Pallotti's (also known as St. Peter's Youth Association) was the brainchild of St. Peter's veteran Vittorio.
Vittorio has spent well over 40 years working at the club, and is generally regarded as 'the boss'. Everybody knows Vittorio, or rather, 'Vic'. The regulars at St Peter's who recognise and appreciate the dedication and effort he has continually poured into the club for so many years hold him in high esteem. Vittorio recalls the atmosphere St Peter's used to have in its hey day during the seventies; "It was lovely," he says simply with a warm smile, "it was ours, we built it," he says with satisfaction. By the mid 1990's he saw the gradual decline in attendance from the younger members of the Italian community at the club, and this trend worried him.
The original Youth Club, which he founded in 1960, had enjoyed decades of success and its associated activities thrived, "we had seven football clubs, 2 rugby teams, people would travel down in coaches from all over the country for the games," he recalls. However, in the early 90's the youth club membership started to dwindle and regrettably, this led to its eventual closure.
Without the Youth Club, and therefore their own meeting place, Italian youths had begun to lose interest in St Peter's. They considered it somewhere their parents would go, with little to offer their own age group. Vic had the vision to realise that without the support from this particular group, the future of the club looked unpromising. His generation could not go on forever, and just like in any family, the mantle of responsibility had to be passed on to a new generation in order to secure its subsequent survival. Being as committed as he was to the smooth running of the Youth Club, which re-opened a couple of years ago, and still runs every Friday and Sunday for children aged 7-16, he understood that changes had to be made to accommodate 'the next generation'.
It was 1999, and the times had moved on. Young Italian adults, who had grown out of wanting to play table tennis all of Sunday morning, had nothing to do. Young people wanted to spend time with each other; the popular culture at the time reflected this casual and sociable approach to living. American style coffee houses, with colourful sofas and a language all of their own, were popping up all over London. Comedy shows were set in cool coffee shops and slick bars, where friends shared each other's lives and experiences in a positive way. The lounge trend had caught on in clubs, and instead of bands making music to dance to, now they were putting tracks together to 'chill out' to. Where was the attraction of St Peter's to the young when they had all this to compete with?
