Bolton Rugby Club welcome Italian team targeted by the Mafia

Fifty Sicilian rugby players along with their coaches and volunteers flew over to the town after being invited by Bolton Rugby Club who felt moved by their plight .

The two clubs have been taking part in friendly tournaments as well as meeting other players.

A fun day was held for the young players.

Bolton RUFC welcomes Sicilian players targeted by the mafia

The Sicilian contingent are with the Briganti Club, based in Librino.

The club has faced many challenges since it opened in 2006 as the area of Librino suffers greatly from poverty and deprivation as well as considerable levels of organised crime.

Briganti meeting the Sale Sharks

The club was formed to help and support children from the area to keep them out of criminality and away from members of the Mafia who are still prominent in Catania, Sicily, where Librino is.

During the fun day friendly matches were staged between the two clubs for both boys and girls and adults too.

There were a host of stalls, a barbecue, singers and entertainers and children’s activities.

Mark Brocklehurst, chairman of Bolton Rugby Club said: “We read this story about this club in Sicily that keeps getting its clubhouse and minibus burnt down and we contacted them and offered to pay for their minibus.

“They said that’s really good but what we’d really like is a relationship with an English rugby club. So that was how we started.

“There was lots of zoom calls and lots of obstacles to overcome as Briganti don’t have any money, so we had to try and raise some money to pay for this but here we are now.

“They brought 50 over to the UK, 35 children and 15 adults and it also coincides that this is our 150th anniversary.

“We’ve spent all week with Briganti taking them to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and also meeting Sale Sharks at their Carrington site.

“They feel very special, they’ve been on national news and local news, and they just wonder why everybody is interested in Briganti.”

"Some of the children who are part of Briganti have had really tough upbringings as there’s lots of deprivation and poverty.

"Drug running is the norm and around 50 per cent of children don’t go to school."

Mark added: “Seeing them with smiles on their faces all week has just been absolutely incredible, and it has helped us understand what’s really important in life.

“We take for granted playing rugby whereas they have to fight to play it, so it becomes more important.

“This is the beginning not the end, we hope to go over to Librino to play rugby next year, and just start an annual visitation to each clubs’ hometowns.”

The final match of our 150 anniversary celebration day saw the senior teams from Bolton & @RugbyIBriganti take to the Avenue St pitch. Bolton won 28-14, the game was played with great spirit & was a match the players will always remember ❤️@EnglandRugby @lancashirerugby #bolton pic.twitter.com/QRWRhv5uJ8

— Bolton Rugby Club (@BoltonRUFC) August 20, 2022

The Briganti team spent just under a week in Bolton.

They visited the Sale Sharks team after they invited them to watch the team train before their match against Bath on Friday night.

They were welcomed to the Carrington site by Senior Kicking Coach, Warren Spragg, who is a fluent Italian speaker.

He introduced the Briganti team and showed thtem how they prepare and train for the upcoming season.

After that Lions and England player and newly signed Sale Sharks signing George Ford presented the team with a signed shirt and a little throw around too.

Briganti team meeting Manu Tuilagi, Sale Shark and England player

Marta Mazzucchelli, volunteer at Briganti spoke of their visit to Bolton saying: “We’re here because in April 2021 someone we don’t know set fire to our team bus, we used it to go to matches with the kids.

“One day I found on our emails, an email from BRC.

“When I read it, I couldn’t believe that our history was known here and then from that moment on we met on zoom and we built our friendship, they asked us how they can help but we already had an association that helped us fund a new bus.

“We said why don’t we grow our friendship and visit each other and know each other better.

“Now we are here and for our kids it’s a very important experience because most of them have never left Catania and Librino.

“So, this is very important for our kids, they are all excited, they had never been on an aeroplane before.

“They are seeing that Bolton has three pitches, instead we have to fight in a very hard way to have ours.

“It’s like a dream come true for us who are all volunteers and we never thought that when we started in 2006, we’d be here.”