Summary

Pair of soccer boots, Gola brand, circa 1950s. The boots were worn by Rino Mazzocato when he played for Juventus Soccer Club in Melbourne in the 1950s in the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association (first division).. The Juventus Club was very popular with Italian immigrants from the 1950s to the 1980s, when it was forced by the Australian Soccer Federation to change its name to Brunswick United Juventus.

Rino was born in 1927 in Itaguaso, Vittoria in Brazil, to where his parents had migrated. The family eventually returned to Italy. He migrated to Australia in 1951, arriving in Melbourne in January. Rino was sponsored by his girlfriend Regina Bozzonin, who had migrated to Australia the year before in 1950, and they married soon after.

Upon his arrival, Rino lived in Carlton at 16 Morton Place, boarding with Regina's uncle Costante Pellinzon. He soon found work in Jewish family owned N & M shoe factory in North Carlton. Early in the 1960s he joined Doomax shoe factory in Abbotsford, we he worked on and off for about 30 years until his retirement in 1993.

Rino joined Juventus upon his arrival in Melbourne in 1951 and he played for three years as number 6 and number 11. In Italy he had played for his home town Montebelluno in the northern Veneto region, A.C. Montebelluna, third division, in 1947.

Physical Description

Brown, leather ankle high, lace up boots. On the bottom of the boot are six metal and plastic studs.

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