Lecco, the “Rigamonti-Ceppi” Stadium turns 100

Lecco, the “Rigamonti-Ceppi” Stadium turns 100.

The Municipal Administration of Lecco, in collaboration with Calcio Lecco 1912 and the Panathlon Club Lecco, will remember the anniversary of the "One Hundred Years" of the municipal stadium, formerly "Canterelli" and today "Mario Rigamonti and Mario Ceppi" with a series of initiatives from October to the end of the year.

The first is scheduled for Saturday 15 October, the day which coincides with the inauguration, 15 October 1922, at 17pm outside the stadium in Via Don Pozzi. Not far from the entrance to the secretariat and changing rooms, a plaque will be placed commemorating the first hundred years of the stadium.

However, this will not be the only initiative because it is the intention of the Municipal Administration of Lecco, and in particular of the Councilor for Education and Sport Emanuele Torri, with the involvement of Calcio Lecco with the ownership of the Di Nunno family, to propose one or more serious friendlies in the coming months with teams in a higher category than Lecco.

Negotiations are already underway in this regard and naming names now is premature, creating expectations that could then be thwarted by last-minute decisions. One thing is certain: the common commitment to offer a show worthy of the anniversary.

Furthermore, also with the contribution of the Panathlon Club Lecco and its president Andrea Mauri, an evening is being planned in November dedicated to the blue and light blue colors of Calcio Lecco with some of the players starring on the glorious rectangle of the "Rigamonti-Ceppi" stadium ”.

Returning to the anniversary of 15 October one hundred years ago, one cannot fail to remember (drawing from the precious archive of Aloisio Bonfanti) the inauguration of the then new "Cantarelli" sports field, in the municipal area of ​​Castello, then still an independent municipality, before be absorbed on 1 March 1924 by the "Grande Lecco".

The ceremony took place in the presence of the major authorities, with the mayors of Lecco and Castello Giovanni Gilardi and Giovanni Battista Sala. Godmother Carla Ceppi, twenty-year-old daughter of Eugenio Ceppi and older sister of Mario, who in 1936 married Giuseppe Rizza.

The workers of the master builder Martino Todeschini's company also intervened, having carried out the work on the land owned by the Ceppi family. The Football section of the Rowing Club Lecco (officially established with an extraordinary meeting on 22 December 1913, following a proposal from member Vico Signorelli) was headed by Eugenio Ceppi, born in Milano on 28 November 1869 and came to Lecco definitively in the spring of 1912. On 15 August 1904, Mario Ceppi was born in Castello di Lecco, son of Eugenio and Ebe Prina, married to Milano May the 25 1889.

At the inauguration, the friendly football match between Canottieri Lecco and Ginastica Gallaratese was played. The Blucelesti won by 5 goals to 2. The new sports facility, large and modern, replaced the narrow rectangle called Primavera, from the restaurant that opened its doors in front of the Sirtori barracks in via Leonardo da Vinci (current headquarters of the Police Headquarters). , in the area behind, with entrance from the current number 3 of via Leonardo da Vinci (then via Amilcare Ponchielli), where there was a large door, there was a large courtyard which on market days became a depot for couriers with carts and horses. In the relevant area it had been shaped, with a wall

bordering the course of the Caldone still discovered in Piazza Mazzini, the first football field of the Blucelesti of the Canottieri in March 1914.

The land made available in the Municipality of Castello by Eugenio Ceppi for the new sports field extended into the vast agricultural property that fronted the Ceppi residential villa, which still exists. The name "Cantarelli" is due to the location of the mound with the dead of the Manzonian plague, among whom there would have been the lawyer Azzeccagarbugli, the lawyer to whom Renzo turned after the affair of Don Rodrigo. The burial would today be indicated in the area of ​​the road roundabout between via Balicco, via

The name “Cantarelli” remained until 1950, when, in May of the same year, a year after the aerial tragedy of the great Torino, in Superga, which led to the disappearance of the entire Torino multi-championship team, the pitch was dedicated to Mario Rigamonti.

On 20 June 1993, ten years after the death of the great president Mario Ceppi who brought Lecco to Serie A twice, the stadium was then also named after the "presidentissimo" in addition to Mario Rigamonti.

Finally, in addition to football, the municipal stadium hosted many other sporting, social and musical events. But above all one in particular must be remembered and which still fills the entire city with pride today: the ceremony of awarding the silver medal for military valor for the Liberation awarded to the city of Lecco. It was March 14, 1976 and it was delivered in a packed stadium by the then President of the Chamber of Deputies Sandro Pertini who would later become one of the Presidents of the Republic most loved by Italians. Before him, the mayor of Lecco Rodolfo Tirinzoni, the minister Tommaso Morlino and the municipal councilor Piero Losi for the Anpi took the floor.