Marcus Campopiano (Eagle – 2013)

April's OJ of the Month

An Advanced ECB (Level3) Cricket Coach and member of the Sussex 2nd XI, Marcus’s career pathway has led him from Sussex Cricket, via Kingston Grammar School, to Oxfordshire Cricket and now Surrey County Cricket Club where he is Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach.

But now, being no mean Cricket player himself, he has been picked to play Cricket for the Italian team!

The journey to become a member of the Italian side was not completely straight forward as Marcus required an Italian passport. Although his father, Gianni, is Italian he holds only a British passport and trying to acquire an Italian passport for Marcus proved tricky. However, when Gareth Berg, ex Cricketer at Northamptonshire and Captain of the Italian Cricket side, decided he wanted Marcus on the team, the need for the Italian passport became even more pressing. After some rather convoluted administrative processes which involved finding lost documents in Italy proving Marcus’s relationship to his Italian grandparents, he became a member of the team!

It was thanks to the Head Coach at Sussex, that Marcus’s skills on the Cricket pitch were initially drawn to the attention of Berg, who quickly snapped him up. Marcus’s debut match was back in 2022 and he has since played in over 20 matches for Italy. As Marcus explains, he is not the only English County Cricket team player on the side, as the Italian team is made up of players of Italian heritage from all around the world plus, of course, members from various Italian Cricket clubs.  

For his first tournament two years ago he travelled to Uganda and then, later in the year, Finland. In Scotland last year, the team narrowly missed qualification to the World Cup. This year, after a match in Malaysia and one to come later this year in Rome, they hope to make it through. Also a highlight of this year for Marcus was playing in the Cricket World Cup Challenge against Bermuda in February where he hit a hundred.

Our huge congratulations to Marcus. Definitely, our OJ of the Month for April!