Collecchio Baseball and Softball Club, home of the European M. Romeo Youth Trophy (EMRYT), raised over 8 thousand euros in a month to build new stands for their sports complex.

Since 2012, Collecchio has hosted each summer an average of 13 participating teams at the EMRYT. The club also takes part in several Italian leagues, including the Italian Softball League and the Italian Baseball League. When in 2020, Collecchio Baseball and Softball Club was forced to remove the old grandstand because of safety reasons, it was necessary to replace them with a new one, and the club started a fundraising campaign.

The challenging goal was to raise at least 6.500€ in 60 days. Collecchio reached the goal in only two weeks, making the central part of the grandstand possible.

The Italian Club decided not to stop and set the new goal to 10.000€, to buy the structure for the scorer and the first part of the side grandstand. The project's responsible Elisa Pieri commented: "Sooner or later this pandemic will end and, all together, we can start again to cheering our EMRYT teams on the new grandstands.".

Find more info about the fundraising campaign here.

In 2020, for the first time since 2012, the club could not host the European Massimo Romeo Youth Trophy, as Softball Europe had to cancel the whole international softball calendar because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Collecchio hosted the first-ever European cadets and girls championship in 2002. Fast forward to ten years later, the European Softball Federation decided to create an event for the development of youth softball, open to clubs and national representatives, and Collecchio hosted it.

After the success of the first edition, the European Softball Federation decided to definitively assign the organization of the Trophy to the city of Collecchio, and named it after Massimo Romeo, although still alive, because of his engagement in the development of youth softball.

/ Elda Ghilardi
Photos Courtesy of Collecchio Baseball and Softball Club