All this weekends fixtures in Italy have been cancelled due to a policeman killed during the catania vs palermo sicilian derby,it has also been suggested that all further fixtuers be suspended.What does the panel think?
coincidently I'n going to meet some Italians from Catania on Monday. Don't know if they are football fans but I'll be interested to hear their view.
From my own view it seems that Italian fans are giving a great deal of leeway in their behaviour and seem to be allowed to "police" their own curva/end with any input from Police or stewards. What's not clear is how much of this was just football and how much was inter-town rivalry.
[quote][cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]coincidently I'n going to meet some Italians from Catania on Monday. Don't know if they are football fans but I'll be interested to hear their view.
From my own view it seems that Italian fans are giving a great deal of leeway in their behaviour and seem to be allowed to "police" their own curva/end with any input from Police or stewards. What's not clear is how much of this was just football and how much was inter-town rivalry.[/quote]
Has anyone read Tim Park's book"A Season with Verona"?
If not he follows Verona home and away for a season, following a team in a similar position to where Charlton are right now - fighting to beat relegation and suffering from an influx of players who perhaps aren't fighting as hard for the cause as they should. Anyway that's an aside, Parks sets out to travel to every match, home and away - including some in the south - and it becomes pretty clear that the fans of football teams hate other clubs with a passion. Ok that's nothing new, and we have it here and it's present in every country but football in Italy seems to be far more tribal. As to the self-policing of the Curvas, it seems the Italain police take the line of least resistance and steer clear of what goes on - hence for example at Lazio the fans exchange Nazi salutes with di Canio and wave fascist flags - all illegal, but not worth the hassle of wading in to arrest the ring-leaders. I guess for 90 minutes or so a week it's easier to let them get on with it than try and regulate it, and regulating it becomes a political problem and therefore a potential vote loser, not to mention a headache. So the Italian "solution" is to try and pretend the problem doesn't exist.
sorry BFR but Parks is one of worst culprits of the recent cult of middle class intellectual wankers who, by his own admission, had no interest in football until writing the book and then buy into the macho, fascist, "this is real football" crap.
He went to the Charlton V blackpool match a few years back and slated charlton for having female staff and stewards as this diminished the macho atmosphere of football.(compared to Italy as he admitted he hadn't seen a game in England since he was about 9) He wanted to know why he could sit in the home areas as a blackpool fan with his brother (who actually followed his team) without being attacked. He thought all Charlton fans were effeminate because of that.
He issued an apology after a while but I have no respect for him as a person who excuses fascists and who gets off on a bit of violence - without getting involved himself of course. Also happen to think he is a poor writer.
I gave up on A season with Verona. Very poorly written by a pseudo intellectual who thinks he knows about 'real' football fans 'cos he saw a ruck once. His views changed from indifference to outright wunderlust as the book progressed and seemed to have been influenced by the politics of football which doesn't really exist in England.
its a bloody disgrace and even more so if something like that happened in the premiership infact any english league, we'd have been seriously repromanded and possible excluded from tournaments, in italy they'll get away with it cos they always have, there's even talk of replayin the match, cos thats really gonna help matters
then again the country is run by facists, rotten from the top down so what do you expect??
[quote][cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]sorry BFR but Parks is one of worst culprits of the recent cult of middle class intellectual wankers who, by his own admission, had no interest in football until writing the book and then buy into the macho, fascist, "this is real football" crap.
He went to the Charlton V blackpool match a few years back and slated charlton for having female staff and stewards as this diminished the macho atmosphere of football.(compared to Italy as he admitted he hadn't seen a game in England since he was about 9) He wanted to know why he could sit in the home areas as a blackpool fan with his brother (who actually followed his team) without being attacked. He thought all Charlton fans were effeminate because of that.
He issued an apology after a while but I have no respect for him as a person who excuses fascists and who gets off on a bit of violence - without getting involved himself of course. Also happen to think he is a poor writer.[/quote]
Blimey Henry I was using the book as an example of the violence that is prevalent in Italian football that the authorities prefer to ignore rather than confront. I don't know the match report you referred to but that's irrelevant, what's clear is that this isn't an isolated example but something that was going to happen sooner or later.
In any case it underlines that Italian football has been rotten for a while - fascist, corrupt and violent. Poorly attended and divided by more than club loyalty, and sweeping these problems under the mat is no solution.
Let's hope that this policeman's death achieves anything that it leads to the kick up the posteriore that football obviously needs in Italy.
"Also happen to think he is a poor writer."
Regarding "A Season..." I thought it was ok, although it was obvious that many of the asides and observations were carefully written in advance and then dropped in at the right sections so as to look spontaneous, that and his naiveity about football hooliganism in Italy spoilt the book for me, plus he didn't write with any insight on the games he watched, debating the tactics and so on. I tried a while back to read one of his novels and found it full of existentialist angst and gave up, unsurprisingly his novels sell well in Germany...
i read the Miracle of Castel Di Sangro a while back, a pleasant enough read but the author (an American with zero knowledge of the game who ends up trying to tell the coach his job) was a right twerp...........
the only time i have ever smelt tear gas was at a Fiorentina game back in '95 - i still follow their results though - Forza Viola
the only time i have ever smelt tear gas was at a Fiorentina game back in '95 - i still follow their results though - Forza Viola
I remember getting a mouthful of tear gas in Paris during the 2002 World Cup - beautiful day, Turkey v Brazil semi-final on a big screen outside the city hall, and the little oiks following Turkey went mental, and the riot police steamed in. Nice. It's not something I'll easily forget!
(Shame, because the atmosphere among the Brazillians was fantastic, and the previous day was Germany-South Korea which was enormous fun.)
Has anyone else got any tear-gas memories?
I think Henry's confirmed a lot of my suspicions about Tim Parks - he used to write a Guardian column about his support of Verona, but I could never quite understand why he was so into idolising those meatheads.
BFR, wasn't having a go at you just saying that "A year in Verona" and Tim Parks are really not good sources to quote.
Scruffle, I have to disagree. People have died and there was disorder at English football matches and English clubs were not banned because of it. Also Feyenord has just been banned from the UEFA cup (to an English clubs benefit) for crowd trouble. Doesn't make it right but I think the "if it was us we'd be banned" line does not stand up to scrutiny.
[cite]Posted By: Oakster[/cite]the only time i have ever smelt tear gas was at a Fiorentina game back in '95 - i still follow their results though - Forza Viola
I love the smell of tear gas in the morning.
Saw first hand how the Italian police deal with problems outside the ground last season at the Fiorentinav Sampdoria game - they don't muck about I can tell you.
Concur entirely with everything that's been said about 'A year in Verona' - the bloke that wrote it is an absolute tool.
My wife's Sicilian, and knows more than a thing or two about football violence in Sicily. The vast majority of it stems not from politics, but from age old conflicts of class - Palermitani (people from Palermo) are looked down on as peasants by people from Catania - much the same in Spain, where Sevilla fans look down on fans of Betis. In fact, apart from in Roma and Milan, where the majority of the violence is politically motivated, most football violence in Italy stems from disaffected youth with sod all better to do.
Its English journalists who like to 'romanticise' football violence and say its all to do with Franco/Mussolini/Hitler - the reality is, like in most places, violence stems from social class, not politics.
Leroy, what's you view on the recent violence being more anti-police than anti each other. I saw this reported in the press but without any verification.
A lot of truth to this Henry. The old bill in Sicily have always had a reputation for being a bit more hard-headed than they are on the mainland. The Carabinieri (especially in the larger towns, like Palermo, Messina and Catania) are all crooked anyway and always have been - and they like nothing more than cracking the odd skull open here and there. Sicily also has a massive problem with unemployment - not exactly helped by the huge influx of poor migrant workers from North Africa, Eastern Europe and SouthEast Asia in the past few years. Add all that to the general propensity for the locals to get handy whenever they feel like letting off steam and you have a recipe for disaster.
I've been to Sicily a lot and, whilst the rest country is absolutely beautiful and the people much, much friendlier than Italians on the mainland, the cities are horrible, oppressive places. Palermo in particular is like Dante's inferno - I went there once when it was 46 degrees - it felt as close to walking into Hell on Earth as I think its possible to get (outside of the Middle East anyway)
Comments
From my own view it seems that Italian fans are giving a great deal of leeway in their behaviour and seem to be allowed to "police" their own curva/end with any input from Police or stewards. What's not clear is how much of this was just football and how much was inter-town rivalry.
From my own view it seems that Italian fans are giving a great deal of leeway in their behaviour and seem to be allowed to "police" their own curva/end with any input from Police or stewards. What's not clear is how much of this was just football and how much was inter-town rivalry.[/quote]
Has anyone read Tim Park's book"A Season with Verona"?
If not he follows Verona home and away for a season, following a team in a similar position to where Charlton are right now - fighting to beat relegation and suffering from an influx of players who perhaps aren't fighting as hard for the cause as they should. Anyway that's an aside, Parks sets out to travel to every match, home and away - including some in the south - and it becomes pretty clear that the fans of football teams hate other clubs with a passion. Ok that's nothing new, and we have it here and it's present in every country but football in Italy seems to be far more tribal. As to the self-policing of the Curvas, it seems the Italain police take the line of least resistance and steer clear of what goes on - hence for example at Lazio the fans exchange Nazi salutes with di Canio and wave fascist flags - all illegal, but not worth the hassle of wading in to arrest the ring-leaders. I guess for 90 minutes or so a week it's easier to let them get on with it than try and regulate it, and regulating it becomes a political problem and therefore a potential vote loser, not to mention a headache. So the Italian "solution" is to try and pretend the problem doesn't exist.
He went to the Charlton V blackpool match a few years back and slated charlton for having female staff and stewards as this diminished the macho atmosphere of football.(compared to Italy as he admitted he hadn't seen a game in England since he was about 9) He wanted to know why he could sit in the home areas as a blackpool fan with his brother (who actually followed his team) without being attacked. He thought all Charlton fans were effeminate because of that.
He issued an apology after a while but I have no respect for him as a person who excuses fascists and who gets off on a bit of violence - without getting involved himself of course. Also happen to think he is a poor writer.
then again the country is run by facists, rotten from the top down so what do you expect??
He went to the Charlton V blackpool match a few years back and slated charlton for having female staff and stewards as this diminished the macho atmosphere of football.(compared to Italy as he admitted he hadn't seen a game in England since he was about 9) He wanted to know why he could sit in the home areas as a blackpool fan with his brother (who actually followed his team) without being attacked. He thought all Charlton fans were effeminate because of that.
He issued an apology after a while but I have no respect for him as a person who excuses fascists and who gets off on a bit of violence - without getting involved himself of course. Also happen to think he is a poor writer.[/quote]
Blimey Henry I was using the book as an example of the violence that is prevalent in Italian football that the authorities prefer to ignore rather than confront. I don't know the match report you referred to but that's irrelevant, what's clear is that this isn't an isolated example but something that was going to happen sooner or later.
In any case it underlines that Italian football has been rotten for a while - fascist, corrupt and violent. Poorly attended and divided by more than club loyalty, and sweeping these problems under the mat is no solution.
Let's hope that this policeman's death achieves anything that it leads to the kick up the posteriore that football obviously needs in Italy.
"Also happen to think he is a poor writer."
Regarding "A Season..." I thought it was ok, although it was obvious that many of the asides and observations were carefully written in advance and then dropped in at the right sections so as to look spontaneous, that and his naiveity about football hooliganism in Italy spoilt the book for me, plus he didn't write with any insight on the games he watched, debating the tactics and so on. I tried a while back to read one of his novels and found it full of existentialist angst and gave up, unsurprisingly his novels sell well in Germany...
the only time i have ever smelt tear gas was at a Fiorentina game back in '95 - i still follow their results though - Forza Viola
I remember getting a mouthful of tear gas in Paris during the 2002 World Cup - beautiful day, Turkey v Brazil semi-final on a big screen outside the city hall, and the little oiks following Turkey went mental, and the riot police steamed in. Nice. It's not something I'll easily forget!
(Shame, because the atmosphere among the Brazillians was fantastic, and the previous day was Germany-South Korea which was enormous fun.)
Has anyone else got any tear-gas memories?
I think Henry's confirmed a lot of my suspicions about Tim Parks - he used to write a Guardian column about his support of Verona, but I could never quite understand why he was so into idolising those meatheads.
Scruffle, I have to disagree. People have died and there was disorder at English football matches and English clubs were not banned because of it. Also Feyenord has just been banned from the UEFA cup (to an English clubs benefit) for crowd trouble. Doesn't make it right but I think the "if it was us we'd be banned" line does not stand up to scrutiny.
I love the smell of tear gas in the morning.
Saw first hand how the Italian police deal with problems outside the ground last season at the Fiorentinav Sampdoria game - they don't muck about I can tell you.
Forza Viola!!!!
My wife's Sicilian, and knows more than a thing or two about football violence in Sicily. The vast majority of it stems not from politics, but from age old conflicts of class - Palermitani (people from Palermo) are looked down on as peasants by people from Catania - much the same in Spain, where Sevilla fans look down on fans of Betis. In fact, apart from in Roma and Milan, where the majority of the violence is politically motivated, most football violence in Italy stems from disaffected youth with sod all better to do.
Its English journalists who like to 'romanticise' football violence and say its all to do with Franco/Mussolini/Hitler - the reality is, like in most places, violence stems from social class, not politics.
I've been to Sicily a lot and, whilst the rest country is absolutely beautiful and the people much, much friendlier than Italians on the mainland, the cities are horrible, oppressive places. Palermo in particular is like Dante's inferno - I went there once when it was 46 degrees - it felt as close to walking into Hell on Earth as I think its possible to get (outside of the Middle East anyway)
http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=445909&CPID=21&clid=1405&lid=8&title=Campana+calls+for+year+ban&channel=&