got very fond memories of watching this show as a kid in the 90's, i would get up religiously on a saturday morning to tune into c4 to watch james richardson outside a cafe reading from his gazzetta dello sport. What a great era the 90's was in italian football, big name players like baggio, van basten, gascoigne and batistua seemed magical to me at the time when the closest thing we had to a bit of foreign flair in england was paul mcgrath. What a great show this was, any other fans care to reminisce?

remember it well..... good memories myself of tht programme... was forgotten about til you metioned it good thread some class football m8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyF4mkjR100

Aye and remember Toto Schillaci :)

had to get the obligitory james richardson pic in last time i was over there

aye remember it well. used to like Udinese for some reason. Funny how far Italian football has fallen really, in the mid 90s teams like Juve, AC and Inter seemed unmatchable

[quote="sauzee88"]aye remember it well. used to like Udinese for some reason. Funny how far Italian football has fallen really, in the mid 90s teams like Juve, AC and Inter seemed unmatchable[/quote]

Think a lot of it is down to the money spent by the clubs during that period, lots of the italian teams spent massively during the 90's and start of the 2000's and are still paying for it especially teams like lazio who would drop £30 odd mill on seemingly average players (anyone remeber Gaizka Mendieta? thought not). This combined with all the corruption in the italian game coming to light has tarnished the league a little. Think these things tend go in cycles though and if you see whats going on in the premier league at the minute its a similar thing and will probably end just as badly.

Used to watch Gazzetta fairly religiously as well, they used to do a bit of a travelogue type bit as well didnt they ? If say the main game they were going to show was Sampdoria at home they'd give you a rundown on what Genoa is like etc.

Got quite into Italian football for a bit, following on from ticking off a few grounds at Italia 90 and all that

Yeah remember it well. I'll never forget Gazza scoring the equaliser for Lazio in the Rome derby and then starting to blart his eyes out

Talking of James Richardson, I can't believe he is not on our screens. If Sky had any brains they would snap him up quickly to replace hairy hands. Best football presenter by a mile and he is now relegated to doing podcasts somewhere.

EDIT: To be fair, Mendieta was a class player.

[quote="Votedocker"]Used to watch Gazzetta fairly religiously as well, they used to do a bit of a travelogue type bit as well didnt they ? If say the main game they were going to show was Sampdoria at home they'd give you a rundown on what Genoa is like etc.

Got quite into Italian football for a bit, following on from ticking off a few grounds at Italia 90 and all that

[/quote]

Yea used to love that section of the show. Italy is a country I would love to see more of, only been to milan & rome and that was for the football so didnt exactly go sightseeing.

And Vasque- class maybe, personaly i wouldnt go that far but used him as an example becuase of his slightly OTT €48 million transfer value!

The World Cup 1990 was the best!All the players Higuita,Valderrama etc... and the team,who won it!

followed lazios results ever since, signori top class striker at the time

Remember watching it every week when I was young. Italian football was in its prime when it was on.

might of been before or around the same time, the clothes show done a feature with some of the serie a players, remember laudrup, stefan schwarz modelling spw clothing

Used to fucking love it when I was younger, this and Trans World Sport!

used to love watching that show.....couldn't believe what the Italian fans got away with ( and still do) AC Milan was my favourite italian team back then.

[quote="Horse & Hound"]had to get the obligitory james richardson pic in last time i was over there

[/quote]

cracking pic. that was my favourite part when he used to sit there with papers and espresso. can remember one in particular, might have been milan, where he was sitting there in a pavement cafe on a cold, misty day, was really atmospheric and with the classic italian architechture behind him, as a young lad it really made me want to go there.

Top pic!

Used to love Gazzetta on a saturday morning (would also watch Transworld Sport for an hour before with obligatory feature on some Kenyan distance runner), seemed to be at a time when there was hardly any footy on tv so to get a load of goals on a sat morning was quality, still got a few of the shirts from that era (Batigol years Fiorentina being my favourite, picked up the Parma one for about a fiver on ebay the other year and i think the Roma one was a JJB purchase from early 90's, bit tight now!)





Can also remember the first game they put on where they had Gazza presenting it - seem to remember him getting hauled off after the first ad break as he could barely string a sentence together

As an aside think James Richardson now does the weekly football podcast on the guardian

i was born 1991 and recall some italian games being shown on i guess channel 4 at the time, all i can remember is thinking it said ' GOOAAAALLLLLL LAZZZIOOOO' at the start pf every show

Used to love watching Italian footie on the telly every sunday in the 90's.

Since then italian football gone to shits due to economy, bribes and stuff. Kinda sad tbh

[quote="cordsandcagoule"]Used to love Gazzetta on a saturday morning (would also watch Transworld Sport for an hour before with obligatory feature on some Kenyan distance runner), seemed to be at a time when there was hardly any footy on tv so to get a load of goals on a sat morning was quality, still got a few of the shirts from that era (Batigol years Fiorentina being my favourite, picked up the Parma one for about a fiver on ebay the other year and i think the Roma one was a JJB purchase from early 90's, bit tight now!)

[/quote]

Was gonna give the kits a mention, some crackers you've got there mate.
Remember pestering my mam for months to buy me the 'Banca DI Roma' Lazio kit as worn by my favorite player gazza and finally got it for one of my birthdays only to find it had Alen Boksic on the back so had to pretend to be the croatian international in the playground instead of Gascoigne!

Yeah that Lazio kit was a beauty, one of my mate's bought one of them off that classic football shirts last year. Always loved the old Samp ones as well, especially when they had Lombardo there. Might just be a bit more rose tinted specs but always remember it being cool to see 'classic' foreign strikers on Gazzetta popping up every week and scoring, i suppose it was at the start of Prem foreign imports so was much more used to seeing English carthorses every week with no finesse. Someone like Batistuta would seem like he was on every week, always with some expert finish from the edge of the box.

Battistuta what a player he was

Great 'James Richardson' photo there mate

have good memories of watching that show in the 90's , before the days of sky this was something to really look forward to

was a great programme used to watch it every saturday without fail,used to like sampdoria when it was on

can mind watching it....always liked juve......i can mind that boy Lentini going for 12.5 million.....a record then.....didnt he end up in a car crash?