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Having survived a brutal beating, one fan is determined to draw attention to Italian police violence. Matthew Barker explains
On September 24, 2005, Brescia fan Paolo Scaroni was among a group of supporters gathered at Verona’s Porta Nuova train station, preparing to make their way home after a game against the local team, Hellas. Before getting on board, Scaroni went to a nearby McDonald’s to buy a few bottles of water for him and his friends. As he ran back up the steps to the platform he was attacked by a group of eight riot police officers. The beating was so severe that he fell into a coma. It took 20 minutes for medical staff to arrive on the scene then he was operated on at a local hospital.
Matthew Barker reports on a desperate but imaginative protest movement that relied on solidarity from the local community
In late February, players, staff and supporters of Lombardy side Pro Patria staged a three-day sit-in protest at the club’s Stadio Carlo Speroni. In recent years the Lega Pro Division Two (fourth tier) team has endured a litany of miserable luck and disastrous financial mismanagement. Occupying the stadium was a last attempt to save a dying club and a famous name in the Italian game, even if i tigrotti (the little tigers) last played in Serie A in 1956.
While the big clubs claim conspiracy, Matthew Barker believes that Verona don’t receive enough credit for a famous title in the 1980s
The popular back story to Hellas Verona’s one and only Championship win, in 1985, tends to focus on the introduction of a new public balloting system for the selection of referees. Claims had been repeatedly made that the bigger clubs would block the use of certain unfavoured match officials. Juventus had just won two controversial scudetti in a row. Surely, the argument goes, it was no coincidence that the one season when referee selection was kept in check, a smaller team were able to take the top prize?
For five surreal seasons in the 1970s, the FA Cup had an extra round. Owen Amos looks back at the games no one remembers
Of all the FA’s daft ideas – and there have been a few – the FA Cup third-place play-off must be among the worst. If, as the saying goes, no one remembers the runners-up, then who cares who came third? The answer, as it turned out, was no one at all. These were, and are, the forgotten FA Cup ties. The first play-off was in 1970, between that season’s beaten semi-finalists, Manchester United and Watford. The game was played on a Friday night at Highbury, the day before the Cup final. United won 2-0; 15,105 people watched. And were they impressed?