«Not good but it will be fine». The last email, at Christmas. He never answered “Not well” to the question “How are you?”, Gian Paolo Ormezzano. And this made me think, fear. But the unspoken pact between us was that I would never write what, in the cynical jargon of the newspapers, is called a crocodile, never: they would throw me out of bed at three in the morning, they would remove me from holidays, from any place at any time. I would have written from the moon too, when that happened, but never before. It wasn’t superstition, but rather the subconscious and unlikely belief that Gpo was stubborn in his desire for life, inherent to life, in short, immortal. We joked about it at the time of his third Covid in October 2023: “You don’t think the crocodile wrote to you, right?”. With him it was possible. He buried every health problem, every negative thought in laughter.
Last November 26th, we had a coffee in Via Solferino in Turin, where he had arrived in his small car: “My children would like me not to get my driving license again… never had an accident.” He was one of those who, at the age of 89, would have planted a centuries-old tree on September 17th, still convinced that he would see it flourish. Bad thoughts, no. He didn’t have any, even though he joked about everything and everyone. Thinking badly is a sin to which Gpo was genetically immune, having fallen into the magic potion of vitality and optimism as a child, he loved life and had faith in people. That didn’t mean he was naive. Generous yes. Ironic and self-deprecatingwoe betide you if you called him a master even if he was one in the true sense without posturing, you were buried in irreverent jokes.
He knew how to ask and ask himself questions. But he retained respect for the person. When in an interview I asked him what kept him from writing something he knew in his profession, if the interlocutor asked him not to do so: he replied «A bit of Catholic education, a bit of education at the Cavour high school, a bit ‘ of education. The fear of doing harm to the honest and good to the scoundrels.”
He knew everything about sport, including injuries, but he never stopped loving it. Even if his sports journalism remained from another era, those of real matches on the sidelines. Of the time in which a Turin journalist aboard his 500 could bring home the Olympic 200 meters champion Livio Berruti, from Rome 1960, and remain his friend, a true friend even now that his physique was making things difficult for both of them. Another planet compared to the era of social media to which he had never converted as he explained in a phrase of Gaddian neologisms, of which “I don’t uozzappo” was the funniest.
He wrote very quickly in a continuous flow, looking at whoever entered without interrupting the tapping of his fingers on the keyboard. He had real culture, not only sporting culture which he disseminated without opinion in his pieces which were impossible to cut, because they were devoid of superfluous words and in any case all connected in a fluvial and yet controlled flow, never outside the banks: cutting it after all was useless. Extremely respectful of his deliveries, he always sent 50 bars less because the signature Gian Paolo (strictly detached) Ormezzano was long. Always like this: whether it was 800 lines, 80, or 8. Sic! One Monday morning at the end of many years ago he called as he always did, collaborating for decades with Famiglia Cristiana and with il Giornalino: «Hello, good morning. Do you have a little space for me?”.
«The columns are full. Except for a short eight-line one.”
«Will you give them to me?».
«Are you kidding?».
“No”.
He had the eight lines he had asked for, which for anyone of his caliber would have been lese majesté, he even managed to quote a poet in them (without saying it: those who knew would have understood, those who didn’t know would have read good sports news, without inferiority complexes) and there was a place for signing. But he has never played the simplistic game: “If someone who reads nothing else by reading my football and my cycling learns a word, I will have done something useful.”
He loved writing, he did it until his last day. Not even any email was any with him. The Bull was still a great passion: at his house for the first time, he showed me two copies of Botero’s canvases. “You have to guess why these are.” Obviously take the test: “These are the only two where the bull wins.” The matadors actually had the worst of it. On my first May 4th in the editorial office at Fc, calling me from Turin, where he had always been, he asked point blank:
“What day is it today?”
Mumble, mumble.
«WHAT DAY IS TODAY?». He shouted in mock severity.
Mumble Mumble.
«WHAT DAY IS TODAY? 4 MAY ’49”.
The Superga tragedy.
“You saved yourself.”
And then he laughed at my fright. I would have reciprocated shortly after, sending him a stuffed bull from Seville accompanied by a little letter in which the little animal asked for political asylum in his home, describing it as: “The safest place in the world”.
I didn’t yet know that he would be a master of the real ones, who call you to tell you this I liked, and also to tell you this I would have done it differently, explaining the reason. He was an independent contractor: it was against his best interests to raise someone. But Gpo didn’t have these problems. And in fact many call him maestro, while he cheerfully sends them on their way from up there.
Many will say these days that he was a very good journalist and a beautiful person. It is true. Of the times of the direction of Tuttosport he said that the thing he found most difficult was scolding someone. He preferred to see the world and tell about it. His newspaper was cultured, ironic and polite, a little out of date even then, it would be more so in these times. Not out of the world though, because he liked being in the world like crazy. Even with a stick. He said that the best chats he had had with Michel Platini (Juventus player!): «Never once talked about football».
Hi Gpo, I know where you are now: you have certainly put the brick of the old Philadelphia that you kept in the car back in its place. There is a team that is lining up: Bacigalupo, Ballarin, Maroso…
Free measures this time, Gpo, write as much as you want
