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A new type of football violence is emerging in the Italian capital, says Roberto Gotta
Italy has again been surprised by an outbreak of football violence, and moved swiftly, though as usual too late, to correct it. It wasn’t the usual city centre skirmishes but a different kind of violence: political slogans written on large banners and racist chants, a disease which had been spreading for a long time without anyone noticing.
Wednesday 1 Holders Spurs slink out of the Worthington Cup at Fulham, their 3-1 defeat described by George Graham as "by far our worst performance since I became manager". A crowd of 17,000 sees Aston Villa trounce Southampton 4-0. "The crowds have been crap because we've played crap until tonight," says the forthright John Gregory. In the Scottish equivalent Rangers' mini-crisis continues with an extra-time defeat at Aberdeen (yes, Aberdeen). Huddersfield threaten legal action against the Football League for referee Jeff Winter's failure to award a penalty during their Worthington match against Wimbledon. That'll work. Darlington are the lucky losers drawn to play at Villa in the third round of the FA Cup. "I have a direct line to the big man upstairs," says their safe-cracking chairman. The government rejects plans for the new Wembley, on the grounds that it would not be able to stage major athletics tournaments as well as football matches.
Milan have crashed out of Europe in the early stages. Richard Mason reports on how their charismatic owner is trying to prevent this ever happening again
Milan’s failure to secure even a place in the UEFA Cup after the first phase of the Champions League is richly ironic. They are the Italian champions, and yet they are the only one of the three Italian sides involved not to qualify for the next stage.
Italy have tried the idea of two referees. Richard Mason tells us why he is impressed
The second round, first leg matches of the Italian Cup, played on October 12-14, saw the start of an experiment that could have far-reaching consequences. For the first time in an important competition in Europe, matches were controlled by two referees.