Villafranca
It only happens in three points of six square meters each that have been examined. The mayor: “We can’t figure it out”
A phase of a home match of the women’s Alpo Basket
A phase of a home match of the women’s Alpo Basket
The ball does not bounce. There is no intervention that takes, that of the Villafranca sports hall is now a yellow: during basketball games and training, at a certain point, the ball starts making a thud and it doesn’t bounce as it should. It happens at three specific points and only there. But under the parquet there is nothing wrong. And you can’t even blame the years. The structure, in fact, approved for national volleyball and basketball series A competitions and for Serie B five-a-side football, was inaugurated in September 2016.
A fund that does not do its duty
Wide field, heated shiny parquet floor, 1,200 seats in the stands, a gym, changing rooms, services, press box, ticket office and bar, but a fund that does not do its duty. The problem was noticed early on. And it’s a big deal for athletes. Especially for the girls of Alpo basketball in Serie A2, who play and train here, and of the same ones youth teams. The children of the San Giorgio sports center also use the structure, which has basketball teams, and finally Quaderni’s Quadrivolley, the athletics group, the five-a-side football teams and the Sport inside society that offers physical activity.
If for those who do gymnastics or play volleyball the problem is marginal (indeed, volleyball players find the floor very elastic and comfortable), for basketball players it is not a small misunderstanding: when you arrive in some areas, the athletes hear the dull thud of the ball that does not bounce well. The problem really seems a mystery. The floor is made of five-centimeter-high strips on which the parquet rests. In three points, for an area of about six square meters each, the ball does not return to the basketball players as it should.
Three interventions have already been made
“And they’re still the same three zones, but we can’t figure out why,” he explains the mayor Roberto Dall’Oca. “We have already made three interventions. We have removed the entire floor, checked the strips and it is not clear why the problem always returns to the same points. It is a mystery that so far neither who built the structure nor who laid the parquet has solved it ».
Various hypotheses have been examined: the seasoning of the wood, the humidity, the bottom with some anomalies. But nothing. The enigma does not dissolve. «We have thought about underfloor heating. But trying, with the system on or off, the ball does not bounce anyway », continues the mayor. «It is not even the humidity, because by removing the parquet we saw that the substrate is dry. And it has no irregularities. Whoever has laid the floor is in difficulty because he cannot explain why he is only in some places. We would really like to find the solution and we continue to look for it ».
The building, which the city has been deprived of for decades, was built from scratch in via Della Speranza and cost over four million euros covered with a regional loan of 900 thousand euros, the exchange to the temporary association of construction companies of two land in the production area worth 1.3 million and with municipal funds also deriving from having collected in cash some counterparts of the recovery plans urban planning.
