This is an archive copy of a document originally located at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/stories/s578478.htm
With Amanda Smith
14/6/2002
Soccer, Italian-style
Summary:
Author TIM PARKS has lived in Italy for over 20 years. His latest book,
“A Season With Verona”, follows a year with the Hellas Verona Football Club.
The team is desperately trying to avoid relegation. And the hard-core fans, the
Brigate Gialloblu, formulate the most insulting chants they can fling at
opposition teams and supporters, with all the passion and parody that typifies
Italian soccer.
And on the streets of Leichhardt, in Sydney, the feeling is at least as intense,
as Italian-Australians follow the World Cup fortunes of Italy’s national team,
the Azzurri, and the police attempt to control crowd exuberance.
Details or Transcript:
Amanda Smith: The Sports Factor today is all about soccer, Italian-style, both
in Italy and in Australia.
THEME
Amanda Smith: Well, after looking pretty touch-and-go for a while there,
Italy’s World Cup campaign continues on into the second round, after the
results of last night’s matches. And if ever there were a group of supporters
who deserved ‘A’ for effort, it’s Italian-Australian fans of the Azzurri.
Over the past two weeks, they’ve gathered in places like Leichhardt, in
Sydney, partying hard to urge their team on.
Jason Di Rosso: Buena sera.
Man: Buena sera.
Jason Di Rosso: Did you enjoy the game tonight?
Man: Moltissimo
Jason Di Rosso: Do you always come to Leichhardt when Italy play in the World
Cup?
Man: We live here. I always come to Leichhardt, it’s our town. The atmosphere,
the Italian people love it. Italian, Australian, everybody loves it.
Amanda Smith: And more on the pleasure, and pain, that Italian-Australian fans
have been experiencing over the past fortnight of the World Cup, later in the
program.
Before that, though, let’s head to Club soccer in Italy. ‘A Season with
Verona’ is the name of a book that’s just recently been published. Verona is
the Hellas Verona Football Club, and the season is one where the team is
struggling to hold its place in the top division. The author is Tim Parks, a
writer who was born in Manchester, but who’s lived in Verona for the last 20
years or so, and adopted Hellas Verona as his team. The book is largely about
the locally-born fans, although Tim Parks says that his starting point was an
altogether personal one.
Tim Parks: Well you know, this was a book I really hesitated before writing
because I suspect that one can throw away a literary reputation on a football
book. But I think what began to fascinate me was the total excess of my own
engagement in this sport, something I’d always been embarrassed about. Until
you reach the point where you say ‘Well come on, let’s take this on. Like
what is it, all this mental space I’m giving to football. And why do I feel so
close to people when I’m at the stadium and so ready to make community with
people I don’t know, or didn’t know.’ So that was really what began it.
Then what came out of it was really perhaps rather different from that, but
that’s how it started.
Amanda Smith: And what came out for Tim Parks in writing ‘A Season with
Verona’, was an attempt to understand the role that popular spectator sport
plays in a modern society. And in this particular case, how Verona and the
Hellas Verona Football Club are typified in Italy and in Italian soccer.
Tim Parks: Italy’s a country whose unit largely depends on a series of
internal arguments. I mean like a family that you recognise because they’re
all arguing together, you know, you know they’re a family because they’re
arguing. And in that argument, Verona occupies a particular position. First,
it’s a small provincial town against big football power like Juventis or
Milan, and then it’s a northern town against the south. We have an old
hostility with Naples, with Reggio Calabria And then above all, Verona has a
very bad reputation in the national press for being possibly right-wing and
possibly racist. How true this reputation actually is, is open to question, but
Italy’s a country that loves kind of personalising a town and attacking it or
praising it. And all this galvanises the football scene and makes it more
exciting I think.
Amanda Smith: Well most of the time you’re watching games and travelling to
games up and down the length of Italy during the season with the Verona
hard-core fans, the Yellow Blue Brigade. Tim, I’m interested in your thoughts
on the nature of football fandom, such as the Yellow Blue Brigade of Verona
have. For example, you say that ‘a sticky film of self-parody clings to every
gesture of fandom’; can you talk about that?
Tim Parks: Well, let me say at the beginning that one of the funny things about
this book was I decide to write a book and then I kind of think Well, I’ll go
to all the games. And the first game was in Bari which is 800 kilometres from
Verona.
Amanda Smith: In the deep south?
Tim Parks: Yes, in the deep south. The first thing you say is, If I travel on my
own or by plane, then I’m not really a fan, because a fan doesn’t exist on
his own, does he A fan exists in a group, so you have to travel with a group.
And the only people travelling to something as far away as Bari to watch a team
like Verona who lose 90% of their away games, in fact that season there were 17
away games; we lost 14, drew 2 and won 1. And the one we won was probably fixed.
But anyway, these guys then who travel, especially the ones to distant away
games in rotten old buses, travelling all night, are people who have immense
dedication to not so much that sort of sport, as to making a community. I think
the nostalgia for tight communities is very important in football. And there’s
obviously a quasi religious vocabulary about football, isn’t there? We have a
song ‘Hellas, my only faith’ and things like that. And at the same time we
know that it’s not a religion, you know, you don’t go to heaven, and we know
that the players play for money and we know that they’re not even from Verona,
and they probably don’t give a damn about Verona and we have a song, ‘You
can change the President, you can change the players, but we’ll always be here
whether we’re in Serie A, or B, or C’. So what begins to happen is you get
this excess extravagant emotion and also faith, but at the same time there’s a
clear recognition on the part of everybody that it is football, that it’s not
actually a war. So you do get constant irony, people constantly being very
engaged and then joking about it, which I think is wonderful. It’s as if you
believed in something and didn’t believe in it simultaneously. It’s a very
modern state of mind I suspect.
Amanda Smith: And yet these Verona fans, Tim, are considered to be extremely
vulgar and violent and racist. Their songs and chants against other teams and
fans are often unbelievably gross, they’re constantly having to be controlled
by the police and they taunt black players with monkey grunts. Now it seems to
me that you take quite an ambivalent attitude to all this; can you explain how
and why you’re ambivalent, if indeed you are, because this stuff is very edgy.
Tim Parks: Well I think that we’ll have to be clear about one thing. I’m not
the least bit ambivalent about the racist chants, which I’m just entirely
against, and have constantly written against in the local club website and so
on, which I think are shameful. That said, and that out of the way and made
quite clear, there is clearly a culture in Italy of insults between the fans,
and the fans are in fact false enemies, they love to insult each other. If we go
down to Naples and they don’t insult us, we’d be appalled. Now there are
some very funny, and at the same time almost frightening situations, like we go
to Udine which is a little town on the border with Croatia, and when we get
there, the chorus leader says to us, Now how are we going to insult these
people, you know, they’re not southerners so we can’t insult them for being
southerners, and they’re not from Bologna, so we can’t call them communists.
And the guy says, You know the first insult has got to warm the game up, it’s
got to make us all feel that this game really matters and that we hate each
other for these 90 minutes. So the guy comes out with this insult, ‘terremotati’,
‘earthquake victims’, referring to an earthquake of 20 years ago. And
everybody starts singing ‘terremotati, OK’. Which is on the one hand very,
very heavy, but on the other hand the reaction from Udine crowd, which was
immediately to start insulting us in every possible way, created a whole
situation. Now the whole thing was done though with great irony at the same
time. I think the problem then with the whole racism thing is the way it gets
tagged on to a more healthy tradition, it seems to me, of creating a local
identity for today, just for today, we imagine we’re back in the Middle Ages
to city-states who hate each other. So it’s a curious business.
Amanda Smith: Well you have been accused in one review at least in The Times
Literary Supplement of ‘defending the indefensible’ as far as the racism of
your club’s fans goes.
Tim Parks: Careless reading, careless reading. I make it perfectly clear that I
find it very unhappy. I think what is interesting is the way the fans are in a
relationship with the press, where the more the press pretends to be shocked by
something that happens, which usually in the end is a verbal thing, the more
they will do that thing. So you will get people, I’ve seen people engaged in
racist chanting and talked to them and they say, You know, I’m not racist at
all, and then you find the guy has a black girlfriend. And at the same time this
guy is engaged in these chants, so it’s a very weird thing. I’m not
defending the indefensible, I’m saying what is indefensible can also be
analysed and looked at, and found to be more complicated than you imagine.
Amanda Smith: Now Tim, this season with Hellas Verona Football Club isn’t one
where the team is having a shot at reaching the top, at winning the
championship; this is all about desperately trying to avoid relegation to B
Division, Serie B. Now you describe Serie A as ‘paradise’, Serie B as
‘purgatory’ and Serie C as ‘hell’. And there’s another nod in the
direction of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ in that as there are 34 cantos in the
Inferno, so there are 34 chapters to your book. Was this deliberate, and was the
season hellish?
Tim Parks: Well no, this is partly a joke and the reference to Inferno,
Purgatorio, and Paradiso is certainly not my invention, it’s an old Italian
adage. If there is something serious behind this, it’s this: that the football
is clearly gathering towards itself emotions that used to be expressed in other
ways, in causes whether religious or political, and in faiths. There is an
extent to which football is being used to fill our mind and to fill the space
and to fill the calendar. You know, when I was thinking about this, you know,
how does Dante get through the Inferno? He takes a poet along who’s the most
famous poet for rhythm, and you keep the rhyme going, you can actually get
through the Inferno, because the reality’s so awful sometimes, you need a
routine and a rhyme and a chime to get you through it.
Amanda Smith: And you do believe I think that injustice is an essential part of
football, of soccer, and that fans actually thirst for injustice. How do you
mean that, and what does it say about soccer fans, football fans?
Tim Parks: I think one of the first things that has to be said is clearly in the
public media sport has to be represented as something positive, that the unity
of man, brotherhood etc. But it’s clear to everybody who knows any sport that
it thrives also on negative sentiments, that loads of people look at the
football results to see if the team they hate has lost, as much as to see if the
team they love has won. It’s also clear that if you’re in a community of
people and you feel that an injustice has been done to you, some awful
refereeing that’s sent a player off for something that was absolutely
ridiculous, they obviously feel much more united, embattled, and also they feel
they lost the game but, you know, they lost the game because of the referee and
so on. These things you might consider them very negative, but if you look at it
over the long term, you can see that that will make people remember that game.
Like the way the English remember the Argentina game when Maradona scored with
his hands, like you’ll never forget that game, you’ll always feel you have
an axe to grind, you know. These things make you feel more alive, there’s no
doubt about it.
Amanda Smith: Well Tim, you’re now in the gap between the last league season
ending and the next one beginning, so in that kind of hiatus, do you think
football, soccer, offers a particular benefit to Italian society, and I mean
that for all the kind of pretty deviant behaviours it does seem to elicit from
its fans.
Tim Parks: I think in Italy has a special role. And any country will have it’s
own special role. In Italy it keeps alive a series of local city identities in a
very strong way. I think this talk about deviant behaviour is very funny really.
What happens in football is theatrically bad, but the actual toll is infinitely
low. I think the last five years there’s been one death which was caused by a
complete idiot firing a home-made firework into an opposing crowd in Sicily, and
that’s sheer madness. You compare it with gang warfare in some other countries
like the USA where they have no crowd problems around sports, and you begin to
feel that actually ritualising negative behaviour in a football situation is a
great way of containing it.
Amanda Smith: Tim Parks, the author of ‘A Season with Verona’, the Hellas
Verona Football Club. And he was speaking to me there from Milan, in Italy.
Now from Club soccer to World Cup Soccer. Already in this tournament there’ve
been some major upsets, with defending champions France, and also Argentina,
eliminated earlier this week. The Italian team has just managed to hang on
though; after unexpectedly losing their second match to Croatia, Italy drew with
Mexico last night, and so continue on into the second round.
Now in Australia, there are of course large numbers of people Italian-born or of
Italian descent, many of whom honour and display their background with gusto
during occasions like the World Cup.
So for The Sports Factor, Jason Di Rosso has been with fans out on the streets
of Leichhardt in Sydney, and...CHANTING/CAR HORN
Jason Di Rosso: I'm here on Norton Street in the inner-western Sydney suburb of
Leichhardt, known for its Italian bars and cafes, many of which have set up
screens and televisions tonight for people who come and watch the game, Italy's
first game in the 2002 World Cup.
It's about two hours before kick-off, and already the street is buzzing with
cars doing laps, people hanging out of them waving huge Italian flags, and fans
of course congregating on the footpaths.
Woman: You have to stick everything - that's just stuffed up everything we just
did. We had to stick everything individually so it's all straight flats, right?
Jason Di Rosso: What are you doing exactly, you're putting streamers on the
outside of the building?
Woman: Yes, so that people know that we're all Italians in here.
Jason Di Rosso: And why have you to come leichhardt to watch the game? Woman:
Because I'm Italian and I want to support them.
Jason Di Rosso: OK, describe to me how you've come along to watch the game
tonight, what you're wearing, what you're holding.
Man: Basically just jeans and my scarf and my big flag and me and two mates
bought a car and we sprayed it green, white and red for the night.
Jason Di Rosso: So you bought a car?
Man: We bought a car. We bought a car for $250 with five months rego, and it's
doing the rounds tonight.
Jason Di Rosso: And tell me, does this make you feel Italian, walking around
with other supporters of the Italian team during the World Cup, do you feel
different than you do normally?
Man: Oh yes, you feel different, feel more proud, but I guess being in
Australia, I guess there's more hype here, because we're not really Italian,
we're really Australians, but I think we go off more here in Sydney than they
probably do in Italy.
Jason Di Rosso: Do you think so?
Man: Yes, I reckon, definitely
Jason Di Rosso: Why do you think that is?
Man: Probably more proud, I guess. I don't know, but I reckon that's how it is.
And I've been told that as well.
Jason Di Rosso: Are you the OJ tonight?
Man: Yes, I am. This is the only time Italians will get arrested and be happy,
and get cheered on for being arrested.
Jason Di Rosso: Hi, officer, how are you? How's your night been so far?
Policeman: It's not too bad. It's fairly busy, constant. We're from the Glebe
LOC or the Glebe patrol, it's always busy, but I'm sure tonight will be a good
night for the Italians here in Leichhardt.
Jason Di Rosso: And what do you expect if they win tonight?
Policeman: What do I expect to happen? Hoping for a very peaceful night. People
who are happy, go out and have a good time, enjoy the win if that's what
happens, and then go home and go to bed.
Jason Di Rosso: Hi. How do you think Italy will go in this World Cup?
Man: Good. Everything looks fine but somebody has started the problem already. I
wish the Italians will win and everybody should be happy, and to celebrate is
good.
Jason Di Rosso: And you own this cafe here?
Man: My son, actually.
Jason Di Rosso: Hi, you're the owner of the cafe, are you?
Man: Yes.
Jason Di Rosso: How long have you had the cafe? 00 you do this every World Cup?
Man: I've only been here for six months, but this is probably one of the
original places that used to show the matches, which used to be in the early
hours of the mornings. So, a bit different now.
Jason Di Rosso: So what's going to happen if Italy win tonight?
Man: Hopefully a bit restrained so we can sort of keep it going for the whole
tournament, you know, we don't want to sort of get carried away too much in one
night. But I'm sure it's going to get carried away anyway, which is good, great.
Jason Di Rosso: So this your Mum, this a family-run cafe?
Man: Yes, this is Mum, she does all the cooking for us, you know, good old
home-style cooking.
Jason Di Rosso: So who's the expert? What's your tip for the World Cup, who do
you think will go all the way?
Woman: Italy, for sure.
Jason Di Rosso: It's a stupid question, isn't it?
Woman: Yes, for sure we will win.
Jason Di Rosso: Is it something that you look forward to every four years?
Woman: Yes, maybe.
Jason Di Rosso: Good evening, I'm from The Sports Factor on Radio National, the
ABC. Have you come to Leichhardt tonight to watch Italy play?
Man: No, we've got a unit here and we're just having a look at what's going on
in the street.
Jason Di Rosso: And what do you expect if Italy win, do you expect to get much
sleep?
Man: I expect there to be a lot of noise.
DRUMS/MEGAPHONE
Jason Di Rosso: What's brought you to Leichhardt tonight to see Italy play?
Man: Basically the need to see Italy playing with other people from an Italian
background.
Jason Di Rosso: Right, so you're from Italy; how recently?
Man: Quite recently. I've been here since just two years and a half now.
Jason Di Rosso: Oh, OK, so this is your first World Cup in Australia; how does
this whole atmosphere here in Leichhardt when Italy are playing, strike you? Is
it strange? Did you expect to see so many Italians?
Man: I wasn't expecting to see many Italians, but I'm really surprised because
people are as excited as it is in Italy, like we are really full-on, completely
full-on, and this is happening in everywhere, and in Australia as well, and this
is a nice surprise to me.
Jason Di Rosso: So do you feel a little bit at home, coming to Leichhardt to
watch Italy play with this sort of atmosphere on the street?
Man: Yes, I do feel a little bit at home, yes, for sure, because basically all
the support of the Italian team is something that I wasn't expecting, and it's
also something that is typically Italian, I would say, even in the way they
support their own team, this is a piece of Italy now, it's not just a piece of
Australia.
HORNS/CHEERS
Jason Di Rosso: Well, Italy have just beaten Ecuador and Norton Street has come
alive in a sea of red, white and green. People have spilled out onto the road
and they're starting to let off fireworks, cars are having a hard time getting
through and there's basically just a fantastic atmosphere of euphoria and
celebration.
Did you watch the game tonight?
Woman: Yes. It was wonderful, they played so well.
Jason Di Rosso: Did you come out to Leichhardt especially to see it?
Woman: Oh yes, well we live around here so, yes, they're our team. They played
so well.
Jason Di Rosso: And if Australia gets in in the next World Cup?
Woman: Oh. Of course I'd go for Australia even if they played against Italy, Corsica, my country, so it would be great if they got in.
HORN
Jason Di Rosso: Buena sera Did you enjoy the game tonight?
Man: Moltissimo.
Jason Di Rosso: Do you always come to Leichhardt when Italy play in the World
Cup?
Man: I always come to Leichhardt, this is our town, we love it, and we love to
see
things like this.
Jason Di Rosso: And how is the atmosphere, describe it to us.
Man: It can't be better. Leichhardt is good for that, the atmosphere, the
Italians, the people love it. Italian, Australian, everybody loves it.
Newsreader: A night of violence in Leichhardt, as Italian soccer fans went
berserk after their team won a World Cup match. Several police were injured and
supporters arrested during the running battle. Authorities warn they won't allow
a repeat on Saturday night.
Jason Di Rosso: Well I'm back on Norton Street. It's Saturday night at around
6pm. That's an hour until the kick-off between Italy and Croatia. A section of
the road's going to be blocked off until 11 pm which seems like a pretty
sensible idea after last Monday night, when crowds celebrating after Italy's win
brought traffic to pretty much a standstill here for an hour or so. The police
are also going to be out in greater numbers, after admitting this week to being
under-prepared and under-staffed on Monday night.
So tell me, after last Monday, what did you think of the reaction of the police
last Monday, how did you think the whole thing was handled?
Man: I think the police over-reacted a bit. You expect people to start scuffling
after the police bring their attack dogs down, but it's a bit difficult, if
people are celebrating and celebrating on the streets, why not let them
celebrate, why should you stop people from celebrating? I mean blocking it off
is the great thing to do, but the police haven't been down a week and told us
what we thought, or asked us what we thought.
Jason Di Rosso: Yes, that's the owners of the cafes and the bars on the street?
Man: Yes, I mean they should tell the business owners and say, Look, we're going
to close the street off. And the only way we found out was through the papers,
which I think is wrong. A lot of people here remember what happened in '94 when
Italy lost the final, and the police were cheering, and I mean that's not the
right thing to do, especially by the police.
Man: If Croatia were to win this one, that would be a massive upset.
David Owens: David Owens, Commander at Leichhardt, welcome to the Italy versus
Croatia on Norton Street this evening. As you can see, we have a festive
atmosphere behind us, the crowd has been fantastic so far. What we did, in
consultation with the local community, we decided that we would close Norton
Street between 8pm and 11 pm to ensure public safety. What we will not allow is
that the actions of a minority, which the other evening they were in the
minority, to wreck it for everybody. Police will ensure that discretion is used
during this evening, and we have. However we will not tolerate the actions of
anybody that put either the community or the police at risk. And I hope that
this is the start of a month-long celebration in which both the police and the
community have a great time.
CHEERS
Jason Di Rosso: How do you find the media covered last Monday's win against
Ecuador?
Man: Oh, it was atrocious, absolutely atrocious. I mean I saw you here on the
night, and everyone was just having a lot of fun. And everyone came. In fact all
the attention brought more and more people here, which was funny. But it was
certainly blown up, and yes, everyone thought it was a riot. In fact I went
home; the next morning I told my wife that it was a great night and everyone was
having a good time and she turned on the radio and she said, What are you
talking about? There were riots in the streets. I said, It must have been a
different place.
Jason Di Rosso: Well the final whistle's just sounded, and Italy have lost the
second game of their 2002 World Cup campaign 2-1 against Croatia. And on Norton
Street there are a lot of long faces. Any comments, guys?
Man: Yes, it should have been offside, the second goal, it's very wrong. Italy
should have won.
Jason Di Rosso: Michela, so we meet again. How do you think the crowd's taken
the loss?
Michela: Really badly I think. I mean everyone is depressed, but I think that we
will recover with Mexico, for sure. I hope so, at least. But tonight's not a
good night.
Woman: Can't believe those last two goals, that was shocking, devastation.
Jason Di Rosso: Just coming down to Leichhardt and watching Italy play, does it
make you feel more Italian?
Woman: Yes, definitely. This kind of feeling, we wait these days for it. And the
games that Italy plays we weigh, and like make the plans. There's no other
feeling when Italy wins, no other feeling.
Jason Di Rosso: And how can you describe the atmosphere tonight on the street? I
mean they've just lost, but no-one seems to be too aggro.
Woman: I guess because they know that we still have a chance. If we beat Mexico.
And I think we can do that.
CHANTING: 'Croatia, Croatia', vaffanculo!
Jason Oi Rosso: And here are the boys singing 'Croatia, Croatia, get stuffed' in
Italian?
Woman: Yes.
Jason Oi Rosso: Having said that, it's pretty calm, besides them.
Woman: Yes. No, it's all right. I guess everybody, I don't know, I sort of know
that we'll win on Thursday.
Woman: We know there's still hope, even though we lost you know, there's still
hope.
Jason Di Rosso: That guy just called out 'Girls don't know anything about
soccer', is that true?
Woman: We know a lot about soccer!
Woman: Girls know a lot about soccer, we love it. We play it, so yes.
HORNS
Amanda Smith: All the highs and lows of loving your national soccer team,
Italian-style. And that was Jason Di Rosso, out on the streets of Leichhardt, in
Sydney, with Italian-Australian fans of the Azzurri, who now continue into the
second round of the World Cup tournament.
And that's The Sports Factor for this Friday morning. Maria Tickle is the
program producer, and I'm Amanda Smith.
Publications:
|
A Season With Verona
Author: Tim Parks
Publisher: Secker and Warburg - 2002 |
|
Guests on this program:
Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Maria Tickle
©
2003 ABC
This is an archive copy of a document originally located at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/stories/s578478.htm
All copyright remains with the creator.
