The Cult Of Channel 4’s Gazzetta Football Italia

’GOOOOAAALLLLAZZZZIIIOOOOO!!!!’’ was a familiar cry that resonated in school playgrounds and housing estates throughout the UK in the early to mid 1990s, I must admit I was guilty myself of shouting out the word on numerous occasions when I scored a goal.  So where did such a phrase come from?

It all started in the summer of 1992 with Paul Gascoigne’s long awaited move to Lazio from Tottenham Hotspur.  As time unfolded we would learn that Gazza’s time with the Biancocelesti wasn’t particularly successful, his self discipline severely lacking and a young Alessandro Nesta breaking his leg in a training ground accident ruined any chance Gazza had of becoming a success in the Eternal City, but the one thing that did become a success from Gascoigne’s time in Italy (and lasted long after he left Rome), was the coverage of football being shown from Gazza’s new home, Serie A, on British shores.

Channel 4 snapped up the coverage of Serie A for a paltry £1.5 million in 1992, it had originally been shown by BSB (pre take over by Sky) for a couple of years.  The Channel 4 incarnation had two shows, the now near mythical ‘Gazzetta Football Italia’ on a Saturday morning, and then usually a live game was shown on a Sunday afternoon (this was a time when most Calcio games were all 2pm kick off times).  Both shows were presented by the legendary and brilliant James Richardson, who was to become known as ‘The Godfather of Italian Football’, and who could forget the massive ice creams in a Piazza somewhere in Italy??

The opening credits to the Football Italia shows was where the now infamous phrase ‘goallazio’ came from (which we now all know was incorrect, but for years everyone thought that’s what the commentator said!).  The show and Serie A as a whole was at it’s peak when I was growing up in the 90s, compared to English football, which no one really got to see as Sky was unaffordable to the vast majority of people, was from another planet.

Everything about Serie A was different to the Premiership in those days, and it was so alien to viewers to begin with; the ultras, the flares, the stadiums, the hand gesticulation and most importantly the players.  The Italian people boasted that they had ‘’ il campionato più bello del mondo’’ which translates to ‘the most beautiful championship in the world’, and who could argue? All the best players from all over the world played in Italy in the 1990s, it was the place to be.

Watching Serie A captivated me and I was a regular viewer from the 1994/95 season onwards.  I remember watching one Sunday afternoon and recognizing a familiar player, or rather a familiar hairstyle running around the pitch weaving his magic wearing a black and white jersey, I had seen the same player a few months previously in the 1994 World Cup, and so it turned out to be none other than ll Divin Codino himself, Roberto Baggio.

I cannot remember if Baggio scored in the match but he left an indelible imprint on me which has never went away, from that moment on I became a Juve fan, even after the great man had left.

This kind of experience happened to hundreds of kids and teenagers all over the UK, who fell in love with a team from the land of Calcio because of a certain player, I had a friend who became a fan of Fiorentina because of Batistuta and another who liked Inter due to the talent of Ronaldo.

As Gazzetta Football Italia came and went from our screens via numerous networks after Channel 4 dropped the coverage in 2002 and people stopped watching Serie A, the one thing that remained consistent was my love for Juve and for Calcio in general.

If your reading this article now, from the UK and are in your mid to late 20s, it’s likely you were a disciple of James Richardson and Gazzetta Football Italia era.  An era that was quite frankly grandissimo.

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