Almanac Footy: Addio Michelangelo Rucci
Michelangelo Rucci has been part of South Australian football for so long that it is going to take some getting used to not having him around anymore.
For almost fifty years he has written or spoken about the game – from his start at Messenger Press, Magpie News, Football Times and Football Budget through to the Advertiser, 5AD, 5AA and SEN. As a journalist he sought the truth, then wrote it with style, and as a broadcaster he built his opinions on foundations of logic and an elephantine memory.
As his first Editor Don Riddell says – ‘Rucci was always willing to get into the fight.’
Along the way there probably isn’t a person involved in the game who at some stage he hasn’t upset or a fan of every persuasion whose blood he hasn’t boiled.
‘Fans invest in emotion,’ he says, ‘not reality’. Or to quote one of Michelangelo’s favourite broadcasters Howard Cosell, ‘What’s right isn’t always popular and what’s popular isn’t always right.’
The years have taken their toll. It is exhausting being the centre of people’s arguments. The luxurious hair of the 1990s has drifted away but has been recently replaced by a spectacular Fu Manchu moustache, giving him the appearance of a distant relative of Merv Hughes.
Michelangelo with full plume circa 1997
Now he is moving almost as far from Adelaide as possible – to Roccacinquemiglia – a speck in the mountains of Abruzzo in Italy. According to reviews on TripAdvisor, it is a Piccola Gemma (little gem) – ‘An untouched village that has remained intact over time, offering peace, tranquility, and serenity. The village has a bar, a bike path and a trattoria.’
That is just what Michelangelo is craving. His arrival will swell the population to 99 and he wants to live days that begin with espresso and bakery, involve working on restoring his house, having a cup of tea with his aunt and maybe ending with a Peroni on his hilltop watching the sunset.
It is his ancestral home, from where his father migrated after the Second World War tore the place to shreds and reduced the residents to poverty. He settled in Alberton, where his son fell in love with the Australian game and those who played it wearing the black and white bars. Fos Willliams was his idol and later he would write his biography. The long line of people snaking its way out of the Port Adelaide clubrooms waiting to have Fos autograph a copy is one of his fondest memories.
The move isn’t a whim. During decades covering football, Michelangelo would work almost 24/7 until Melbourne Cup Day, when he would head to Italy before returning on Australia Day, ready for another season. Those visits were always snowbound and so he is looking forward to basking in Italian sunshine.
Will he still follow the game, perhaps find a streaming service to watch on his iPad in his casa in the hills? He says no but knows that inevitably friends will contact him with results and details. His sporting fix may be watching midweek village matches of the round ball game.
When he started reporting there was no AFL (and the 18 teams he refers to as theatre productions) and a ten-team SANFL had just celebrated its centenary. If there were a time machine, he would love to revisit 1977, an era when the League was so popular that AMSCOL sold ice cream in every team’s colours.
‘Community is something you find in your heart, not a dictionary,’ he says. ‘My dream is still that kids pull on an SANFL guernsey before they wear an AFL one.’
He will return to Adelaide from time to time but only as a visitor. The work on football is done and now there are other things to explore, people to meet and gears to drop down.
Buon viaggio Michelangelo.
To read more by Michael Sexton as well as reviews of his books click Here.
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About Michael Sexton
Michael Sexton is a freelance journo in SA. His scribblings include "The Summer of Barry", "Chappell's Last Stand" and the biography of Neil Sachse.
Good luck to him. Roccacinquemiglia (‘Five Mile Fortress’) is the next village over from Castel di Sangro (‘Blood Castle’) whose football team famously made Serie B (the Italian second division) for two seasons in the late 1990s.
Castel di Sangro’s rise was so amazing that the American author Joe McGinniss moved there to follow the team fly-on-the-wall style. The result – ‘The Miracle of Castel di Sangro’ – is one of the great football books. A fitting location then for Rucci, who thrived on life inside club walls.
Along with I suspect all Port Adelaide supporters, I thank him for fighting the good fight on our behalf, mostly against numbskull Cornes, but all comers. For his written contributions to historical records and books, too. I wish him every good thing he may want and have a slight tinge of envy. Well done and we shall miss you.