Uppercut (1978)

This is the non-fiction back story about the movie Bulldozer with Bud Spencer. I will attempt to ID rumor from fact . In 1977 a group of Italian Soccer and Rugby players formed an American style football sports team. I had heard it was formed by two former American GI's with sportsman drawn from the Milano and Bologna areas. They came to Tirrenia(IT) to play an exhibition game against the Darby Rangers at Camp Darby , a US Army installation close to Livorno ,Italy. Hammered by the experienced Darby Rangers the Italian team suffered many injuries but they would not give up.

In 1978 an Italian film crew came to Tirrenia to film the movie with Bud Spencer. I can't say that the writer's intent was to do a story about the above event but I think it is too close for coincidence. The football scenes were shot at a local sports coop in Tirrenia. Many extras were drawn from the local US military community with soldiers that had played in the 1977 game taking leave to allow them to appear. I was on the Darby Ranger team in 1977 but did not play in that game. I recognized many of the GIs in the movie. I played the medic in the locker room scene and I was one in real life also working with the volunteer ambulance Misericordia Livorno.

One day on the set when were shooting the football scenes one of the GI's had brought a Frisbee. We had Bud Spencer and many of the cast and crew throwing Frisbee. The director eventually pleaded with us to stop as we were slowing down his schedule. In the first take of the locker room scene Bud Spencer kicked the prop door off it's hinges!

It took me many years to find clips of this movie on YouTube. I still haven't seen the full movie.