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James Richardson: The Rich List
He might not be on our screens anymore, but James Richardson has given fans of Football Italia so many memories over the years. Richard Godden caught up with the legendary presenter and regular Calcio Italia guest for an exclusive chat



Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne was the man who kick-started the UK's love affair with Italian football. However, the fact that so many fans on these shores are still infatuated with calcio owes plenty to a certain bald-headed presenter who largely had fate to thank for landing his big break as the anchorman for Channel 4's coverage of Serie A. With his witty one-liners and facing huge ice creams as he sat outside many of Italy's cafes, James Richardson quickly earned legendary status among fans and is widely regarded as the face of Italian football in Britain. So without further ado, here's James to share his thoughts on the last 15 years. What were your favourite Gazzetta moments? I think the times when we didn't think we were going to get an interview and suddenly we did were particularly memorable from a working point of view. There was one day when we were meant to be doing an interview with Roberto Baggio at Milan, but it turned out that no one had told him about it. He couldn't do it and he was very sorry. This was on the Wednesday and we had to fly back the next day with the feature. In the end, we managed to get hold of Marco Simone and he told us to come over to his penthouse apartment and we did this brilliant feature with him there. Having Elvis Costello on the show during one of the games was fantastic too, as was doing the Lambada with Attilio Lombardo - although we didn't really do it properly, we just shook our hips around in a vigorous fashion. And I've got to mention the ice creams too… Who was your favourite interview with? We did a really long piece with Baggio when he was at Bolgona where he just opened up completely. He talked to us about the penalty miss in 1994 and it was a really nice chat. I have to say that there was quite a lot of stress involved in tying up the interviews, but when we managed to get a big name to agree to it there was always a great thrill. You obviously spent plenty of time with the likes of Paul Gascoigne and Paul Ince - how did you get on with them? Some of the times with those guys were a real laugh, especially with Ince as it was always much more laid back than with Gazza. Don't get me wrong, Gascoigne's a very relaxed guy, but there was always plenty of stress trying to tie up arrangements with him. I just found Ince was easier to relate to. Saying that, Gazza was always great to be around. Someone should dig up all of the old footage with him as there were so many great sketches. Naturally, he was a bit of a character and we could pretty much do anything we wanted. One that springs to mind happened at Easter and he came into shot with a huge chocolate egg on his head. We did lots of funny things and he never used to mind, whether it was suggesting he and I were a couple, or that he was big and lazy. He was, and probably still is, very entertaining and he was a real hero to the football fans in Rome. How did you get the job on Football Italia in the first place? Basically, I had three qualifications - I spoke Italian, I was willing to go to Rome and I was pretty cheap. I happened to know a girl who worked for the company which had been given the contract. They didn't have much time to put things together and they didn't have much money either. They also wanted to mainly go with people who hadn't been used before - fresh faces if you like. I'd spent the last two years going out with a girl who lived in Rome and it couldn't have been better for me really. After spending so much time in Italy, what was it like coming back to the UK in the early days? In the first year I'd gone over to the peninsula and hadn't really been back until the European Cup-Winners Cup Final between Parma and Royal Antwerp at Wembley. People recognised me and were coming up to me in the street, which made me realise just how big the show was. That was really nice because it was the first time that I'd got a chance to speak to the viewers. Things weren't always so great though - what about the time you got beaten up by angry Fiorentina fans… They were actually Genoa supporters and it happened after the death of Vincenzo Spagnolo. He was a Grifoni follower and he was killed by Milan fans in a riot. Our cameraman got a bit too involved with the supporters before getting into his car and driving off, leaving me there on my own. I was hit by some Genoa fans who then - when they saw how startled I was and after I'd explained: “I'm just a foreign journalist” - decided that they'd better get me out of there. They walked me to their car and then drove me out of the area while police were fleeing with their cars in flames. But the Fiorentina thing happened after we saw a game - and I'm going to guess that it was in 1995 or '96 - at the Artemio Franchi in Florence. Lazio drew, rather undeservedly, in the last minute and the Viola fans were so upset that they were looking for things to take their frustration on. Our crew had driven up from Rome and had a Roman number plate. So these guys figured that these were Lazio fans who had driven up to see the game and they smashed the car to pieces. It wasn't an isolated incident and soon after the Italians stopped putting the city or providence on the number plate as it was obviously a recipe for disaster. Do you think Serie A was the world's best League in the 1990s? It was a bit of a golden age. Some of the world's best players were there and that's very much the way the Premier League is heading - they are willing to spend more than anybody else at the moment, which is the situation that the Italians had back in the early 1990s. But with the Premier League at the moment, despite them having most of the world's best players, you don't get the feeling that technically this is the best football you're going to see anywhere, which I think was the key with Italy. How different is the stadium-going experience in Italy nowadays compared to 15 years ago? There was still a bit of the atmosphere of Italia '90 hanging around. I know Italy came third, but there was still very much a feeling that they were way ahead of the rest of the world. The fans used to call Serie A the most beautiful championship in the world - they had the best players and the best stadiums. And we felt the same thing, it was kind of like: “Wow, look at those huge stadiums!” The season ticket numbers were huge and there was a very different atmosphere. Nowadays, there's no longer that celebration of football anymore. But I think the football itself is actually far more entertaining now than it used to be. And finally, which players have you most enjoyed watching? The two that spring to mind are Francesco Totti and Roberto Baggio, although I also can't forget the likes of Roberto Mancini, Marco Van Basten and Gianluca Vialli, who many people forget was such a wonderful player. Totti is, of course, a Roma legend. Although he's let himself down in some of his appearances in front of a broader public, I think he's been absolutely phenomenal. The range of things that he can do has been really overlooked - I can't think of anyone else who is as good at doing as many things as Totti. Baggio, meanwhile, was the most different Italian footballer in every way. Physically he was a different build, while the things he did were completely one-off. I think even in England he would stand out. I mean, you don't see many footballers who are Buddhists. But in Italy - a very Catholic country and very conformist society - I think he really stood out. Even though he remained true to himself, he was popular with everybody without ever compromising.

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