AOB: Forza Hellas!

WHILE on my summer holidays I read a rather marvellous book.

Entitled A Season with Verona, it is written by Tim Parks, and sees him follow the progress of Hellas Verona in the 2000/01 season, as they attempt to avoid relegation from Serie A.

I imagine that, as an intelligent and discerning bunch, regular readers of this blog are probably already familiar with this book, but if you’re aren’t I’d highly recommend giving it a go – It’s well written and insightful throughout, and paints a vivid picture of the unique nature of Italian football.

As a United fan, one of the things which really struck a chord with me is the relationship between Hellas and another local team, Chievo. I hesitate to call them rivals as the latter, who come from the suburbs of Verona, traditionally bum around in the lower reaches of the Italian football pyramid, and don’t really feature on the radar of the Hellas brigate. In fact, Parks ignores them for the first half of the book, describing them as an “irrelevance”.

Unfortunately, by the end of the season Chievo are un-ignorable, having clinched the Serie B championship and been promoted to the same level as their much bigger cousins. Parks expresses concerns that fans may abandon Hellas, a team with a reputation for racism and bad management, and lend their support to Chievo, who are universally loved by the football fraternity and the media because of their “fairytale rise”.

Sound familiar at all? Parallels with our demise and the rise of that loveable bunch of part-timers from across the A14 perhaps? One hopes our situation will not continue to mirror what is happening in Italy as, while Chievo are still thriving, and have recently returned to Serie A after a one-season absence, Hellas have dropped into Serie C1, and only avoided a further relegation on the last day of last season. I think I speak for U's fans and our Gialloblu comrades when I say: VAFFANCULO HISTON & CHIEVO.