With the passing of Gennaro, I have been left as the only witness of the games. It was only at his funeral that I learnt about his first time in the games. Initially, he was a great coach of young ice hockey players. He started umpiring out of necessity. There weren’t many referees and he started at the beginning. This was, like me, but several years later, with the development and dissemination of the disc on ice. When he was referee, he was the only referee.

One other example, when Gennaro drove his car, he knew almost nothing about the engine and how it was working. It was enough for him to know that pressing this pedal would slow the car down and by pressing the other it would accelerate, etc etc. He was thinking of nothing beyond the essential. In other words, he was thinking in a simple way, even when everything was complicated.

Nowadays, in the middle of our complicated lives, not everyone can think simply. You have, however, to try. It is easier than you think!

The interviews of recent times have brought flashbacks into my mind - a great many memories came flooding back to me and when looking at the Memories of the Games piece by Ezio Guidi a few days ago, I endeavoured to remember the rules of the games, then their evolution (somehow more complicated), until they were written down, rewritten... and agreed.

I must confirm here what I said in my interview with Carlo Conti, that Jeux Sans Frontières was easy for us to arbitrate, because:

• we made the rules;

• in football and hockey, if you punish one team, you are doing so to safeguard the rights of the other team. In Jeux Sans Frontières, if we were punishing one team, we were doing so to safeguard the rights of four, six or more teams.

Thank you, Guido

G.M. 31.12.2010

by Guido Pancaldi
Jeux Sans Frontières International Referee
with grateful thanks to Gianni Magrin
http://www.librogiochisenzafrontiere.it

English Translation by Christos Moustakas and Alan Hayes