PalenQ

WAR IN ROME; UK Football Hooligans Run Amok

Disturbing reports arre circling about Italian football hooligans plotting to attack ManU fans in a build up to tonight's big match with Rome AS (?) team. But it could well be just a smear according to the Italian Embassy who claims UK is trying to slur Rome. Rome's Mayor is also irate but nevertheless issued warnings to MU fans such as not to take the metro to tonight's match at the Olympic Stadium.

But last night in Rome BBC described a kind of war between ManU and Roma fans - 6,000 MU fans have come to Rome and it turns out that some a few hundred hard-core hooligans of these fans were running amok last night in central Rome - moving from pub to pub. Meanwhile some Italian hooligans were roving the same area to confront the group and police were constantly chasing both groups down.

I've had the fortune to stumble into towns like Rome during such football hooliganism - say fortunate because it gave me a good insight into the problem. Roving gangs reeking havoc - in Amsterdam once UK fans were escorted out of Centraal Station by a gauntlet of armor-clad cops and wisked onto waiting buses to be moved out of the centre. In spite of that many shopkeepers were busily boarding up their storefronts. And there was violence in Amsterdam's centre that night with police resorting to water cannon to help subdue the crowd.

There are Dutch hooligans too and though the English get most of the hooligan pub every football playing nation seems to have them. Another time in Amsterdam i saw Dutch fans trying to tip over trams in front of the Olympic Stadium and these were mainly young folks who were rocking the tram from the inside - finally horse-riding cops came and routed them out.

And some fan was killed by Italian football hooligans recently, leading to speculation that Italian football matches would be played without fans in empty stadiums.

But i just don't understand this hooliganism and its link with football. Most of the fans i know are law-abiding folks and the hooligans are just a fraction.

Recently in Venice English fans en route to a match in Ljublana were fairly well mannered - funny thing here was we passed an outdoor cafe by the train station in the evening and several football fans in their colors were sitting swilling beer. And the next morning the same group was still sitting at the same table, not having moved apparently and again downing beer.

Paris Rive Gauche (sp?) was recently called having the worst hooligan fans so i guess the problem is a pan-European one.

Go ManU - (former Spurs fan)

Anyone have any accounts of encountering soccer fans run amok?

flanneruk

There are two attitudes to all this.

There's the grown-up one. I was once kept awake all night in Hamburg as Dutch and German supporters decided to re-enact WW2 outside my hotel. The German papers the following day were full of "this is shameful": Dutch and German ministers were effusive in their pompous "these days, in Europe, we're surely beyond all this" statements. But in the office, most German colleagues had a fair amount of "Bloody self-satisfied Dutch. Probably had it coming to them. Hope our lads put the boot into their arogant smirks".

The alternative approach was in Romania, after Romanian supporters got ambushed in Bucharest. "Typical of Hungarians" said the Romanian interior minister. "They're all the same". Most Romanian-language papers agreed, though no doubt Romania's ethnic Hungarian population had a different point of view. None of this Northern European hypocrisy in the Balkans

"Diplomacy", Clausewitz is supposed to have said "is the pursuit of war by other means". If he'd been alive today, he'd have quoted football.

Aggression is programmed into many young men. In the US they take to crime, or sublimate it till they get to be CEO, then take out all their aggression on competitors. In Europe (England's no different: just more publicity-aware) they beat each other into oblivion at football matches.

flanneruk

The second paragraph should have started:

"The alternative approach was in Romania, after Romanian supporters got ambushed in BUDAPEST.

That's the problem with the Balkans. One racketty capital's indistinguishable from another

cadillac1234

Yahoo reported it was a 'trouble-free' night in Rome
http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/04042007/...ight-rome.html

Hooliganism seems to be cropping up more in the smaller areas such as Croatia, Romania, smaller French teams and in Northern Germany. The more infamous English and Scottish hooligans have been fairly quiet over the last couple of years although the Spurs and Chelsea had a 'scheduled' brawl after a game a couple of weeks ago.

The Sicily event were a policeman was killed was generated over a poor referee call in a Sicily Derby game and wasn't a general 'hooliganism' or 'ultras' sponsored event. Inexcusable in any way.

I'm still trying to figure out how Rome will suddenly become a become Baghdad for English tourists because of a UEFA game.

AS Roma fans are passionate but Man Utd seems to be overacting quite a bit. I found the 'protect your traveller's checks, cash and credit cards when entering a crowded area' warning very funny. As if the pickpockets only work on game days

cadillac1234

So much for the all-calm in Stadio Olimpico yesterday...

http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/stor...62&ATT=185

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slu...&type=lgns

A riot before the game and the police tear-gassing and billing clubbing the Man U fans in the stands after the game...

C'est la Vie

fnarf999

England's been relegated out of the hooligan league in recent years. Italy is a hotbed, with lots of racists and Nazis mixed in the "ultras", who are the ones you see throwing road flares onto the pitch and tearing up seats. Italy's where they've been playing matches in front of empty stadiums. Greece as well, where ALL TEAM SPORTS were recently shut down after a series of incidents in football against Turkey (also famous for their ultraviolent ultraracist hooligans), as well as women's volleyball (!!!) between two Greek club sides. Many of the Balkan sides are extensions of ethnic and political disputes, with blatant Nazi and Communist sympathies on display.

If this isn't provocation by Roma fans, and is a return to the bad old days of English hooligans (which I find a little hard to believe given the way the worst of these creeps are tagged and followed) , I'll be sorry.

I just hope it doesn't happen in Sevilla today.

hsv

&gt;&gt; <i>Hooliganism seems to be cropping up more in the smaller areas such as Croatia, Romania, smaller French teams and in Northern Germany.</i> &lt;&lt;

I'd be honestly interested where the information comes from that Northern Germany has a relevant hooligan scene.

I have been regularly attending matches around here for ages and have hardly noticed any trouble. I also haven't read anything about it in the papers.

I presume flanneruk's anecdote dates back to the match between Germany and the Netherlands during the European Championship 1988 - which has indeed been a while. Lots of things have changed since then, one of them new stadiums being built that attract a different crowd (at least in parts due to higher prices).

The only area with a severe hooliganism problem in Germany would be in Eastern Germany where even 5th (or lower) division matches have turned into ugly battle scenes recently.