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If the Italian side of the collection is a family album, the international side is a hall of legends. At the Scampata di Malamocco, Corrado Mattoccia, founder of the Fango e Sudore museum in Artena, brought jerseys that shaped world rugby. And behind each one is a story worth as much as the fabric.
Gareth Edwards and the 1976 Grand Slam
It starts with a legend. Gareth Edwards is the Wales scrum-half who scored the Barbarians try against the All Blacks in 1973, widely considered the greatest ever. The jersey on display is from Wales’ 1976 Grand Slam.
When he handed it over, Edwards added a detail that says a lot about rugby back then:
Look Corrado, remember that in my day you played four or five matches in one jersey.
In other words, by his account, that same shirt had won him more than one title.
Australia 1991 and the Lynagh dynasty
Then come the number 9 and number 10 of Australia’s 1991 world champions, Nick Farr-Jones and Michael Lynagh. A name that sounds familiar in Italy today: one of Lynagh’s sons, Louis, plays for the Azzurri, another, Tom, for Australia. The same section features Waisale Serevi, for many the greatest sevens player of all time.
Why are the 1995 All Blacks said to have been “poisoned”?
Because on the eve of the 1995 World Cup final against South Africa, many New Zealand players went down with food poisoning, and in New Zealand sabotage has been suspected ever since. South Africa won that final in Johannesburg against Jonah Lomu’s heavily favoured All Blacks.
Mattoccia tells the story through a less famous jersey: not Andrew Mehrtens’, but that of Ant Strachan, a scrum-half in that squad.
Invictus: Francois Pienaar’s jersey
On the other side of that final sits the piece that gave DanPat goosebumps: the jersey of Francois Pienaar, captain of South Africa’s 1995 world champions, the story told in the film Invictus, with Nelson Mandela and the team’s only black player, Chester Williams.
The twist? Pienaar played at 6, but according to Mattoccia this is the jersey from the only time in his career he took the field wearing 8. That is the museum’s philosophy: for every player, even one with a hundred caps, it looks for the jersey that tells the best story. How he got this one remains a secret.
The dream jersey: the McCaw story
Asked which jersey he loves most, Mattoccia doesn’t hesitate: the next one. But the best story is about a jersey the museum already has. Fango e Sudore works with the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston North and with the rugby museum at Twickenham. The New Zealand museum’s director reportedly told him his dream before retiring is to own a Richie McCaw jersey. In Artena, that jersey has been on show for children for ten years.
The next dream? Maybe a jersey from the next World Cup, maybe the one from the day Italy win the Six Nations. Dreaming is free, and some dreams, Mattoccia says, have already come true.
Read also
- Fango e Sudore museum: the jerseys that tell Italy’s rugby story
- Perugini, Ongaro and the 2007 World Cup prank
- Scampata di Malamocco: Italy’s most incredible third half
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