Book serialisation: Far Foreign Land, Chapter 11

The contempt of Juventus ultras and two nervous days in Turin. Fear and loathing at Anfield and the Stadio Delle Alpi two decades on from Heysel

The battle it started next morning

FEAR. PANIC. RELIEF. It all happens that quick. The mood had changed in extra time. It’s a case of hanging on.

Jerzy Dudek makes one save from Andriy Shevchenko but the ball falls to the Milan striker perfectly, inside the six-yard box. On an 80-degree angle from Shevchenko, it’s impossible to imagine he will not score. There’s only time to stop breathing as he makes contact.

But the collective gasp, rather than the sight of the ball looping over the bar, explains that the score is still level. How did it happen? A Dudek save? Off the line by someone?

Fear. Panic. Relief. It goes too fast for the brain to compute.

How the hell did we get away with it?

* * *

Turin was just about the last place we wanted to see in 2005. Juventus, the Italian champions, were one of the favourites to win the competition and more than capable of knocking Liverpool out. Yet that was the least of it. Our shared history did not warrant a happy reunion.

Everyone accepted that a surge by Liverpool fans at the Heysel Stadium led to 39 mainly Italian supporters being crushed to death. There is a great difference in perception as to where the blame lies.

On Merseyside, the guilt was easily attributed. The disaster hinged on the collapsing wall. Had it held, no one would have died that night. Uefa and the Belgian authorities carried the blame.

In Turin, it is believed that the tumbling wall was a lifesaver. The victims were trampled or beaten to death by drunk, rampaging Liverpool thugs while they were hemmed in by fences and concrete. The weak brickwork prevented further killing.

There were darker thoughts articulated in private. Many Liverpool supporters believed that if the Italians had stood their ground in the face of the charge – half-hearted by the standards of 1985 – their compatriots would never have been crushed.

In this interpretation of history, all the Second World War clichés come into play. The bullied were blamed for their efforts to avoid conflict. ‘They ran away,’ was said, often. ‘And trampled their own.’

The sad irony is that after Hillsborough, in the quest to avoid accepting responsibility for an outrageous dereliction of duty, the police and Government put forward a version of events that pointed the finger of blame at supporters. The fury this slur caused among Liverpool fans has never abated and even though an inquiry nailed the lies, the public perception still has it that those crushed in the Leppings Lane terrace were drunk, out of control and had burst through the gates without tickets.

Outside Merseyside, many people still believe that the 96 dead of Hillsborough represent some sort of payback for Heysel. The truth is that those killed in the two stadiums have never been given justice.

And some of those who felt the most anger when the guilty blamed the blameless of 1989 were still prone to sneer at the victims of 1985 and not look at their own role in an appalling sequence of events.

Immediately after the draw was made, the chatrooms on Juventus websites became filled with threats, warnings for Liverpool supporters thinking of venturing into the Stadio Delle Alpi. At least 39 of us would die, the cyberchatter said.

In Liverpool, the reactions were mixed. At the Merseyside derby, Everton fans chanted, ‘Thirty-nine Italians can’t be wrong’ and ‘Murderers’. Their team would have played in the European Cup in 1985-86 if not for the Heysel ban. They have been bitter ever since.

In a leap of faith that is unfathomable to rational people, Evertonians insist that, without Heysel, their side would have won the Champions Cup in 1986 and their subsequent history would have been very different and filled with success.

As a case study in how football makes people irrational, the Everton experience is illuminating. Their fans regard themselves as the true victims of the tragedy. The festering bitterness has soured relations between the city’s two sets of supporters and, while the rivalry has never been quite as friendly as portrayed in the media, an unhealthy acrimony has developed in a place where families are divided by football allegiances.

For older Liverpool supporters, there was plenty of soul-searching after the draw. Finally, grudgingly, they admitted their driving role in the events that led to the deaths at Heysel. Yes, the policing was poor and the stadium woefully derelict but, without our bad attitude, the day would have passed with only a football match to recall.

The Liverpool Echo printed a belated apology, blaring ‘Sorry’ from a front-page headline and the crowd at the first leg at Anfield were to hold up coloured cards to create a huge mosaic of contrition and sorrow so that the world would see we had finally repented.

Then the Juventus Ultras arrived in Liverpool.

In a city reluctant to be drawn into any kind of confrontation with them, the Juve fans behaved with truculent aggression, some of them singing songs about Hillsborough at the Albert Dock in the afternoon.

It was not quite enough to provoke a police response but it showed what the visiting supporters thought of Liverpool. Scarves woven with the names of both clubs were offered to the Juventus fans and vehemently rejected. An Italian journalist who had idly draped one of these souvenirs around his neck was jostled and berated by his compatriots. These people did not want the overdue offer of friendship.

When the silence honouring the dead took place with the mass display of remorse before the game, many Juventus fans turned their backs and aimed a single middle finger in the direction of the home crowd. It looked like a warning and a statement of intent.

The timing of the second leg was portentous. It was to be played two days before the sixteenth anniversary of Hillsborough. The last thing we wanted was more bodies to bury.

On a rainy Tuesday, I walked the streets of Turin alone. There were just a handful of Liverpool supporters about – a group sang about Rafa Benitez in a bar – but few were so brazen or stupid.

Small crews of locals with jackets open to show drughi T-shirts – one group of Juventus Ultras model themselves on Clockwork Orange imagery – appeared to be mobbing up 200 yards away. However, by the time they had the numbers to be sure of themselves, the Scousers were long gone. The habit of bar-crawling is ingrained in Liverpool men and here it worked in their favour. It was a very tense night.

Lost and unable to locate the people I’d planned to meet, I turned into a piazza about 1am. There, 50 yards or so away, were about 20 ultras, scarves pulled across their lower faces, bouncing along in that curious way young men looking for trouble cover the ground, half skipping, half shadow boxing.

They were looking for small groups of visiting supporters so there was no immediate need for panic. Relaxed body language and an unconcerned air would let me pass through them as if invisible. I’d brazened out countless situations like this over the years. They’d probably think I was an American tourist. The trick was to slow down very slightly, amble casually across the square and show a dumb confidence that this was just another bit of local colour.

Sounds easy. Except I was shitting myself.

They were gesticulating and pointing. A bigger crew came from the other side of the square. Some had sticks. They were excited, shouting to each other and pointing towards the area that contained the majority of bars. I was now in their midst.

Fighting the suicidal urge to flee, repeating the mantra, ‘be calm, walk calm’ in my mind, I turned into a street with the certainty of someone who knows the terrain. It was a very short dead end. It was the sort of mistake that draws attention.

As I retraced my steps back into the square, my mobile phone rang. Quite a few ultras now looked across. Clearly, I was not Italian. The only option was to answer.

‘Alright, la,’ I said evenly, with no attempt to keep down the volume, judging that a burst of Scouse could even be mistaken for a language other than English. It was my brother, calling from the United States.

It wasn’t much of a conversation, but its casual nature and a slightly forced chuckle were enough to end their interest. They were expecting the people they were looking for to behave in a different manner.

But back at the hotel it took me half an hour to stop shaking. I dreaded the next day. I’d been transported back two decades. Why the hell had I come?

* * *

Good question. Before the match, I called a mate who is far more committed to following Liverpool abroad than I am.

‘No. No chance,’ he said when I asked him if he was going. ‘Not worth it. People will die.’

On the morning of the game the sun was out. It was the worst scenario possible. More than 3,000 away supporters were expected to arrive and if they drank and sang in the squares, gangs like the one the previous night would be sure to attack.

The paper had sent out a news reporter and photographer to cover the anticipated bloodshed and I’d got them tickets for the game. We arranged to meet for the handover and they gave me directions to a café.

It was opposite the Juventus club shop, where hundreds of supporters milled about and queued for entry. Not a comfortable place for a sunreddened Scouser.

Throughout the day, I stiffened at the sound of a scooter, fighting a losing battle with body language. The news guys said they’d drive to the stadium and drop me off. At the hotel, I considered lying to them, saying I’d been called by mates and was getting on the buses provided for away fans. Then I could hole up and stay in the room until it was time to drive back to Milan airport the next day.

I met the car at the appointed time. David, the reporter, looked like an Italian. Pete had his cameras and was clearly press. I felt I had the look of a man who’d murdered 20 years ago. Pete laughed. He’d been in Sarajevo. This was just football.

There was trouble outside the ground. Two hours before kick-off, the ultras were battling with the police and the duo in the front seat headed towards where the gas canisters were flying. I was having none of it.

They could go where they liked, but they were taking me to the Liverpool end or face the consequences. They could see I was serious.

We were not allowed into the Liverpool coach area, so we had to park among home fans. The police lines were a mere 50 yards away but it was a long walk. The setting sun cast long shadows and I watched for the rapid advance from behind, the one we’d lived in fear of since Rome.

It never came. Safely behind the police, we parted. I went into the ground and they decided there was more chance of action outside.

The first person I saw inside was Mark. It had been a long time, perhaps pre-Hillsborough, since we last met. He now lives in Spain.

‘Couldn’t miss this one,’ he said. ‘We’ve all come out of retirement.’

It was a tough crew. Most, I suspect, were at Heysel. All had been irritated by the behaviour of Juventus fans at Anfield but the last thing they wanted was trouble.

‘You know,’ Mark said. ‘You know what it’s like. We’d rather not have it. If we have to have it, we’d rather have it with anyone but these. But if they want it, they’re gonna get it…’

That appeared to be the general philosophy.

The mood in the stadium was not especially hostile. The banners around the ground told us that we would die - except for one that said, ‘You are more ugly than Camilla’, which caused general hilarity. ‘We hope IRA blows you up,’ another said. ‘Be handling our own explosives,’ someone said, laughing. Everything was quiet until about 15 minutes before kick-off.

Suddenly, the ultras threw everything they had at us. Literally. Bottles, coins, batteries and seats flew and a long-distance battle raged.

The Italians were bare-chested and frank in their fury but secure in the knowledge that no one would stop them. The police stayed at the back of the terrace and let them get on with it. The two sets of supporters could never come into contact and the stadium stewards handled the matter.

They were well prepared in hard hats and only stepped in when the occasional lunatic made a solo foray too close to the fences. They seemed more worried that the madmen would scale the fence and fall to their deaths in the chasm separating the fans. These wild men were not dragged out of the ground, but merely placed back in position with their mates ready for another surge.

Unbelievable. At home, behaviour like that would get you banned for life and possibly six months in jail.

It began to dawn on us that this was completely normal. Apart from the banners, they’d done nothing special for us. That would come outside, after the game, we presumed.

The cultural exchange was in full flow, but some Liverpool fans replied with more hurtful weapons than mere projectiles. Two at the front hung over the rail and made pushing motions at the Juventus supporters, as if to imply that the home fans were in retreat. At the end they flopped their hands forward to suggest a collapsing wall.

Twenty years and 96 dead of our own at Hillsborough had taught

these people nothing.

The match was drab, but 0-0 sent us through to the semi-final against Chelsea. We were locked in at the final whistle, and grateful for it, despite the bravado. In the empty stadium, we sang: ‘I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it - here we go, rocking all over the world.’ Status Quo’s song, used to celebrate Bayer Leverkusen goals and adopted by Liverpool fans after victory in Germany, kept the spirits up. Everyone suspected that in a matter of minutes we would be let out to face the hate of 20 years.

Then, after an hour, the police edged us towards the exit. Nervous tension was running high, so it was with some surprise that we found the car park deserted except for riot police. The ultras had not even stayed to harangue and harass us from a distance.

I like it, I like it, I like it!

Then I realised. That gesture eight days earlier, when the Juventus fans turned their back on Anfield’s attempt at reconciliation and friendship, had been misinterpreted. In our folklore, fear of Italians has been deeply ingrained for a quarter of a century after three matches against Roma; that dread of scooters and stilettos. In facing away from Anfield’s apologetic mosaic, the Juventus supporters set that fear running rampant again.

That terror built in Turin. And then nothing. The ultras did not need to fight. They had done their worst. They went to our place and showed their withering contempt for us. At the final whistle in the Delle Alpi, they threw down their flags on the terraces and left them as litter. They were not standards to be carried into battle. The game was over and they went home and turned their back on us again.

The bottle-throwing and the insults before and during the game were part of the pantomime that is match day in Turin. They make those throat-cutting gestures to everyone and this is what we had lived in terror of, the stuff of nightmares.

I had arrived in Turin with a heavy baggage of fear, expecting retribution – however misplaced – to be taken. Walking the streets, there was a sense that, at any moment, someone would drive a knife into your back. That they would pick out your big, red Scouse face in a narrow street and make you pay for Brussels. It was all paranoia.

They were just contemptuously indifferent. They have learnt to live with Heysel. They just did not want to live with us.

Carrying so much fear, Liverpool fans could have behaved in the manner English supporters normally adopt, facing their worries with bluster and colonising Turin’s squares. Instead, sanity reigned. Most stayed out of the city and those who did go in left the banners and singing for the stadium. They behaved - except for the handful of halfwits who made collapsing-wall gestures – with restraint and decorum.

Had they misbehaved in the city, it might have forced the locals out of indifference and blood would have been spilt. We could leave with pride in more than the result.

The police did a good job, too, with a light touch that came as a surprise for seasoned European travellers. As Liverpool fans dispersed all over northern Italy, just one coach headed back to Turin city centre. It was escorted by eight police vans – man-to-man marking and a sweeper system taken to the extreme.

In the centre, Turin was silent, the only sign of life a small group of drughi near the station. They didn’t really want trouble, either. Like the hooligan groups at home, they wanted to make a show of strength and feel lawless. But their drughi T-shirts handily tipped off the police, making confrontation almost impossible.

Turin handled Liverpool’s visit better than anyone could have imagined. It looked like a lovely city.

God, I hope I never have to go back.

Read Chapter 12: Coming up the hill

Order Far Foreign Land here: Cost £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage

For those interested in the culture of Merseyside, try my non-football novel. Good Guys Lost, an epic of Liverpool life set from the 1960s to the 2010s