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1961 saw the continuation of the series of Campanile Sera
that had commenced in September 1960. The Thursday night games continued all
the way up
until November 1961. The 1959-1961 run comprised 104 editions (exactly two
years' programming) interrupted only once, for a 5 week period to allow for
television coverage of the Rome Olympics of 1960. It is thought likely that
the Campanile Sera series was commissioned by RAI Television in 13 or
26 week blocks (as was common in television then and remains so today) and the
OIympics coverage did not affect the number of Campanile Sera
programmes ordered. This theory is backed up by the short 13 week run given to the series
when it returned in July 1962.
Notable performances during the 1961 series came from the likes
of the Bracciano team (6 consecutive wins) and the team from Arona (also with 6 wins,
but these were not consecutive), plus Laveno and Alba (on 5 and 4 consecutive wins
respectively). Arona's wins came in two separate runs, registering four
victories between May and June 1961 and returning in November 1961
following a dispute over their final June appearance in Programme 82. No team,
however, quite matched Monreale's astounding eight-week winning streak of
summer 1960. The last winner from 1961 again
returned when Campanile Sera resumed in July 1962, just as defending champions as Senigallia had the previous year.
Although
not quite matching the surreal nature of the tie-breaker of the 1964
Intervilles Final, where the victory was decided upon the number of bald heads
and beards among the crowds, the games in this series of Campanile Sera did go
for the unusual. In one of the Laveno competitions in the summer of 1961,
there was a game where victory depended upon which town had the heaviest man,
prompting much hilarity and wide-eyed stares (as evidenced by the picture,
shown to the left).
The 1960-1961 series of Campanile Sera lasted an incredible 63
weeks without as much as a week's break in transmission. This is by far the longest unbroken run of any series
that this website covers! |
