Source: Metropolis
by Marco Milano
CAPRI – Ninety-three years celebrated in Capri, the island as blue as the colors of its Naples. Corrado Ferlaino, historic patron of Napoli’s first two scudettos and international trophies, chose his adopted homeland to blow out instead of ninety-three, just one large candle for his birthday together with his partner Roberta Cassol. Gritty and roaring, still in great shape today, as always, Corrado Ferlaino wanted the Grand Hotel Quisisana to be, at the “Colombaia”, the elegant restaurant by the pool of the exclusive five-star luxury hotel, the pearl of the island’s hospitality, the location for a day to remember. Also celebrating a “happy birthday” with warm applause were her daughter Cristiana, Lucia Morgano, owner of the island’s pride of hotel, her son Adalberto Cuomo. “’O Presidente” as everyone on Capri still calls him, as he passed through Via Vittorio Emanuele he was greeted with the honors of the case by Napoli fans and others who love and respect him today, as it already happened then, since 1969 then, when he became president of Napoli, and for decades he often and willingly landed on Capri, where he had several homes. First in Anacapri and then in Capri a few steps from the square, Corrado Ferlaino has always had a home on the island, and where “‘O Presidente” who from 1969 to 2002 brought Calcio Napoli two championships in 1986/87 and 1989/ 90, a UEFA Cup 1988-89, two Italian Cups 1975-76 and 1986-87 and a 1990 Italian Super Cup, he loved receiving his coaches. It was his retreat on Capri, in fact, with an extraordinary panorama and a view of the sea and the living room of the world, which acted as the symbolic headquarters of Napoli for the first meeting between Ferlaino and all the Neapolitan coaches who followed one another on the blue bench. A sort of superstitious ritual, given that Ferlaino, as a good Neapolitan, believed in these things, so much so that he “made cards” before Napoli’s matches, when he was in Capri, together with friends, like Capri’s volcanic tourism councilor of the time and inventor of New Year’s Eve in the square Teodorico Boniello. And Capri was always the place to invite footballers to get to know them better and make them appreciate the beauty of a unique rock in the world. Corrado Ferlaino’s guest of honor on the island, of course, was Diego Armando Maradona in the golden years who met and learned to appreciate the island most venerated by emperors and poets, artists and men of letters, thanks to its president. And to celebrate his ninety-three years in Capri, among the gifts to “O Presidente” could not miss a tribute to Neapolitanism with a “Pulcinella” created by the great artist Lello Esposito. And if Corrado Ferlaino’s anecdotes linked to Capri are not lacking, a historical page that he likes to remember, like all the people of Capri, is when, the day after the conquest of the first scudetto in 1987, the little square was filled with supporters and blue flags and acclaimed to look out from the balcony of his house overlooking the living room of the world just as happens only for the great characters loved by all, just like “’O Presidente”.
