Green Street Hooligans, released in theaters in 2005, almost immediately became a cult hit in Italy; certainly not (only) for this reason but almost at the same time it changed both the dress code (the old bomber jackets and combat boots were replaced by the more comfortable jackets Stone Island e The North Face and sneakers Stan Smith) is the battle strategyno longer searched exclusively in the stadium but also outside the Sunday context, with groups that have begun to meet or set up ambushes in areas distant from the stadium and at times other than the match.
My trip to England begins by thinking about the events of firm Of Millwall and West Ham described in the film, with the almost spasmodic desire to grasp and investigate those differences that make Anglo-Saxon support so different from the Italian one.
Milwall, a club founded in 1885plays in the championship of Championshipthe equivalent of our Serie B. Browsing the web I discover that despite the modest football history and the anonymous championship played so far, at the The Den, a facility built in 1990, on average there are around 17 thousand spectators, an enormity if you consider that London has 13 professional clubs. All this while in Italy, “the crawl” of the large metropolises have overshadowed any alternative football project, also attracting the sympathies of the neighboring areas or of the entire peninsula. Football across the Channel has therefore maintained a strong connection with the neighbourhoods: the “locals” have been able to resist defeats or the call of the coat of arms. In Italy, if you are born in Sesto San Giovanni or even in Monza you will most likely support Milan or Inter, but if you are born in Isle of Dogs you will inevitably choose Milwall rather than the coat of arms of Arsenal or Chelsea.
I start from Hemel Hempsteada city of around 80 thousand inhabitants on the outskirts of London, with the first step a Euston Station and from there until London bridge where I take the train that will take me to the last stop, South Bermondsey Stationan anonymous station hidden by the amber leaves of the London trees where waiting for the flow of Millwall fans are the first policemen with their yellow bibs, who at first glance seemed to me to be stewards.
A few steps on foot and I find myself immersed in the home team’s stadium; I can hardly believe that access is so immediate and easy but above all that there are no pre-filtering areas, as happens in any Italian stadium. It may be the years of militancy in Italy but I have difficulty believing that everything is so beautiful and simple, so I have the tic of always checking my passport because I’m sure that at any moment some law enforcement officer will want to know my identity. Which clearly will never happen.
I walk among the Millwall fans busy drinking and eating, at any moment I’m sure I’ll run into Tommy Hatcher, the Millwall “major” from the aforementioned film. I manage to circumnavigate the stadium until I arrive at my gate il 28 where the various ones take place firm of Millwall fans. The entrance has a romantic feel, if I may use the overused term: no latest generation turnstiles, facial scanners or who knows what other devilry like the ones they try to implement in our parts; just a small, narrow door, in front of the stewards who didn’t even bother to check my camera bag, probably because in hindsight the control system is so effective that it stops anyone from introducing blunt objects. I have time to sip a beautiful blonde, accompanied by famous “foot” (brisè or puff pastry tarts filled with beef and then cooked with kidneys, carrots, onions and spices).
Finally I climb the steps to immerse myself in the atmosphere of The Den, from this moment I stop using my camera, asking my cousin to take some photos with his cell phone; I’m in a foreign territory and I wouldn’t want to be seen as an intrusive journalist, like him Yankee Matt you Green street hooligans. When there are a few moments left before the start of hostilities, it plays in the background London Calling by The Clash; from here I see first-hand the difference in approach to the match: if in Italy the pre-match has now become a Hollywood spectacle, in these parts the entertainment maintains a strong “territorial” value; with us Elodie, here some sacred monsters like the Clash.
The teams take to the field with the stands starting with their cheering, characteristic and different from ours, from chants to even the “gesticulate”: we invite our adversaries to give us the local equivalent of the “blowjob“here instead they are blamed for being “wanker”. I try to participate in the cheering, I even manage to sing a few choruses, from the famous: “no one like us, we don’t care, we are Millwall, super Millwall, we are Millwall from the Den”; to the most irreverent: “your sister is your mother, your brother is your father” which, sung in our latitudes, would perhaps have raised a fuss, incapable as our media are of grasping the subtlety between joking, perhaps even bad taste and real crimes .
The opponent is the Preston North End Football Club, founded way back in 1880, a company based in the city of Preston, a center with around 120 thousand inhabitants a few kilometers from the border with Wales. There are around 600 supporters following, a lot given the distance and the poor ranking. They too try to encourage the eleven on the pitch, but like the opposite team, the support is not continuous: in Italy, encouragement is a mission, tiring among other things because it is constant for the entire 90 minutes and which must regardless of the result of the pitch , a script to recite which then makes the corner the main place to experience the match differently; in England, however, the register changes, the play on the pitch is conditioning, no one bothers to lead the stands, everyone watches the match and their backs to the pitch are only turned during the interval.
When the referee blows the whistle to end hostilities, the stadium slowly empties and everyone returns to their lives, some doing so by getting into a taxi and some by taking the train again.
My journey confirms what I had always thought of the English model, both in terms of management of public order, with a more relaxed climate, which as regards typhus, less constant. Of course, I only witnessed 90 minutes which may be an exception rather than the rule, but some sections are so strong that they lead me to believe that matches have always been experienced like this, at least from the second division onwards; from the guests who do not enter the sector dedicated to them in a “triumphal” procession as the Italians have loved to do for some time, up to the useless theater at the end of the match with the teams “obliged” to greet their favorites, with the faces of the players worn out by the match which clearly suggest that, if they could, they would immediately escape to the changing rooms. However, there is no better model, trivially there are different styles that reflect centuries-old cultures and ways of approaching each other, because if it is true that we are a people of poets and actors, often bordering on vanity, there probably the cheer reflects an identity made of substance that doesn’t need theatricality.
The match ended an hour ago and after having once again circumnavigated the stadium, together with my cousins, who for the occasion were forced to act as Cicero for me, I got into the taxi, this time towards North London with various food for thought in the trunk .
Michele D’Urso
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