“And then we were Boycotted”
New Discoveries about the Birth of Women’s Football in Italy [1933]
Part 12

The author would like to express thanks to Daniele Rigamonti, Rosaria Seregni and their daugther Lorenza Rigamonti for the photographs coming from the personal archives of Mina Bolzoni.

PLEASE NOTE – Express permission is required to reproduce ANY of the images taken from these personal archives – please contact Playing Pasts or the author for more details.

To read the previous articles in this series please see the links below – 

 Part 1:  Part 2:  Part 3:  Part 4:  Part 5:  Part 6:  Part 7:  Part 8:  Part 9: Part 10: Part 11:

Since the last part of this series was published by Playing Pasts on July 2021, one may wonder whether the research about Gruppo Femminile Calcistico (GFC) is already done. The answer is: no, the work still continues!

Meanwhile, a wider audience in Italy have had the chance to learn about the history of the first-ever women’s football team in their country, thanks to a play produced by PEM, a Milan-based theatre company. The national premiere was on 28th November 2022, followed by six consecutive sell-out days at Teatro della Cooperativa (Milan).

During last two years the three actresses Federica Fabiani, Rossana Mola, and Rita Pelusio (plus Chiara Stroppa, as substitute) brought the show (whose script was written by playwright Domenico Ferrari) all across Italy. In December 2023, “Giovinette” returned to Milan: not only at the little Teatro della Cooperativa, but also at the renowned Teatro Carcano, for a matinée reserved for the city’s students – almost 1600 of them watch the show, on November 20^th. The show was also in Lodi, at Teatro delle Vigne, which in the 1920s’ was a public gym, frequented by little sisters Marta and Rosetta Boccalini, who were going to become footballers in 1933.

For the Winter 2023 tour in Milan, the acrtesses asked to Federica Seneghini and I to join the promo videos … Could an historian say ‘no’, in front of the Arena Civica?  Click HERE to watch 

Another clip, in front of ‘Via Calciatrici del ‘33’, the street named after the GFC players, watch HERE (see https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/and-then-we-were-boycottednew-discoveries-about-the-birth-of-womens-football-in-italy-1933-part-11/ )

The clip is based on the fact that during the ‘Giovinette’ play actress Rita Pelusio makes a sort of running commentary of a GFC game, watch HERE 

The theatrical play was not only a chance to spread the GFC history, but also to increase our knowledge about it. Two families of 1933 footballers’ heirs got in touch with me  thanks to the ‘Giovinette’ play, and one year ago I had the opportunity to meet those relatives before, or after the show. In this twelfth part of ‘And then we were boycotted..’ series, I’m going to talk about the first case, that of footballer Mina Bolzoni (1912-2000).

Together with journalist Federica Seneghini (with who I wrote the ‘Giovinette’ book, in 2020), in December 2022 I had the chance to met Mina’s son Daniele Rigamonti, his wife Rosaria and their daughter Lorenza.

Erminia “Mina” Bolzoni was born in Milan, on September 12, 1912. She was the daughter of Alberto Bolzoni (1875-1944), a printer native of the Pavia countryside, and of Ambrogia “Ambrogina” Allievi, who was born in Milan. Since Alberto didn’t like his wife’s name, he used to call her “Carlotta”.

 

Alberto and Carlotta had 5 siblings: Maria, Elena, Abramo, Mina, and Dinorah.

 

 

 

The Bolzoni family lived in viale Sabotino, in the Porta Romana district.

 

Maria was an employee at the STIPEL, the local telephone society. Since one of the pitches used in 1933 by the female footballers was the one reserved for the STIPEL employees between via Tertiulliano and via Tacito, we may wonder wheter Maria, as the sister of one of the GFC founders, had some role in the negotiations for the rental of the pitch.

Abramo was a motor enthusiast and an acquaintance of renowned racing driver Alberto Ascari (whose son became a schoolmate of Daniele Rigamonti, Mina’s son). He opened a driving school located in Viale Sabotino, that he managed for a long time with her wife.

Mina worked in Milan as piscinina, a dialectal term for ‘apprentice seamstress’. In her very last years Mina used to recall that one day, while she was working, the model was missing, so she wore the dress for the fashion show. Later she became so skilled in dressmaking that she was hired by a well-renowned atelier, that worked for La Scala opera house.

 

 

 

Thanks to some files kept in Mina’s archive, we can understand how pivotal the year 1933 was for the 21-years old girl. On 17^th March she requested the residence certificate she needed to sign on at the public job centre; on 25^th September, just one week before the scheduled match in Alessandria between local and GFC players, she was hired as an apprentice tailor by the Rosetta Dick dressmaking shop. In between, in mid-May, she signed this photo:

Mina was the only one of the 4 Bolzoni daughters who practiced sports.  Mina’s mother didn’t agree with her daughter’s passion for football, so Abramo used to cover for his younger sister when she went out to play. Abramo was not the only man in Bolzoni’s family fond of football: his cousin Giovanni was a professional football player!

Born in Milan in 1905, Giovanni Bolzoni grew up in the AC Milan youth team: he made his debut in Serie A during the season 1924/1925. In 1925/1925 he played for Parma (20 caps, 1 goal), then he returned to AC Milan, where he played just 4 times, during the 1925/1926 season.

In 1927/1928 Giovanni was sold to US Milanese, the third team of Milan, whose players were named Gli Scacchi (‘the Checkerboards’) because of their black and white jerseys: he finally could play regularly (18 apps), as defender. At the end of that season, the Fascist regime imposed the fusion of US Milanese and Internazionale, to give birth to a new team, called Ambrosiana: that’s why he could finally play with Giuseppe Meazza, the new star of Italian football. In the same team Giovanni had the opportunity to play with Armando Castellazzi, the neroazzurri midfielder who would became a friend of Giuseppe Barcellona and Giovanna Boccalini, as already explained in the Part 10 of this series. Giovanni played as a wingback for Ambrosiana-Inter for 4 seasons, from 1928 to 1932, with 71 apps, winning the 1929/1930 scudetto.

Giovanni’s career as a neroazzurro player ended in the summer of 1932, just as the first idea of GFC was seeding in some Ambrosiana supporters, such as Ninì Zanetti. The wing back left the Serie A, and played in minor leagues for Pavia (1932/1935), Monza (1935/1939) and Cantù (1939/1940). In the last years, he debuted as a trainer too.

Up to now, there’s no proof that Giovanni helped his cousin Mina and her GFC teammates, but we can guess that he easily introduce them to his circle of acquaintances. In fact, Giovanni and Mina were more than cousins: as Lorenza told me, they were in love! Giovanni even gave Mina an engagement ring, but the marriage was never finalized, due to the opposition from both families. Later Giovanni married another woman, Elena Vismara, in June 1935: with  Meazza as his personal bestman, still, Mina kept the ring for a long time. When her son Daniele announced that he was going to marry his girlfriend, Mina gave Daniele the old ring, finally ready to be used properly.

Although we can’t say whether Giovanni introduced his former teammate Giuseppe Meazza to his cousin Mina in 1933, it did probably happen during those years, because after World War II Mina was shown to be acquainted with the Ambrosiana-Inter star, as confirmed by her son. Daniele remembers that when he was 7 years old (in 1948), during a vacation at the seaside in Lavagna, his mother pointed out Meazza to him, who used to go on holiday in the little Ligurian Riviera town. Since the child didn’t know who Meazza was, Mina had to explain it to him. Then Mina approached Meazza, greeting him and his daughter; but after a while, she had to go back, because … Meazza had a very jealous wife!

Mina’s archive contains some photographs of the GFC’s activity. First of all, there’s the first-ever found photo of the 13 pioneers:

As you can tell from the background, this photograph was taken not on the field, but in a studio. Turning the photo over we discover some futher information, such as the name of the photographer, L. Camuzzi. He might be Luciano Camuzzi, a photograper of the time who had a more famous brother Mauro (1883-1964), who was specialized in artistic shooting. The Camuzzi brothers were from Montagnola, a little mountain village near Lugano, Switzerland:  the famous German writer Herman Hesse lived in their family house between 1919 and 1930, writing his masterpiece Siddharta.

Next in Mina’s archive, we find some very interesting photos depicting her and her teammates not on the field, but during their free time. Such images can be iconographical hints of the personal friendships that may link Mina to others such as Brunilde Amodeo, Ninì Zanetti, Ester Dal Pan and a blonde headed girl, not yet identified.

Further photographs show Mina together with some teammates in plain (and very elegant!) clothes, always with that dark car we’ve already seen in other GFC photos.

Mina’s archive holds some photo of calciatrici playing on the pitch, too: some of them are already know, since they were published in 1933, or they have been found in others’ calciatrici personal archives …

Let’s move to the three most interesting new photos. In the first one, we can see another view of the handshake between Mina Bolzoni and Brunilde Amodeo, which we already knew, thanks to a photograph in the archive of the latter:

In this new photo, taken at the same time as the previous one on June 11th, 1933 at Campo Fabio Filzi,  Mina and Brunilde are shaking hands, but we can see they were not alone! On the right side, there were a lot of Brunilde teammates, such as Ester Dal Pan, Carla Frigerio, and a smiling Graziella Lucchese. Among them, Margherita Loverro is watching the scene. Everybody was happy, for the first-ever GFC public match!

Let’s move to the second new photograph, a quite misterious picture of the black-and-white team. We can’t say anything about the football pitch on which it was taken, nor about the time, since there is no published line-up match with this one. What we can say, nevertheless, is that it was a very hot day, and that the girls had played very hard!

The third photo was taken on the same railway platform where the calciatrici took a promotional photograph for Il Calcio Illustrato, during the summer of 1933. Mina was so tall that she’s easily recognizable, despite of the newspaper in front of her face …

 

Then the calciatrici were boycotted. Thanks to some later photos we can see Mina growing up, even after the end of the GFC adventure: life went on …

Then, Costante Rigamonti came into into Mina’s life: as retold by her children, the couple met on the ski slopes.

Costante, whose family came from Brianza (the country region northern to Milan), was a textile expert.

 

The next two photo aren’t dated, neither have a caption, they might depict a young Costante, with his schoolmate

Costante loved skiing: during those years, he won a lot of amateur races.

On 17^th October 1938 Costante and Mina got married, in Milan: three later, on 1941, their son Daniele was born.

Nevertheless, the couple’s fate was intertwined with Italy, when Benito Mussolini declared war against France and the United Kingdom (May 1940): Costante, who was an Alpino, had to leave his wife. He would spend the few years at war, he took part in the Campaign of Greece and Albania, and the Campaign on the Western Front. Then, he was meant to take part in the disastrous Campaign in Russia, but he became ill with amoebiasis and didn’t leave Italy. That was his salvation, as most of his friends didn’t return from Russia.

 

After the end of the war, life began again. Daniele still remembers a meeting that occurred when he was 7 years old (1948). One day, during the summer holidays in Lavagna (a seaside city in Liguria, very popular among Milanese people), he was walking on the seashore with his mother. When Mina glimpsed a man, she stopped, saying to her son: “That man … he’s Meazza!”, who had hung up the boots just one year before. Daniele was too young to know him, so Mina explained who Meazza was. Then the mother and her child approached Meazza, who was under an umbrella with his wife and daughters. Just a few words in greeting, and Mina and Daniele returned back to their walk on the beach…

Then the years rolled by. As a grandmother, Mina used to tell the calciatrici story to her granddaughter Lorenza, and all her friends: she was very proud of her childhood experience, adding that she and her friends in 1933 started the story that later gave birth to the contemporary female Italian football movement. Mina always remained a youthful woman, but during her later years, she suffered from Parkinson’s disease. When she died, in 2000, a folded clipping was found in her pocket. It was the calciatrici gallery, published in 1933. Even when her memory had faded and Mina was no longer able to find her way home when she got lost, she preserved that clipping. It was her way to find her way to the pitch.

 

For an interview with Daniele Rigamonti, Rosaria Seregni and their daugther Lorenza Rigamonti, see:

https://www.academia.edu/126699914/Intervista_agli_eredi_di_Mina_Bolzoni_04_12_2022_

         

Article © of Marco Giani