Pompeii: Shoots spring lonely. Football flowed away in the shadow of Vesuvius

Words: Imma Rhamely Borrelli

Images: Imma Rhamely Borrelli

Pompeii, Fossa di Valle Stadium.

A few steps from one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world and the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Rosario in Pompeii, here is the Fossa di Valle stadium, which hosted the Youth Games and the “Virtus Pompei” in the amateur championship in the early 90s.

The stadium remained incomplete before being completely abandoned in the late 1990s.

Even today it is the subject of debates on the local administration on the possible recovery and requalification of the territory, words that have never seen concreteness at the moment.

Politics and judicial inquiries aside, what drew me here is that before it was something and now it’s not.

Easy to find, access to this dilapidated amphitheatre is free for anyone.

Smells and colours have faded over the years, vegetation has taken up space in a wild way, urban artists have used the worn skin on the stones as a canvas for graffiti, the former dressing rooms are home to who knows what secrets not so much secret and the playing field is a meadow that hosts grazing animals.

What happened to the choirs that were floating on the steps? That hope and adrenaline that only a place like the stadium before a game can give?

I look at this ghost place imagining its past, and at the foot of Vesuvius the scenery is incredibly fascinating, like all things abandoned.

And the shoots spring lonely but they do spring green.