Hated and Proud- Ultras Contra Modernity

by Mark Dyal

  The second half began as the first, but with less urgency for the Ultras. With AS Roma winning comfortably they began to feel the heat a little more. The small group of Ultras began singing songs against SS Lazio and in support of certain AS Roma players. Fedayn eventually began moshing (a form of gang ‘play fighting’) amongst themselves in order to reanimate the section. They formed a loose circle and began singing a Curva favorite that I called ‘Tutti allo stadio’ (Everyone to the stadium). As the song progressed, they began pushing and shoving each other through the center of the circle in order to be pushed back from the other side.

  Eventually Palermo scored, cutting AS Roma’s lead to one goal. This brought both sets of Ultras to full attention, and the game concluded in fiery fashion. They honored themselves and each other with many rounds of ‘Curva Sud Ale`’ (Come on Curva Sud) late in the second half. And following the game, the team honored them as well, with many players coming ‘sotto la curva’ (under/below the curva) to throw their shirts and shorts into the crowd, the maximum show of respect from the players to the fans. The Ultras’ sacrifice, even without their colors, had brought the team glory.

  The Return to Rome

  The return trips to Rome are much the same as the trips to the game, albeit more subdued. Usually the Ultras are tired, thirsty, and hungry after a game. They want to find a comfortable seat, then eat, and sleep. If the trip or game has been particularly nasty, however, this may be impossible. An example was the trip to Florence to witness the AC Fiorentina-AS Roma game in 2008, when a line of AC Fiorentina Ultras attacked the AS Roma Ultras’ cars with stones and bottles as they exited the enclosed and guarded guest section of the parking lot. Some Ultras had to drive for two hours in forty-degree temperatures without a windshield. I asked one of the Ultras who had to drive this way about the damage to his car. The driver said little, just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, it comes with the territory. I myself had been offered a ride back to Rome by a friend who did not want me journeying back into central Florence to catch a train because I would be unprotected.

  As I will explain in Chapter Five, the act of going to an away game is warlike and militarist. The groups move ‘in formation,’ always looking out for attack. The singing is far more aggressive and negative than at home. And, it is only after returning to Rome that the Ultras relax and let down their guard. However, there is no relinquishing of their ‘liminal status’ because the boundaries between Ultra and non-Ultra are never crossed. In other words, the mentalità and sense of life in terms of opposition and heroic struggle do not reign only on game-days. Still, there is a different feeling to games played in Rome. They are no less serious but tend to be more festive.

  Figure 6. Game day in Curva Sud, 2007.

  The Ultras at Home

  For AS Roma’s Ultras, their greatest moments of solidarity and celebration of being an Ultra and a Roman occur in Rome. The safety of being at home, where there are no travel restrictions, and being amongst a large group of AS Roma fans, make home games less warlike than the away games. At home, one might stand with friends who are absent away from Rome, and one’s group will be more fully present. Nevertheless, the ritualization of violence is still present, and warring actions still takes place, but these are subtler, and meaningful only within the world of the Ultras. Two aspects are highly visible: the choreography — a coordinated display of color, image, message, and fireworks that is the ultimate expression of the Ultras’ passion for the team, the game, and being Ultra; and the striscione — the long, hand painted banners with messages of various themes.

  Game Days

  Game days at home tend to begin only on game day. There is no need for the Ultras to buy tickets because they are, to a man, season ticket holders. According to AS Roma, Curva Sud has been sold out each season since the Olympic Stadium was restructured in 1990 (for that year’s FIFA World Cup). Although home games are no less structured or ritualized than away games, they tend to unfold in a more solitary manner for many Ultras. Whereas the away game happens strictly within a group setting, the Ultra is more likely to arrive at the Rome stadium alone. This is truer for day games, though; Ultras often meet at the group’s office or at a bar before going to the stadium at night.

  Day or Night?

  Night games tend to be reserved for more important and ‘TV worthy’ opponents. Games against SS Lazio, FC Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter FC, the club’s biggest rivals, are usually played on Saturday and Sunday nights. Aside from fans meeting beforehand to eat, drink, and socialize, these games also carry with them the opportunity for violence. Ultra violence occurs in groups, as will be explained later. The groups will amass an hour before game time in one of three places: the River Bar along the Tiber across from the stadium; under the Mussolini obelisk in front of the stadium; or as close as possible to the fenced in guest section ‘holding area’ near Curva Nord. There they simply await any groups of opposing Ultras that might come into their midst. If any do so, a group of AS Roma Ultras will run to them, prompting either shameful flight from the opposition or a quick skirmish of kicks, punches, and whacks with flag poles. If the police have properly contained the visitors and no one arrives, the Ultras come into Curva Sud. Today it is rare for inter-city violence to occur, but in the past, especially before the Spagnolo death in 1995, it was a normal part of coming to the stadium.

  Traffic

  Oddly enough, an issue the Ultras face at home that they do not on the road is traffic. Because they usually have a police escort to away stadiums, they are unencumbered by the worry of arriving on time. This is always true when arriving by train and often so by bus or car. I arrived in Milan by bus with Boys Roma and our bus, along with many private cars, was made to stop outside of town before being escorted to the stadium en masse. I was never able to learn how the police knew we were AS Roma fans, as no colors were visible from outside the bus. In Rome, however, the Ultras know to allot enough time for idling on the way to the stadium. The time I spent like this in cars with Ultras was passed listening to pre-game radio shows. However, the most common way to see Ultras before games is in pairs, weaving through traffic on a motorcycle or scooter, with the Ultra seated behind the driver holding folded flags and banners. Once parked, the Ultras waste little time making their way to the stadium.

  Meeting the Group

  Unless there were reasons to meet outside the stadium, such as the opportunity for violence or a structural issue like transporting props for the choreography (see below), most groups will meet under the Curva beyond the turnstiles. There, if the group sells merchandise, as do Boys Roma, Ultras Romani, and LVPI, they have a small display of items for sale. Coffee, water, or beer is consumed, along with sandwiches. Otherwise group members socialize and intermix, although only after the group’s banner and flags have been put in place in the group’s section.

  Standing

  Even though each seat corresponds to a specified season ticket, no one in the Curva uses his or her assigned seat. Instead the Ultras consider the Curva to be a ‘general admission’ area. In this way, the groups are able to claim and maintain sections for themselves, regardless of the seats they were assigned. It is up to the groups to maintain the boundaries of their respective sections. For the larger groups like Fedayn, Ultras Romani, Boys Roma, Ultras Primavalle-San Lorenzo, and Padroni di Casa this is not a problem, as everyone in the Curva knows their territory.

  For the numerous smaller groups, however — not to mention the myriad groups of friends who have been standing together for numerous seasons — the issue is pressing and addressed anew with each home game. Usually someone from the group will arrive early, approximately two hours before kick-off, and mark out the group’s section with newspapers or scarves (laid upon each seat). I witnessed a small seven-person group protect its territory on numerous occasions. Gabriele, the group’s leader, an Ultra of twelve years who was formerly a part of AS Roma Ultras, once cleared the section of other fans just as a game was beginnin
g (his group had been outside at the River Bar and no one was free to ‘save the seats’) just by explaining that ‘this is where we stand.’

  Despite now having no chance of finding room for ten to stand together for the game, the others vacated the area in question. I asked Gabriele about the incident. His response was a knowing smile (as if to say, ‘they know who I am’) and a simple explanation. ‘I have stood with my friends in [that] spot [five seats along three rows] for ten years,’ he said, ‘We earned the right to be [there] by taking care of some bad situations.’ From Giorgio, another member, I learned that they had fought another small group called BVB Ultras for part of their space. They did it during a game so that everyone nearby would know the victor and rightful holders of the space. The two groups are now friendly and share a porous border and numerous hugs when AS Roma scores a goal.

  Fare Tifo (The act of being a fan)

  There are now two basic elements of fandom in the Ultra style: singing and waving flags. In Curva Sud before the 2007 death of Raciti, each of the large groups contained a person who handled a megaphone and directed songs to be sung by large numbers of Ultras at once. The groups traded turns directing the Curva as a whole. Since Raciti, however, megaphones have been outlawed — the 2007 Amato Decree (discussed in detail in later chapters) made ‘organized fandom’ illegal and punishable by three-to-five years’ banishment from all Italian stadiums — and now each of the larger groups attempts to begin Curva-wide songs just by singing amongst themselves. When the Ultras are disciplined the system works well enough. Usually, the Curva has more than one song being initiated at the same time.

  Coinciding with each song may be a coordinated pattern of claps. If not, many Ultras wave flags or hold stendardi (banners or standards on two vertical poles in the style of the Roman vexillum). Flags are a part of the history of the many smaller groups in the lower section of Curva Sud; the larger groups in the upper-Curva use them less often. In the lower zone, flags of various shapes and sizes fly throughout the ninety minutes of a game, whereas elsewhere in the Curva, individual Ultras hold aloft their flags as the mood strikes them. Before Raciti, flares and powerful fireworks were also central to the Ultra style of fandom. Now, however, they have largely been relegated to history.

  There are two extreme forms of Ultra fandom remaining: the choreography and the banner. The choreography, which is the more extreme, rare, and inspiring of the two, will be discussed in Chapter Six. Instead, the striscione-style banner is the veritable mouthpiece of the Ultras phenomenon.

  Striscioni

  While the massive choreographed displays have given the Ultras fame beyond the realm of fandom, many remain unaware of their subtler practice of unveiling banners with various messages of scorn or devotion. According to Stefano Pivato, the practice was adopted from the behavior of political protesters in the 1960s and 1970s, who would march behind or demonstrate in front of the long message-filled banners.69 The Ultras use the banners to ‘speak’ on any issue on the mind of the writer. Typically, though, they are used to insult, to protest, to motivate, or to memorialize.

  Historically, the most popular use of the banners has been to insult opponents and opposing Ultras; for instance, against the Milanese Inter fans in 2004–2005: ‘È una questione di avi, noi legionari, voi nostri schiavi’ (It is a question of ancestry, we are legionaries, you are our slaves). This is also a good example of the way Ultras use Rome’s classical history as a means to aggrandize the present. Other insulting uses of banners can be as simple as the Inter Ultras greeting Napoli fans in 2007–8 with ‘Fogna d’Italia’ (Italy’s gutter).

  The Ultras use banners to protest against Calcio Moderno and various political issues, such as attacking journalists as the agents of big business, the State, and morality. In the semifinal of the 2006–2007 Coppa Italia against AC Milan, one banner asked: ‘Scrivete al giornale, parlate alle radio, ma quando ci venite allo stadio?’ (You [all] write in newspapers and speak on the radio, but when do you come to the stadium?). This banner was in response to accusations against the Ultras of destroying soccer by turning it into a war-zone unsuitable for families and children.

  In 2005, the Decreto Pisanu introduced a set of laws designed to end ‘soccer violence’ by improving stadium security, having electronically named tickets, assigning stewards to the curvas, and in making the prosecution of those involved in soccer violence easier and more severe. Although generally unenforced, the decree was used to keep AC Fiorentina Ultras from standing together with the same colored shirt (white) on the grounds that this represented an ‘unauthorized choreography.’ In response, those Ultras displayed a banner reading ‘Nessun decreto cancellerà le nostre tradizioni’ (No law will cancel our traditions).

  AS Roma’s Ultras also use banners to help motivate the squad during an important game, or after having lost one. In the latter case, after a recent loss to SS Lazio, the Curva displayed a banner telling Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi, and Alberto Aqulani to ‘Imparate da noi’ (learn from us) after having been less than impressed with the effort of the three Roman players during the loss. The Ultras wanted the players to put as much passion and hostility into the game as they themselves did.

  Finally, another popular use of these banners is in celebrating Rome and memorializing or monumentalizing Romans. One of the most succinct of these was created by Razza Romana, a small group in Curva Sud, for AS Roma v. Inter 2006–2007, which read, ‘La nostra superiorità si chiama Romanità’ (Our superiority is called Romanness). This banner will be discussed in Chapter Six as an expression of the Ultras’ feelings of devotion to, and responsibility for, Rome.

  Almost every week during my time in the Curva a group would raise a banner to announce the death or birth of someone close to the group or the Curva. What the Ultras wished to accomplish with these banners was to keep the recipient of the honor alive in the Curva. They also hoped to make the readers aware of the issues surrounding the death of the subject, whether it be cancer, immigrant crime, driving while intoxicated, or, in the case of Alessandro Bini, the dangers of playing soccer on improperly cared-for fields.

  Alessandro Bini was a fourteen-year-old member of the Cinecittà team in a league sponsored by AS Roma. He was playing a league game on February 2, 2008 when he fell violently upon a pipe used for irrigating the field. The impact to his chest caused a heart attack. He lost consciousness and could not be resuscitated. Given the proximity of Cinecittà to Quadraro, it was not long before both Fedayn and Ultras Romani delivered scarves and flowers to the scene. In the days following the death, the local news was full of explanations and demands for justice. It emerged that Bini’s favorite player was a former AS Roma player named Vincent Candela. He was contacted in France and agreed to attend the child’s funeral.

  The funeral took place at San Giovanni Bosco in Quadraro and Ultras hung banners on all sides of the piazza. Among these were ones saying, ‘Ale piccolo angelo’ (Ale little angel) and ‘Ora abbiamo 12 giocatori in campo’ (Now we have 12 players on the field). Luciano Spalletti, the head coach of AS Roma spoke at the service, saying that Alessandro would always be remembered as a player of AS Roma. Vincent Candela wept openly. At the end of the memorial, William Spadino, leader of Ultras Romani, announced that the entirety of Curva Sud’s activities at the next home game would be dedicated to Alessandro. No one could remember such an honor being bestowed on anyone before.

  When AS Roma hosted Reggina Calcio four days later, everyone who entered the stadium was greeted with a banner hung in the hallowed space reserved normally for Brigata Roberto Rulli, a Fedayn banner which commemorated the founder of the first Ultra group in Curva Sud Roma, and one of the most sacred items in the world of AS Roma’s Ultras. The banner read, ‘Nel tuo riccordo piccolo Alessandro. Il coro della Sud è tutto per te’ (In your memory little Alessandro. The chorus of Curva Sud is all for you). The groups did not hang their banners; instead each held one aloft to honor Alessandro. Fedayn’s said, ‘Piccolo nuovo angelo l
asci un grande ricordo. Ciao Ale’ (New little angel you leave a big memory. Goodbye Ale.). Ultras Romani’s said, ‘Piccolo Ale nel cielo con gli angeli . . . fai vedere il campioncino che sei noi tutti tifiamo per te. Ciao’ (Little Ale in the sky with the angels . . . you showed us the little champion you are . . . all of us ‘root’ in your honor. Goodbye).

  There were as many tears as smiles in the curva that evening. Two Ultras recounted to me how their mothers, who had watched the game and ceremonies on AS Roma Channel, hugged them sobbing upon their return home from the stadium. At half time, Spadino was allowed to exit the Curva to deliver flowers on behalf of Curva Sud to Alessandro’s mother, who sat with the club’s directors in the Monte Mario grandstand. In return Daniele De Rossi, an AS Roma player born in Rome to a former player and current coach on the team, delivered flowers under the Curva.

  For the Ultras, honoring Romans goes beyond just a singular memorializing action. The act itself is full of meaning and reverence because the Ultras take being Ultra and being Roman so seriously. The honor given Alessandro Bini was not meant to end that day at the stadium. Thus, the Ultras were instrumental in helping to establish the Alessandro Bini Association for Safety in Sport. Already by late-summer 2008 the organization was successful in having new laws for safety in sport for the Lazio region drawn up. The Ultras used their platform to ensure that no one forgot to act in honoring Alessandro by making Rome a safer city for other young soccer players.