Search: 'Fan culture'

Thailand’s answer to Zico did not have a happy time in West Yorkshire but, as Steve Wilson reports, there are corners of Asia that are forever Huddersfield

When Kiatisak Senamaung touched down at Pleiku airport, Vietnam, in February 2002, he was overwhelmed by the number of fans there to greet him. The 30-year-old captain and leading goalscorer of neighbours Thailand had signed for second division Hoang Ahn – who gave him a brand new Mercedes, a five-bedroom house and a contract worth £5,600 a month, more than 300 times the average local wage. An open-top car took him to the training ground where 4,000 fans turned out to watch his first training session. One of the number told the Bangkok Post just what Senamuang’s arrival meant to the team: “It’s great that such a famous player is coming to play for us. We’ll probably become champions!” 

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Believe it or not, but the Italians are going for an English job when it comes to stadium security, writes Matt Barker

For most of this year the Italian press, spearheaded by a campaign in La Gazzetta dello Sport, have been calling for the introduction of a stewarding system all’inglese and the removal of perimeter fencing in the nation’s stadiums.

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The Italian authorities have reacted hard to recent embarrassments, but are also groping their way towards a more positive ‘English solution’, writes Paul Virgo

The shower of flares that halted Internazionale’s Champions League derby with AC Milan triggered some tough talking from the Italian authorities. Police have been instructed to call off matches at the first sign of trouble, inside or outside the stadium. Likewise, the Italian federation (FIGC) has given referees instructions to suspend matches if fans hurl flares or other missiles. Turnstile checks have been beefed up to make it more difficult to smuggle flares or offensive banners into the grounds. Teams whose fans are responsible for trouble causing a match to be abandoned will automatically lose the game 3‑0. If the trouble involves both sets of fans, both teams lose 3‑0.

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Dear WSC
While listening to Alan Green’s Five Live commentary on Chelsea’s game with Barcelona I was struck by the big Ulsterman’s remarkable similarity to the voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo at excitable moments. Have any other readers noticed similarities between commentators and their cartoon characters? I’ll certainly be keeping an ear open for it in future.
Steve Morgan, Kingston

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The death of 39 fans at the 1985 European Cup final was the culmination of an era when, as Mike Ticher recalls, English football appeared to be in terminal decline

It’s the timeworn right of each generation to complain that things are not what they used to be. In 1983, Geoffrey Pearson’s classic work Hooligan: A history of respectable fears showed how at any given point in the past 150 years public opinion held firmly that society’s current state of violence and mayhem contrasted with a peaceful “golden age”, consistently located about 20 years previously. Oddly, the very time he was writing has proved the exception to his rule. In football at least, no one in their right mind would want to risk a return to the mid-1980s.

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