by Mark Dyal
Water and beer are also consumed communally. On a bus to Milan organized by Boys Roma for the second-leg of the 2006–2007 Coppa Italia final, there was constant circulation of water, chips, and cookies provided by whoever brought or purchased them. On this trip, no alcohol was allowed. While it is prohibited by the State to consume alcohol in automobiles I was told that it is normal for Ultras’ buses to be awash in alcohol. Boys Roma, however, does not allow anyone to drink during travel to away games, as they demand strict order and discipline. The water consumed this day was pleasurable but on other occasions water seems an issue of life and death.
A large group of nearly two thousand Ultras went to Livorno in January 2007 — our last away game before the death of Raciti and the crackdown that followed — on a special train. From the station, special buses transported the Ultras to the stadium. Once the buses entered the enclosed area beyond the guest section it was impossible to leave, making hunger and thirst a virtual guarantee for anyone without food and drinks. This is standard practice for away games, although Livorno took security especially seriously, given the political nature of the rivalry between AS Roma and AS Livorno. Even when the Ultras are not forced to go directly to the stadium, as in Udine, Reggio Calabria, and Turin, they normally arrive between 10 am and noon on Sunday mornings when only a few snack bars and cafés are open for business.
The guest section of Livorno’s Stadio Armando Picchi has only one concession stand that guests can reach only through a small hole in the back wall. Thankfully, Ultras cut this hole in the chain-link fence surrounding the concession, allowing one to hold out a handful of euros and retrieve the ordered items, trying not to get snagged on the ragged fence. On my two trips there, the concession either ran out of food and drinks or simply closed well before half time. This meant that one had to wait at least an hour until the end of the game with very little to eat or drink. On top of this, it is also standard procedure for away fans to be held in their section until all home fans, especially opposing Ultras, have left the stadium area. This usually translates into an additional hour.
Once we were loaded on the buses after the game and post-game wait we faced another twenty-five minutes of driving to the station. In order to keep us separated from any Livornesi (inhabitants of Livorno), they drove us to a deserted strip of land behind the station. When the doors opened, we sprinted to the train cars in order to find seats. Everyone laughed at the situation and cursed the police and Livornesi until the train pulled away from the station. It was only when we settled in for the four-hour journey that we realized we were thirsty and had nothing to drink.
For most of the Ultras, lack of food and drink was just an inconvenience to be overcome, an example of their willingness to suffer in order to be present at the game. For two Ultras on the train, though, the situation seemed more serious. After singing and screaming themselves hoarse for the game’s ninety minutes, and now facing the prospect of a water-less journey back to Rome, these two almost reached the point of panic. At our first stop in Rosignano an attempt was made to exit the train, buy water from a vending machine, and re-enter the train. However, the fickleness of the machine left the Ultras scrambling back on the train without water just as the doors closed and minus thirty cents. Cecina offered no vending machine on our platform. This prompted the Ultras to cease from insulting the locals and begin asking politely for water. No results. Not at San Vincenzo, either. Finally, at Campiglia Marittima — an hour into our trip — a young girl, perhaps flattered by the commotion she and her glistening bottle of spring water caused, handed up the partially drunk bottle through the open window. The two Ultras most desperate for water took excited sips and then handed the bottle to the person next to them, who passed the bottle not back to them but on to someone else.
The Arrival
Returning to the Palermo trip referred to above, after we ate and everyone calmed down and settled in for the night’s journey we arrived at the Naples central station to make our scheduled stop. Out came the flags and scarves. Then came the anthem of the CUCS and several rounds of ‘Odio Napoli’ (I hate Naples). As we pulled into the station, the platform was populated by a handful of waiting passengers and perhaps one-hundred policemen. Beyond them, we could see and hear a small crowd of SSC Napoli Ultras, singing ‘Romanisti pezzi di merda’ (AS Roma fans pieces of shit) and ‘Roma Roma Vaffanculo’ (Rome go fuck yourself). Some of the AS Roma Ultras attempted to exit the train, but were stopped by the police. The scene lasted approximately fifteen minutes, but after the initial exchange of insults there was only sporadic singing or yelling. The sizable police presence kept action to a minimum, despite the hostilities.
AS Roma has no such rivalry with Palermo. We faced no opposition from the Palermo Ultras even outside the Renzo Barbera stadium, which lies west of central Palermo. The entrance to the guest section of the stadium was even opened this day to normal Palermo fans who sat above the section itself (normally a position advantageous for showering various objects upon the guests). Perhaps the police felt secure in this arrangement because they understood that only under extreme circumstances would Ultras engage in violence with non-Ultra fans.
Or perhaps it was because they were interrogating on video every person who entered the section wearing giallorosso (yellow and red, the colors of Rome). They asked our names, what time and how we reached the city, and what time and how we were leaving. Then, another officer looked through knapsacks and backpacks, I assumed to search for bombs and flares, while another confiscated all flagpoles. Anyone carrying a flag or homemade banner had them inspected and some were confiscated as well.
Hold Your Colors High!
Upon entering our cage-like section, two more policemen waited to inform each and all that the displaying of team and city colors was prohibited, due to their being a provocation to other fans. Therefore, no flags, no banners, no scarves could be held aloft. Many of the Ultras immediately removed their shirts just to carry the point further. Despite the protests of the leaders of Fedayn, Boys, and Ultras Romani, a pile of flags and banners was created below us at field level and the officers stood guard over it throughout the game.
To be interviewed on camera, so as to be identifiable on Closed Circuit cameras in the stadium, was unusual but sufferable. However, to be forbidden to stand behind and under AS Roma’s (and Rome’s) colors and the names and symbols of their groups was particularly stinging for the Ultras. Meanwhile, the detractors of the Ultras use the issue as proof that they are not true fans but only go to away games to be seen behind their banners. Far from being a mere vanity or truly the only reason they travel to away games, the banner is the symbol of the group.
English hooliganism developed the ‘taking of one’s end’ as the ultimate humiliation of one’s opponents. This entailed raiding the curva of the opposing team and, after fighting or because of being uncontested, being able to stay there for a period of time. In Italy, the Ultras were never free enough to move within stadiums to invade another team’s curva. Since the creation of Serie A in the 1920s, rivalries have been so heated as to warrant harshly segregated stadiums.67 Thus they stole opponents’ banners as a similar humiliation. These would then be displayed and sometimes burned in the opposing curva during a game. The most common way for a group’s banner to be stolen was during fighting before a game. However, since the death of Genoa Ultra Vincenzo Spagnolo at the hands of his AC Milan counterparts in 1995, the police have made a concerted effort to keep opposing Ultras separated before and after games.68 Thus, while such encounters and thefts rarely occur, when they do it is a devastating blow to an Ultra group.
The Ultras place so much value on having their banner seen because it is a form of validation of the energy expended going to and from away games. As Antonio of Razza Romana told me, he explained to the police in Palermo that, ‘we came a long way to be here to feel the pride of hoisting our colors above our heads in a stadium full of people who will hate us for doing so.’ Later that eve
ning I asked him to elaborate. ‘Have you seen the Boys scarf?’ he asked, referring to their latest model which reads ‘odiati e fieri’ (hated and proud), ‘well, that sums up who we Romans are. Everyone hates us because we are so proud to be Roman. Going to Palermo shows them that we will go anywhere and hold our colors high, with pride and dignity.’
I asked about hanging the banners. ‘The banners are only slightly different because they belong to the groups; and the groups are the ones who suffer to support la Roma (AS Roma). Yes, I may go, or you may go, but we go as representatives of groups — friends, comrades, brothers, or sisters. When I hang our banner in Palermo I do so for them, especially if they cannot come to the game.’ I then asked him about sacrifice, but he misunderstood me. ‘Exactly!’ he said, ‘it is their sacrifice to miss the game. They might help me get here, as we help one another always, and I am only here because of them.’ In that vein, I asked about the prospects of getting his small banner stolen. ‘Porco dio,’ he replied in classic Roman style, with the ‘por’ exaggeratedly annunciated, ‘how could I face them? Sure, I would have to get a new banner made, but then the history, the kilometers, the blood and sweat that stained this one would be lost. If this banner were lost our group would probably fold. In this climate [post-Raciti] it would be too difficult to begin again. There is no way to remake the memories contained in this banner.’ As we spoke he was keeping the folded banner in a backpack, which he held all the way back to Rome.
In Lisbon for a Champions League game between Sporting Portugal and AS Roma, I witnessed a fight between a former leader of Opposta Fazione and a well-known ‘club fan’ because the latter had placed his banner over that of the Ultra’s group Brigata Caciara (one of the small, away-game only groups). The ‘club fans’ are the other form of organized fandom in Italy. Instead of being Ultras, they are social clubs, for example Roma Club Testaccio, and consist of older and more bourgeois fans. They are always present at away games and in Rome, occupying the Tevere grandstand, but do not share the Ultras mentalitá or style of fandom. Given the nature of the combatants, the fight was short, nasty, and ended with the ejection of the Ultra. Importantly, his banner remained.
The groups compete to arrive at stadiums earlier than the others so as to have choice of the best space to hang their banners. The glee of arriving early to find an empty section is matched only by the horror of arriving late and finding space for neither the banner nor the group. This is one of the main reasons groups create alliances, to save space for one another at away games. For the 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 seasons, the largest groups worked together to save space, repeatedly elbowing out many smaller groups who hang banners away from Rome. In their mind, the hundreds standing behind the larger groups’ banners outweigh the three to five standing behind a small group’s banner. There would be no solution in a group hanging its banner and standing elsewhere as no one would want to stand behind a banner that was not their own.
Because most guest sections are small, holding less than 1000 persons, the groups seek to accommodate one another by hanging smaller versions of their normal banners. To compensate, the group might carry more flags. Ultras Romani, early in the 2006–2007 season, was not following this protocol. They consistently carried their large banner, created for their space in Rome’s stadium, and measuring approximately twenty feet across and four feet high. Leaving no space for the banners of other groups, this was interpreted as a provocation. Boys, Fedayn, and various smaller but still substantial groups first conspired to arrive at away stadiums before Ultras Romani in order to procure the most banner space. Eventually, Fedayn united (on only this issue) with Ultras Romani. Both agreed to save space for one another, with Ultras Romani carrying their smaller banner as part of the agreement.
The act of hanging the banner is a serious matter. Each group carries various forms of tape, twine, and rope in order to be best prepared. Only the most select members of each group carry the banner, who are also responsible for having it hung properly. Unless there is no other choice, a banner will never be visibly crooked or creased. Often, as in Parma, Messina, and Reggio Calabria, hanging a banner in the optimal space requires climbing and sitting on a ten foot partition topped by jagged metal pieces designed to keep the Ultras from breaching their designated space. In these cases, a human pyramid may form, which the banner hanger climbs in order to reach the top of the partition.
For as long as it takes — in Reggio Calabria it took forty minutes for Razza Romana to hang their banner in this manner — an Ultra will endure pain and fear to get the banner hung. If the situation is pathetic or comical enough, another group might offer to help. The most adept hanger of group banners in all of Curva Sud Roma is Luigi, the leader of Arditi. In Parma, he climbed the partition freehanded and proceeded to hang almost every present group’s banner. He also used his time atop the barrier to harangue opposing players, stewards, officials, photographers, and TV personalities. Upon returning to earth he was given a rousing ovation by the large contingent of AS Roma fans.
The cooperation between the groups while away from home gives us a sense of the spirit of camaraderie and brotherhood that develops amongst those who regularly travel to support AS Roma. Arditi has been aligned with Boys Roma since its inception in 1992. In Rome, its leaders and members converse with a very small number of Ultras, almost exclusively of the Right and well known in the Curva. Yet away from Rome, Luigi, the group’s leader, lends his time to anyone who asks. Similarly, Fedayn members paid me little mind in Curva Sud; yet, away from Rome they would regularly interact with my wife and me. On two occasions, in Parma and in Milan, I was even commanded to wave one of their large flags. On the latter occasion, Filippo, a twenty-eight-year-old veteran of Fedayn who was known to everyone in Curva Sud — or so it seemed because everyone was familiar with his flags — called to me over his shoulder, ‘American Boy vieni [come here].’ I climbed down two rows to where he was waving his flag and he handed it over to me.
I met Filippo during my first away game, which happened to be a long trip by train to Udine. He was amongst the Fedayn Ultras I naively approached to introduce myself. He said little, as another Ultra advised me to read the AS Roma Ultras website if I wanted to learn about Ultras. However, after seeing me in Milan on a cold Sunday night, cheering on a historic win by AS Roma — and in various other cities — he began to warm to my presence. By the time of the Coppa Italia game in Parma — which occurred on a Wednesday night — he knew I did not take my presence among them lightly. That night I waved his flag and received the praise of a few Fedayn members. A month later in Turin, he began calling me ‘American Boy,’ in homage to the 1954 Alberto Sordi film Un Americano a Roma.
It took months, though, for me to be accepted by Filippo. And, because accepted by him, I not only came to be accepted as a fixture amongst the select Ultras who travel to every away game, but I also came to understand that one did not enter their brotherhood without a sacrifice.
Incidentally, as a way to explain their understanding of the away game, the week before Filippo Raciti was killed in February 2007, I received a text message from Filippo. He was again in Milan, this time on a snowy Thursday night to support AS Roma against AC Milan in the Coppa Italia. He asked where I was, having noticed my absence. My wife was ill, I explained, but told him I was watching on TV. ‘Can you see my flags?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said. He then replied with apparent glee, ‘there are only 200 of us.’ Filippo thought that only the most dedicated Ultras would regularly travel to AS Roma games. To have that dedication made someone a true Ultra. And, being present each week, Filippo and a few others knew the faces of their compatriots. They knew who was only at the games that were easily attended (in Florence on a Sunday at 3 pm, for example). Thus, for the most committed of Ultras, it is not a mass phenomenon but one that involves the very few who are willing to sacrifice their time and energy to be present.
The Ultras know that the major press, as well as Ultra
publications like Fans Magazine and Ultrà Tifo, will carry photos of the curvas, which they use for publicity as well as a way of measuring their worthiness and relative strength within this domain. The press and personal photos also form a memento of the occasion. Upon entering an Ultra office, or even the bedroom of committed Ultras, one finds fewer photos of players and game action than photos of their group away from, and in, Rome. To go away from Rome and hang, and stand behind, the banner of one’s group, is seen as a way of immortalizing the group. Someone somewhere will always have a photo.
Thus, to be seen and photographed in Palermo without colors was not only insulting for the Ultras but also demeaning and, in a way, tragic. To have the colors prohibited defeated what many had traveled so far to do. And, like many of the other laws passed and enforced after Raciti, the prohibition was interpreted as having less to do with maintaining public order than with eradicating the Ultras altogether.
The Game
Along with the police in the guest section guarding over the pile of Roman colors, that day in Palermo was also hot. Unlike Rome’s Olympic Stadium, Palermo’s stadium has no awning covering all spectators. We suffered under the afternoon sun. After AS Roma scored to lead 2–0, the normal fans seated above and behind us began showering us with water and other drinks. Given the heat most did not complain. And even though by the sixtieth minute of the game many began thinking of the return trip that would follow, the Ultras were glad to be there.
They sang the entire first half. Like every game, whether home or away, the Ultras began with the anthem of CUCS. Then they sang various songs from their ‘songbook,’ a collection of songs now around 40, with two or three songs added each year. If the away game is against a rival of AS Roma or Curva Sud, the Ultras will spend most of the game singing against their opponent. In Palermo, with no rivalry in either case, they sang only to support AS Roma. Only occasionally did they sing ‘Palermo, Palermo, Vaffanculo,’ (Palermo go fuck yourself) as they would in any host city (with that city’s name replacing ‘Palermo’). It is the goal of the Ultras to sing regardless of what is happening on the field; ‘oltre il risultato,’ beyond the results, they say. Whether AS Roma is winning or losing is of no consequence. This goal is becoming more difficult to sustain, however, because of the spread of unaligned fans in the Curva.