Worldwide tributes for a pioneering pizza legend who was proud to call Burnley home
Vincenzo Manta, co-founder of the renowned Enzo’s Pizza takeaway in Burnley, died last Wednesday in the Royal Blackburn Hospital.
Such was the admiration and stature in which he was held, around 130,000 people have already viewed a tribute post on the Colne Road pizza shop’s Facebook page.
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Hide AdAnd thousands of people have left personal tributes and messages of condolence for his family.
Described as a “Burnley boy through and through” Enzo, as many people knew him, never forgot his Italian heritage.
Enzo’s dad Nicolò Manta left Racalmuto, Sicily, in September 1951 to start a new life in England.
He arrived in London and was then sent to Burnley to start his life as a coal miner.
Vincenzo Manta was born in Bank Hall nursing home in 1957.
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Hide AdHe attended St Mary’s Primary School and then St Theodore’s RC High School where he excelled on the football pitch.
His full back talents earned him a place in the town team and he became a popular player in the local Burnley leagues.
In later life he often joked how he had been a better footballer than his brothers Lillo and Giuseppe.
He actually started off his career as a goalkeeper and was so good that the former Burnley winger Leighton James once dubbed him a young “Lev Yashin”.
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