all the way to the second tier Serie B before fading back to bankrupcy in 2010. AC Rimini 1912 replaced them in Serie D but lasted only until 2016 when the current Rimini FC 1912 entered the Emilia-Romagna Lega winning promotion twice to reach Serie C where they remain today.

The league is where Italian club football begins to regionalise. There are 3 groups roughly arranged into north, south and central regions with the champions being promoted. One extra club gets the final spot in Serie B through a labyrinthine series of play-offs involving 27 clubs.

As befitting a club reasonably recent legacy with Serie A, Delfino Pescara brought a large and noisy following and both sets of fans made the most of being perched on temporary terracing to offer superb support, that sad to say was of far greater entertainment value than the game we all watched. Frankly it was dull in the extreme, riven with errors; the metaphorical nil-nil bore draw, punctuated by a well worked Dolphins goal that seemed out of character with all that preceded and succeeded it.

Of course not every game can be a classic and there was no shame in Rimini losing to a side currently top of the table and I do suspect Pescara see themselves as a Serie B side in waiting anyway. With no taxis or buses visible Robyn and I strolled back to our hotel through deserted streets. Wherever you are in the world it is always odd when you experience that contrast in atmosphere in such a short space of time.

This time though the night porter knew exactly where we’d been, it was his car we’d been in earlier!