With the Aurora it has been a real marriage that has lasted for sixty years. And Orazio Mariani’s diamond wedding with the historic Desiana club (don’t let his wife Adele feel bad about it) was celebrated a few days early in Giussano where he was awarded the bronze star for sporting merit by CONI. Orazio, as everyone in Desio knows it, is an authentic institution for the club founded in 1922 as a sports club. Orazio is basketball in Desio. He was born in 1935, started playing in the mid-1950s for what was then Libertas, then in 1964 he joined the newly formed Aurora basketball section. And he won’t get out of it again. Even after his separation from the sports club in 1979. First player, then manager, historic secretary, still today, every day he is at the PalaMoretto (the Aldo Moro), morning, afternoon and evening if there are matches. An example.
We have to start from the beginning, what was basketball like in Desio in the fifties and then in the sixties when Aurora was born?
“When I started I remember that we played outdoors and if there was cold, fog, snow, no excuses, we trained and shot. I remember the pitch where the Pro Loco is currently located and then the current sports centre. I played with Aurora for just 2-3 years, I was over thirty and my career as a manager began. I took care of memberships, I maintained relations with the Federation. There were no computers, no online platforms. Yes we used to take the car and go to Milan to make calendars. We all knew each other in the end, there was human contact, now everything is done with the PC. I don’t like it at all.”
Sixty years of Aurora: how many people she has seen and known from 1964 to today. Who is dearest to you?
“Enrico Sala, Bufalo for everyone. He was a legend of Desian basketball, he had the number 9 shirt and all the kids wanted to wear it to emulate him. We still see each other every day. And then the president Gianluigi Bologna who left us too soon He had modern ideas. He would have built the stadium for the Serie A in the 1980s, I still have the drawings of the projects somewhere.”
And who knows how many memories… The best?
“The promotion from B to A2 with the victory in Bologna against Montegranaro. The party in the square with Virginio Bernardi. And the following year the first two Americans in Desio”.
Game that she didn’t see, by the way. She didn’t like travel…
“Too much tension, I got nervous. I went there very few times. The last one was perhaps in Cremona: we were first, they were last. We lost and from that time on, that was it. It also happened that we reached the city of the match and then went around the center without entering to the building”.
Don’t you still dream of a sports center in Desio called Aurora?
“They are no longer in fashion. The existing ones have survived over the years.”
But how do you imagine your life without Aurora?
“I can’t imagine it. Impossible. Maybe I would have played tennis, another great passion of mine.”
She’s always there in the gym.
“Yes, I no longer have official duties, but I’m there every day. They treat me like an old man (letting out a smile), they don’t let me lift a weight, I get angry and say “Okay tuscos, but sun minga muribund! “”.
2023-12-31 05:08:41
#basketball #flag #Orazio #Aurora #heart #Impossible #live
