One of the least well known consequences of the tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough resulted in a 25 year old me getting my lights properly punched out in a skanky night club in Florence. It’s a long story and we’ll get there! Let’s be clear though - this is in no way intended to diminish the full horror and impact on people’s lives of those two events. No disrespect intended - quite the opposite, in fact; I’ve connections to both and was deeply and profoundly affected at the time and since.
The year is 1990. A young (ish) and carefree (ish) Zagger was working in London and in the mood for an adventure. Channel 4 was showing weekly Serie A matches, live and highlights and it all looked implausibly glamorous. The team that had caught my eye was Fiorentina, chiefly for the fabulous violet kit and partly also the flamboyant talents of Roberto Baggio, who looked destined for greatness. The team looked edgy. Hard, brutal at times, but exotically skilful and capable of truly gorgeous football. Fantastically Italian.
Fiorentina had an edginess off the pitch too, born out in multiple riots that season. A UEFA Cup semi-final v Werder Bremen all went a bit mad, result of which was that the ‘home’ leg of the final v Juve had to be played at a neutral venue. Later in the year, further riots: one, for reasons I’ve never figured out, against the Azzuri, who were forced out of their pre-World Cup camp near Florence. Others, lasting several days, in protest at the Summer sale of Baggio to Juve.
Great kits, away and home - Fiorentina collectively go for the mean, moody and magnificent Italian Stallion Award 89-90
The February fixtures pitted Fiorentina v Milan: Baresi, Maldini, Gullit, Rijkaard, van Basten and co. Edgy fans, global superstars, Florence, between jobs, healthy bank account following a redundancy, single but with a friendly, hard-partying ex similarly keen for an adventure, a small stash of disco-biscuits… no brainer.
A flight to Pisa (Florence has no airport of its own), onwards by train, hostel found, weather glorious, Florence magnificent. All good. A match ticket was easily found from a news kiosk. Too easy? I should have suspected. In a portent of a later, complicated trip to Italy (see post about Sampdoria and Des Walker), this was not to be a simple affair...
Showing off the ticket in a bar that night, a local asked how I was planning to get to the stadium. He seemed a bit more excited and intrigued by this than he ought to have done, considering I was just anticipating a bus to the Artemio Franchi Stadium. “Bus.” Cue raised eyebrows. “You know where the match is?” Seemed an odd question, but, “Si”. And off he went. He might have sniggered.
Something about the conversation rang an alarm. I went after him towards the bar. “Is there something I need to know?“
“If you think the match is here, then yes!”
”Go on.”
”The stadium is closed. It’s in Perugia.“
That’ll be the Perugia about 3 hours away by car then, right in the middle of Umbria. Regional capital, ancient cultural and artistic centre, university town, hilltop, medieval walled city, home to a huge Jazz Festival and EuroChocolate Fair. Bugger. The Franchi was closed, had been most of the season, for renovation for the World Cup.
Looked great - I never got there!
My new friend, previously clearly taking the proverbial a bit and enjoying my ignorance, become very helpful, to be fair. He told me there were special trains and I’d get on one if I turned up at the Santa Maria Novella station around 9 the next day. Which I did.
Inevitably, the station was chaos. I joined a massive queue for a ticket and only slowly edged forward as departure time crept closer. Things were falling apart. An indecipherable announcement saw the queue explode into thousands of running, shouting individuals, all heading for the platforms. Lots of arm waving and all that. I followed. The minimal ticket barrier was rushed and all piled onto an already overflowing train. Me included. Think those trains you see in Calcutta with folk hanging off them and you’re getting close. As we pulled off, those inside hauled those of us outside in through the windows. I landed in a carriage full, literally to the luggage racks, of dope smoking ultras, who found my very existence hilarious and took kindly on me. Kindly enough that much of the rest of the day was lost to me.
A good four hours later, we rolled into Perugia, which I’m told is very nice. I’ll have to go back one day and check. As the train crept to a halt, the doors flew open and I was swept away in a purple tide of doped up hooligans, who swept through the station in what can only be described as a rampage. Out of the station, into the sunshine and right into a mass attack on a large band of Milan ultras. Flares, water-cannons, bottles, bricks anything flying, angry Carabinieri pointing their machine guns in a very no nonsense way (can you point a machine gun any other way, I wonder?), until eventually we were rounded up for an escort which I swear involved an actual tank.
The escort tried repeatedly to break free to get at the Milan ultras. They, in return, made repeated attempts to storm the escort. I’d been around plenty of violence, as a feeble peace-loving bystander, but this was something else. Ultimately though, we made it to the Renato Curi Stadium, named after a player who collapsed and died in a match v Juve in 1977, an open sided, traditional affair, capacity about thirty thousand, normally home to AC Perugia.
The match, played out in a ‘volatile’ atmosphere, was a classic which still makes it into ‘Best Ever…’ lists. It’s all over Youtube, even including close-up focuses on Baggio, Dunga and Rijkaard. The Channel 4 highlights are there too. A few links here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAYLmlXtcdM Baggio highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYhVNHxbpes - Brief highlights (Italian commentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU4_FjaQ6KU - all of it!
There were some legendary performances; Baggio was astonishing; Dunga special; Rijkaard imperious. Top players at the top of their game.
Baggio was tripped in a surging run and dispatched the resulting penalty to put Fiorentina 1-0 up. Lubos Kubik made it 2-0 soon after half-time. What followed passed into folklore and is still talked about passionately today. Alberigo Evani pulled one back for Milan and this was a quickly followed by two hotly disputed (a very suspect handball and a comical dive) penalties, both of which van Basten put away. Fiorentina seemed to be denied a stone-wall penalty of their own and everyone got very, very angry. The aftermath and bad feeling lasted for days, longer even. Maybe it’s still there.
Events on the pitch fuelled more general chaos outside afterwards, but we made it back to the station for the long haul back to Florence. As I recall, the adrenaline rush of the day, resulted in a much quieter journey back, with many just spark-out in a heap on the carriage floors.
I recovered enough to hit a club with Angie, who had stayed behind in Florence for the day. We ended up an a dive of a student club and in the early hours of Monday morning she came bustling up with a bloke she wanted me to meet. “He’s dead excited that you‘re a Forest fan…”. Great.
I’d never been hit so hard. Still haven’t, hopefully never will be. I’m tall (6 foot 4), but this guy dwarfed me. Shaven head, sheepskin coat (in a hot club at 3am on a Monday morning) buttoned right up. As I came round, he stood over me. “What the fuck was that for?” I managed.
“You Forest, me Juve.”
”So fucking what?”
”You kill Liverpool. I love Liverpool.”
This all took a lot of sorting out. To say the guy, Giuseppe, had got things confused was putting it mildly. I couldn’t even begin to get my head round why he so loved Liverpool, given Heysel, but it was connected somehow. We drank together, both fell asleep in the bar and Angie copped off with his mate. All’s well that ends well…
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