Saturday 10^th December 2023 – Serie A – Stadio Benito Stirp – Frosinone, Italy

Frosinone, like many provincial towns in Italy, enjoys a stunning location.  Surrounded on three sides by the Ernici and Lepini mountains, in what is known as the Valle Latina (“The Latin Valley”), there’s few better vistas on a sunny day that the view from the old town across the surrounding area.  However, arrive on a misty evening, where you are doing circuits of the tiny one-way alley ways of said old town looking for a parking space, it isn’t so serene and beautiful.

We’d headed south from Terni, down the A1 and finally located our hotel.  There was a spooky feel about the deserted streets when we headed out for dinner.  We’d got a recommendation from someone to go to A La Rosa, a family run restaurant on our route back from the pub.  It was 8.30pm and one table was taken.  We went in but whether it was our half-arsed attempts to speak Italian, or the fact they simply wanted an easy Saturday night, the answer to our request for a table for two (or twenty, twenty-two or two hundred) was that they were fully booked.  A sweeping gesture with a hand over the empty restaurant hardly reassured us that it was true.  We went next door.  They had pasta and that was good enough for us.

Sunday morning dawned and the mist still hung over the elevated old town.  The BBC weather app said it would clear and we’d have a beautiful sunny late morning.  By 10:45am when we parked a short walk from Stadio Benito Stirp the clouds were slowly drifting over the mountain tops, revealing a stunning blue sky.

The fan stalls were in operation, the food vans serving up porchetta roles and grilling beef steaks, adding colour to the aroma of the Sunday lunchtime kick off.  Fans milled around, enjoying the sunshine and the relaxed atmosphere.  It was a million miles away from some of the scenes we see back in England.  Danny and I debated whether 12.30pm on a Sunday was the perfect kick-off time.  Early enough to get back home for a proper Sunday lunch and an afternoon stroll in day light, or even get to another game (naturally).

We filled our bags full of football tat just as the Torino fans turned up.  Despite the early start, and the 450-mile journey from Turin, they had sold out their allocation and were in good voice as we entered the stadium.  The view from our seats was stunning.  Up there with my wedding day, almost.  Snow-peaked mountains, framed by a brilliant blue sky above the stands on three sides.  Add in our porchetta rolls filling an elevenses hole this was the best day ever.

The Stadio Benito Stirp is a fantastic stadium, despite being rather modest in size.  A capacity of just over 16,000, with one main stand, with its steel legs setting it apart from the rest of the ground that was one continuous wrap around.  The redevelopment of the old municipal ground, known as the Matusa, started as far back as the mid-1980s but due to a lack of cash, and need as the club played in Serie C, wasn’t completed until 2017, just after the club had tasted Serie A football for the first time.  After returning for another season in 2018-19, they were relegated but were promoted as champions of Serie B again last season.

Desperate to avoid a swift return for the third time to Serie B, the club strengthened their squad in the summer and came into the game against Torino sitting nicely in mid-table, one point and one place behind the visitors.  The club anthem rang out around the ground as the two teams emerged into the sunshine.  We joined in, twirling our scarves above our heads like there was no tomorrow.

“What do you want from this game Stu?” Danny asked.  I’m a simple man so I just wanted a sending off, a penalty and a controversial VAR decision.  What I didn’t expect was to see all, or in fact, none happen in the space of 30 first half seconds.

The game started cautiously with the away side slightly shading it, but our gaze was still on the stunning backdrop when the Torino bench were furious that Frosinone’s Anthony Oyono remained on the pitch, having been booked early doors then flying into a second tackle high and late.  But Torino’s ire turned to fortune a few minutes later when Kaio Jorge appeared to be pulled to the ground in the area as he was clean through.  The referee initially gave the Frosinone player a yellow for diving but on the advice of the VAR team, he was summoned to the pitch side monitor.  A minute later he sprinted across the pitch but didn’t give the penalty, instead awarding Torino a free kick for an alleged foul in the build-up.  Jorge’s yellow still stood.

We changed ends at half-time in true non-League fashion, with a different perspective of a similarly stunning backdrop of mountains.  Torino looked the most likely to break the deadlock but never really without troubling Stefano Turati in the Frosinone goal.  They did have the ball in the back of the net in injury time, but the flag was already up.

The full-time whilst saw the players take the applause of the fans before they headed off for their Sunday roast.  We wandered back to the car, still in awe of the surroundings we found ourselves in before we headed back up the road to our final game of the weekend, a tasty Serie D encounter in the village of Genzano di Roma.  Ciao, Frosinone, my new Italian mistress.