Parma

Ground: Stadio Ennio Tardini

Visits: 1

Date: 14 February 2009

Match: Parma - Grosseto 4-0 (Serie B)

Attendance: 10 418

My first ever match in Italy was to be in Parma, where former Sweden star Tomas Brolin made his name in the early 90s. Parma is 75 minutes by train from Milan and with the air being crystal clear we got a good look of Lombardia before arriving in Parma by 1.15 pm. The walk to Stadio Ennio Tardini took about 25 minutes. Once there we had to go round the entire ground, which was is nicely tucked in by the neighbouring houses, before eventually finding the ticket office. Buying tickets in Italy nowdays mean showing your passport and have your name and birthday printed on the ticket. When we later entered the ground we had to show not only the tickets but our passports as well before entry was granted.

Ennio Tardini is a decent ground, the two end stands are open but with no athletics track it is possible for the fans to create a decent atmosphere. Our seats were in the upper tier of the East Stand. This tier, which looked temporary, seemed to have been added when Parma needed to upgrade the ground after their promotion to Serie A in the 90s. The 250-300 Grosseto fans to our left were very vocal (until they went 3-0 down...) and I was actually quite impressed. Parma won by 4-0 and are now up to 4th place in the Serie B table. The glory days when Brolin played here is still alive in people´s mind, when our waiter (excellent pizzas in Parma by the way) asked where we were from we replied Sweden.

"Swiss ?" was his answer.

"No, Svezia Brolin" we replied.

"Ahhh, Brolin" was his answer clearly remembering one of my countries all time greats!

ennio tardini