In the 1930s rugby enjoyed the attention and support of the regime, being touted as one of the “fascist sports” par excellence. A contact disciplinewhich requires esprit de corps, resistance and courage: due to its intrinsic characteristics the oval ball coincides with the militarist ideology of the moment. As part of a broad intervention by the regime in favor of athletic practice, it is identified in rugby «combat sport» an ideal tool for the preparation – both physical and psychological – of the young soldier. Over time, the fascist label ended up sticking to the oval ball beyond the real dimension of the ties between athletes, organizers and hierarchs between the two wars.
But the rugby microcosm, like a sample of the country’s historical event, has also seen a filigree component of young people involved in Resistence, whose stories are so far little known. And among these six are the names linked to the national team shirt. Italians of different origins, social backgrounds and motivations, united by a choice of freedom.
Sergio “Braccio” Lanfranchi
We can only start from Sergio “Braccio” Lanfranchi, one of the rugby players who most marked his time. Parma’s third line (but he could play in all positions in the package) made his debut with Italy at the age of twenty-four in ’49 and ended his career for Italy 15 years later. In between the success in the French championship with the Grenoble shirt, the first Italian to win such a prestigious championship. From the humble neighborhood of Borgo del Naviglio, having lost his mother, Lanfranchi grows up in an orphanage and learns rugby in the ranks of the Gioventù del Littorio. After the advent of the Social Republic he was included in the Monterosa Alpine division and sent to Germany for training in the Munzingen camp, in very harsh conditions. Upon returning to Italy he joins the Piedmontese Resistance, with the battle name “Dik”, and fights for the Liberation first in the Seventh Division Garibaldi and then in the Italo Rossi.
Vittorio Borsetto
The man from Rovigo also had a brief French experience Vittorio Borsetto, third line and prop, who in the wake of Maci Battaglini arrived at Vienne for two seasons. A worker, two caps in blue in 1948, he had been called to war as an artillery corporal. After the armistice he joined the 56th Garibaldi brigade in Valcalepio, in the Bergamo area, fighting clandestinely for almost two years.
Aldo Battaggion
In the same two matches of ’48 when they resumed after the war, against France B and Czechoslovakia, in the Italian XV with Borsetto there was also the Bergamo player from Amatori Aldo Battaggion, scrum half. Unlike Lanfranchi and Borsetto, of modest origins, Battaggion is the son of an important industrialist and receives the best education, first studying as a surveyor and then economics and commerce. It was at university in Milan that he became acquainted with the oval ball, joining the Guf university team. Officer student pilot of the Air Force, he took part in the war, then after 8 September he joined the partisan bands of Val Serina. The family is of liberal ideas and already in Milan he had approached the network of “Justice and Freedom”. On the night of 15 January 1944 he was captured by the Republican Guard and locked up in the Sant’Agata prison in Bergamo. While his companions are freed with the obligation to serve in the RSI troops, Battaggion is held together with Dante Paci. They are considered leaders of the group. Paci was shot on July 21st. Battaggion resists torture, so on October 9th he is sent to Dachau. Sick and wasted, he miraculously remained alive until the arrival of the Americans on April 29, 1945.
Aldo Battaggion said: «I owe my life to rugby. From Dachau I returned alive because I was a rugby player. In terms of mentality, in terms of sporting acuity, rugby helps to give resistance to the individual: so I resisted the beatings first of the fascists, then of the Nazis and then I resisted Dachau. The rugby player is brave. The skill of a scrum half must be that of game vision. Watching the game teaches you to look around, to think, to see, and this helped me a lot. He saved my life”.
Enrico Allevi
Among those who had played for the national team before the war, Enrico Allevi he even figures in the Azzurri’s debut XV in Barcelona in 1929. The Milanese is already twenty-seven years old and in fact four seasons later he leaves the amateurs and rugby. He joined the clandestine Communist Party and took part in the war of liberation under the battle name of “Orazio”. He died on 3 May 1945 due to illness and was buried in “Field of Glory” of the major cemetery of Milan.
The Bolognese Fernando Trebbi, born in 1909, mechanic, played twice with the national team in ’33, both against Czechoslovakia. Trained as a radio operator, he was lucky enough not to be called up for military service. In October ’43 he joined the Resistance and became a member of Cumer, the military command of Emilia Romagna.
Piero Romano
Piero Romano instead he plays the last match for the Azzurri before the interruption due to the war. With his twin Guido (who died a year later) he made up the leading pair that challenged Romania on 2 May 1942. He obtained a military deferment as a student at the Faculty of Agriculture. After the armistice he took the road to Valtellina and there under the name of “Cleto” he became commander of the Fagognolo detachment of the 55th Rosselli Brothers Brigade. The roundups of October 1944 forced him to make a solitary escape to Switzerland, where he experienced internment. He returns to Italy the following spring and participates in the Lecco insurrection. He was one of the protagonists of the Amatori championship in the first peacetime championship, in 1946.
