The Italian Social Movement and Inter’s Right

The since dissolved Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement), with it clerical-conservative vision of a centralised Italian state, may not be the first thing people associate with the Italian Ultra movement. However, its role in the fledgling Ultra groups of teams now synonymous with right-wing politics in the late sixties and early seventies should not be dismissed.

Even before its formation, football and politics were intertwined in Italy. Mussolini himself had little doubt over football’s usefulness as a tool which mirrored the fascist ideals of strength, virility and power. 

Founded as a post-fascist political group in 1946, the organisation drew the bulk of its support from Rome, Bari and Naples, playing on calls for social unity and southern resentment of the affluent north.  It looked to stand out in terms of its loyalty to the previous regime, and was able to hold its hegemony over specific regions within the multi-faceted culture of fascism in the country. 1972 saw the party reach the peak of influence holding 56 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Backed considerably by support from the Lazio region of Italy – home to many of the middle classes, police, military and former vehemently pro-Mussolini supporters – it gained 14.8 per cent of the popular vote, with a further 17.4 per cent in Rome.

The ‘success’ would have been unthinkable years earlier.  In the late 1960s the old guard support of the Italian right was dwindling across the party’s heartland, allied with the rise in left-wing youth groups at the time.  Giorgio Almirante, who took up the leadership of the party in 1969 realised that its future survival relied on youth engagement and support.  In 1967 his party had lost almost a fifth of the activists that it had counted on in 1960 while the 1968 election results brought in the party’s lowest ever return of 4.5 per cent.

His first role saw the suggested creation of a Destra Nazionale.  This constituent group was created to draw support from anti-left leaning groups, broadening support in conservative and radical Italy, which led to an eventual merger with the Monarchist National Party.  His attempts to redefine the political right of Italy was closely aligned to increased engagement and mobilisation of centre and extreme-right youth groups.

 

Ultras groups across Italy sympathetic to its vague policies of traditional social values and law and order included those of Ascoli, Hellas Verona, Padova, Triestina, Inter and  Lazio, with the latter two the most fruitful. While teams in the Veneto like Hellas Verona and Padova sided with the centre-right regionalist Liga Veneta Party – the predecessor of the Lega Nord – significant ground was made with Lazio’s  ‘VIKING Lazio’ and Inter’s ‘Boys SAN’.

In the late sixties, A.C. Milan was viewed very much left of the political spectrum, with close ties to the city’s railway workers. Nothing is ever black and white, nor could any footballing city be spilt accurately within a political context, but Inter was considered the team of the middle classes of Milan and its suburbs, with fans sharing similar social conservative views. 

The Lazio region already had a staunch following of the party, so the focus was magnified on Inter. Although support for the Italian Social Movement was weak in the Lombardy region, they had a significant support within the main Ultra group of Inter.  The bulk of Inter’s Boys SAN comprised members of the Fronte della Gioventu, the youth element of the Italian Social Movement. Its neo-fascist influence remains.

While Almirante’s plan worked initially, his impact on Italian football culture was much more significant.

 

El Viaje

She only half-jokingly nodded in the direction of a two-thirds full pint of lager, perched on the bar and long abandoned by its previous owner. ‘You wonna’ fresh one?’ she says, through a sarcastic smile. I was hoping they’d have something sports orientated on the TV, but no, even with over two hours to go until most of the UK’s football matches kick-off, Teletext graces the screen, waiting for the pinks, blues and greens to burst into action as the scores come in from around the country.

A middle-aged man in an ill-fitting Argentina shirt sits adjacent at the bar and I reminisce. . .

***

The laughter grows as his head is forced further into the dusty seat, a sheet of paper waved over his head with barely legible words scrawled on. His incorrect pronunciation of these Porteño shibboleths means his journey has ended before it has begun. He exits the bus to a round of applause and goes back once to the poorly lit bar where our journey had started much earlier.

***

A smattering of Club Atlético Huracán supporters are visible over the throng of the patrons in this poorly-lit yet snug bar, and a beer and a choripán are thrust into my hands as I greet them. Tonight we will make the journey to Rosario.

Bottles of beer, wine and whisky are passed up and down the aisle as the songs break out, while two men towards the front of the bus (one of whom is the driver) share a bag of cocaine between themselves. A flare is set off on the bus and thrown out the window to cheers and as we hurtle north in the darkness.

A man with a deep scar running from his right eye to his chin leans over the seat I’m facing and stares at me. He asks why I’m here and grunts at what he perceives to be a less than adequate answer. He bangs the seat and gestures for me to accompany him as he sings.

***

It’s 4am and I can smell the red wine and cigarettes on her breath as we kiss. ‘Lanús’,she shouts over the noise. Her boyfriend plays for Lanús.

I leave the club alone.

***

I left work early and arrived in a western suburb of Buenos Aries in the early evening. The street is secluded and lined with trees, as well dressed women in faux fur walk their dogs, their cigarette smoke and rose-based perfume fighting against the ubiquitous smell of Buenos Aries: dog piss.

Soon I’m hit with the comforting smell of an impromptu barbecue set-up over some coals in what passes for the garden – a dust filled expanse where stray dogs bask in the end of the sun’s rays – and I know I have arrived.

***

‘Yeah, just an Abbot Ale, please’.  She smiles and gives me the change.

Teletext remains on the TV. 

 

Confessions of a closet fan

It’s a warm bottle but I’m leaving soon so I don’t complain, stuffing the rest of the change into my pocket as she looks away aimlessly.  The conversation exhausted, she shuffles her feet and gazes aimlessly towards whatever is on the TV, sipping her wine and pulling a stray thread hanging from the sleeve of her blue jumper.

We’ve covered a lot: reality TV, holiday destinations, mortgages, dual-nationality and food, but we’re toiling and we both know it. I take another sip from the bottle as she excuses herself to go outside for a cigarette. I want to join her but I welcome the break from forced conversation. I’ve never met this girl in my life and it’s evident we both want to be anywhere else than here. 

We’ve kept up the pretence long enough and I’m relieved when a mutual friend comes to collect her.  The arrangement was for me to wait with this girl in an airport bar until her friend arrived and I had upheld my part of the arrangement.

‘Did you show him your tattoo?’, our mutual friend says, gesturing in my direction.   A shake of the head and the smile is cast in my direction as my drinking companion slowly lifts up her skirt to reveal the club emblem of Racing Club de Lens on her lower calf.

The rest of the evening is a blur but I do have a cracking picture of the girl in a nightclub bathroom, perched over a sink and scrawling a questioning remark about the sanity and sexual preferences of LOSC Lille Métropole supporters.

Over coffee in the morning, she told me that she had almost fallen into fanaticism and her love of football certainly didn’t run in the family. She was 31, shy – sober, at least – and had never really found anyone who had shared her love of football, making her wary when speaking to people she hadn’t met in case they thought her to be fixated on something many to her viewed as ‘boring’.

She grew up in Montélimar before moving to Paris to take on a media job, travelling up to watch her beloved RC Lens when she could.  But for all of the time she spent planning trips to watch her side across France, she viewed her support like one would perhaps view an extra-marital affair: secretive with wary glances cast towards her friends and family should they uncover her devotion, discover her great ‘secret’.

It certainly worked for her.

A place in the stand

Mist, Malbec and Mendoza

It’s already too late to stay on the bus for its return to Mendoza as the driver explains he needs to go home.  ‘Next bus leaves in 6 hours’, he grunts, motioning to the already opened door.  The plan was to go to a small, artisan beer producer, high in the Andes.  Instead we missed the stop and leave the bus alone, not a house in site.  The driver starts the engine and it splutters into life as the vehicle moves away along a dirt track road while we take in our surroundings.  A gentle rain has started and mist blows down from the low-lying hills, the snow-capped Andes peering out from behind the range. There is nothing here so we walk.

And walk.

After an hour we come across a small shop selling netting, paint and a selection of alcohol and canned foods.  We buy some Quilmes and blow the dust and grime from the bottles.  The shopkeeper eyes us with suspicion and shakes his head, hair drooping to one side, in answer to our question of a nearby bar.  I sip the beer and trudge along a single track road as my two companions smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, kicking stones as the mood drops.

Over a brooding hill we see the faint glimpse of smoke – a sign of potential life - and leave the track heading in its general direction. The ground underfoot is slippery and we fall as goats run off, startled by our intrusion.  Then there it is – a pub.

Paint flakes from its gables and a window-shutter slaps violently against the cracked window it’s supposed to be protecting, taped together to hide a 12-inch gash in its corner.  We enter and an elderly barman jumps up from his seat beside a fire, wind blowing the smoke back into the room against a clearly blocked chimney.  We take a seat under an aging painting of the landscape we’ve just escaped and a menu is thrust into our palms.  Its existence is purely aesthetic and we’re quickly informed there is only one thing on the menu.

Three bowls of steaming bean stew with fatty pork are thrust on the table as the man kicks another log onto the fire and reaches above a crumbling shelf to place three glass tumblers alongside our lunch.  Two bottles of Malbec follow soon after as he pulls a seat towards our table, eager to question us as to why we are here.

A Club Deportivo Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba team photo takes pride of place at the bar and the man gives me a wizened, toothless grin as it cathces my eye. ‘El Expreso’ [The Express], he coughs, dislodging phlegm onto the table.  He’s up from his seat in a flash and picks the picture up, keen to show off something which is of clear value to him. 

‘I’ve never been’, he tells us when we ask how often he watches them. ‘Too busy up here and Mendoza is too far away for a man like me’, he says. He blows a stream of smoke from a pipe he’s been casually smoking when I ask if he watches them play on TV.  In a digital age he gets his football fix from local paper sport reports, articles he tells us which the local postman has deilvered for the last 15 years in return for homemade chorizo and a little wine.  Perhaps some homemade dulche de leche, if any is going spare.

He beckons us towards a back room and roots around under a pile of heavy woolen coats and packets of biscuits.  A smile once agains spreads over his face as he finds what he’s looking for: five battered photo albums, full of newspaper match reports.

We sit for hours as more bottles of wine are consumed, and by a roaring fire, he regales us with stories of the matches.  It’s as if he was at every single one, as he notes the scorers, controversial decisions and unused substitutes.

I’m fascinated.

He has followed a sport and a team – which he clearly loves – on the basis of newspaper match reports, things which I shy away from if Dundee United lose. Is it possible to build love for a Club which you will never see play, not even on TV? This man has, indeed, his love appears stronger for it. He hasn’t experienced the allure of a noisy ground as you wait impatiently outside, or the rush of the crowd at a goal.  It matters little to him. 

 'La comida, a reposar, y la cena a pasear’, he calls to us as we leave [After dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile].  And walk we do, back down the hill and past the sheep.  The mist has lifted and the rain has stopped and I think about the old man in a red wine-induced haze.  I’m fascinated by his fandom and for his dedication to his Club, in exceptionally non-orthodox circumstances.

I should send him some translated articles from Scotland, I think, as the bus draws into sight.

 A place in the stand

An apology to football

I have a confession to make, one in which may impinge on my ability to write about and enjoy the sport I love: football. In fact, this sentence may not be entirely true. I’m falling out of love with televised football, a mainstay of the game, the root of all evils of contemporary football and what’s worse is that it’s been a long and drawn-out affair. I saw it coming a long time ago and should have acted then. 

I could blame money but money shouldn’t affect love, nor has it.  Football is too expensive, of that there’s no denying but its involvement has no power over my lackadaisical response to a televised match.  Indeed, to make things worse, I now find myself betting-in-play during the game, muting the sub-par commentary or focusing on the crowd to raise interest.  Football’s equivalent to those stuck in a dull, lifeless relationship trying in vain to get the spark back.

But I can’t talk this one through with the TV; I can’t prioritise my time to sit-down with a televised game, spending quality time with the match.  ‘How was your day, football?’ I’d say, keen and waiting on the response.  When did become I become so blasé about the entire ordeal? There is no longer a notable rise in interest as the league table is shown or the small involuntary facial movements approving as the previous highlights are shown. Goal after goal, tackle after tackle.

But worse is to come, readers.  Much worse.

I was on the sofa some weekends ago, sitting with a friend of mine who had come to Glasgow for a weekend of gigs and alcohol. A clash of two non-descript English teams on a Sunday, marketed and advertised to within an inch of life.  The glitzy logos, garish backgrounds and excitement of the ‘best league in the world’ failed to work on me, however.  Even as I write this I feel slightly cynical, as if I’ve given on televised football already. Perhaps I have.

‘Can we change the channel, Blair?’ she said, spoken in a hopeful tone.  She was met with little reproach and we watched American X-Factor instead. I didn’t even feel ashamed after the illicit encounter with stateside pop. 

The cheating didn’t begin there, however. What started as the casual channel change during breaks in play soon become missing swathes of the action to watch even more mind-numbing action of terrestrial TV.

It wasn’t always like this.

Is it wrong for someone on the wrong side of their twenties to reminisce about the halcyon days of old? Of a Sunday morning where the very opening theme of Football Italia would set the pulse racing or of looking forward to staying up late to watch the Sportscene highlights?

What happened to Champions League nights watching teams like Leeds United with genuine interest from the first minute to the last.  I would shut myself off in my family sitting room, lights off; transfixed for the duration. When did Sky and ESPN’s coverage of football become such a chore to watch? Is it just me? I seek reassurance.

A place in the stand

Football and French fiscal policy

If recent opinion polls are to be believed* France will have a new President this summer. François Hollande wants a different country to the one of today and has strengthened his position with a planned programme of tax increases, a progressive common market and a new European treaty focused on growth and budgetary discipline.

He has also alienated French footballing bodies and directly cut his strong lead in the polls.  Football and politics are odd bedfellows, as he’s found out to his cost.

Hollande, 57, comes from Rouen, a city in the far north of France and one of the dullest in the country.  The man is anything but.   He is a graduate from the École Nationale d'Administration, a French version of the UK’s fast stream where the top civil servants and officials are chosen and his political CV is the envy of many.

Those within his campaign team have worked exceptionally hard to get him in a position of strength and they have been keen to keep the probable soon-to-be President away from ideological alignments and petty tit-for-tat feuding played out in the media, so often a curse of the French political left.

Despite his stance as a pragmatic and stubborn leftist, he is overtly pro-European and supported the French ‘NO’ campaign during the 2005 constitutional treaty debate.  His rating in the polls has skyrocketed due to an oratory prowess long forgotten in French politics and his key campaign themes of law and order, social housing and the failures of deregulated financial services (with more than a sneer directed at the centre-left governments in Sweden, Spain and the UK) have resonated with the public from Marseille to Montbéliard.

But just last week a proposed tax increase was announced which drew heavy criticism from those within French football.  The proposed rise would see those earning over €1 million – including a number of players within Ligue 1 -  paying 75 percent tax, a move which  Frederic Thiriez, the head of the professional football league has warned would be ‘the certain death of football’ [in the country].  The announcement was met with more than a sharp intake of breath as the highest tax rate at the moment is 45 percent.

Fears surrounding the top French club’s ability to attract the best in European talent may not have had Hollande or his advisers quivering with fear but the trickle-down effect from club to fan has hit him hard.  In an oblique attack on Hollande’s proposed fiscal chance, the current French President, said: "The folly of tax policies that discourages work, that discourages initiative, isolates France from the rest of the world."  The comments hit home.

Sport Minister, David Douillet, a member Sarkozy's centre right-wing UMP party, spoke to the French parliament and claimed that the move would ‘kill French sport’ while Sarkozy’s communications team quick to blow the issue up with early estimations suggesting up to 200 players would be hurt by the tax hike.

You don’t mess with football, something the UMP has been quick to point out, narrowing the gap on Hollande in the process with recent polls suggesting that Hollande now leads Sarkozy by only 16 points.

Never underestimate the power of football, François.

*NB the system of running elections over two rounds can produce shocks, just ask Lionel Jospin.

In a flat overlooking Tynecastle. . .

Amanda was a strange character.  She collected pressed flowers, old ‘Shoot’ magazines and had two defining characteristics: she loved football; Scottish football, any football and she was alone.  Her love of football had started as a child; her loneliness, much later.

It was already quite late when she returned back to her one bedroom flat on Gorgie Road, Edinburgh.  She placed her keys down on the kitchen table and poured herself a glass of orange juice that she neither liked, nor wanted.

She was however, obsessed with vitamins and she knew that orange juice was a good source, or so she was told. The articles and dog-eared paper cuttings she read all stated that vitamin C was good for the immune system and Amanda had neither the time, nor the desire, to have her sensitive bodily self defences challenged by germs. 

Amanda took out an old clipper lighter from her pocket, scarred and chipped from its dual usage as a makeshift bottle opener and clicked the flame on and off.  On and off.  On and off. 

The rain had started to fall heavily and the fluorescent street lights gave off an atmospheric glow, illuminating a poster of the Heart of Midlothian team as she shuffled in her seat, tipping over a precariously balanced mug of tea which until then had resided on her sofa. 

Amanda poured herself another glass of orange juice and grimaced as she downed it in one.  She nibbled on an apple while reading one of the magazines that she had found lying about the place – there was an abundant choice.  It was an old publication and the pages were worn with age. 

Magazines could be found in every corner of her tiny flat.  She loved the smell and the texture of the  publications and had been fascinated with ‘Shoot’ ever since she was a child.  Her disposable income however, would be spent on magazines varying in subject matter from rock climbing to electronic music making.  She held subscriptions to travel, football and higher education publications and would spend £5 a day on different magazines in the little shop that her ex-boyfriend worked in on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.  

When Hearts played at home she was happy and her mood notably lifted.  I visited her a few years ago before losing touch to find her hanging out the window, cigarette in one hand, a cartoon of Tesco value orange juice in the other, singing along to the faint sound of the Hearts’ supporters in the vicinity.

She pulled a maroon jumper that her mother had made for her tight to her face so that it covered her nose and mouth.  The wool tickled her face and she breathed in to feel the warm air on her lips. 

I said goodbye and as the door closed behind me, heard the faint song of: “H-E-A. . .”

A place in the stand