What Do You Say About Hellas Verona? — Hellas Verona vs Bologna FC: In Pictures 18/09/2023
Gallery of images from Hellas Verona vs Bologna FC 18/09/2023.
The fourth official waddles up to the by-line and half arsed-ly raises the electronic board above his head. There’s six minutes added on at the end of the ninety tonight at the Bentegodi. I’m sat underneath the fluttering yellow and blue flags of Hellas’ fabled Curva Sud, wedged between the running track and the main stand. A particularly uneventful eighty-nine minutes has preceded this. Hellas are in an unusual change-strip white, while the visitors Bologna don their famous Rossoblu home kit. They have had the better of the chances and what feels like most of the possession, Hellas kindly kicking it back to them at almost every goal kick. A set-piece delivered a disallowed goal for Hellas that alongside, what looks to be, a bad first-half injury to Scottish left-back Josh Doig are the only significant events to speak of so far.
Just as I begin to lose hope that this game will have any late drama Bologna number nine Joshua Zirkzee has turned his defender and is striding towards the Verona box, stifling pressure from centre back Isak Hien as he goes. He tries to deliver a pass to one of his overlapping teammates but sends the ball straight into Hellas goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipò’s hands, falling to the ground in the process. A few rows behind me the type of man my Scottish father would refer to as a bowling ball (short, fat and bald) bounces up to the railing and is yelling “Scimmia, scimmia!” and follows this with a repeated low grunt. In English, this word translates to ‘Monkey’.
After his head rush passes he rolls back into his seat. I’m surprised a member of the “master race” is so quickly out of breath. I wonder to myself, what has tipped him over the edge? Why has he saved this racist outburst until now? What has Joshua Zirkzee done differently in the 90th minute than he had done in the 70th? The 40th? Even the first? As far as I’m aware Joshua’s complexion hadn’t changed since the game kicked off, so I suspect it isn’t really about Joshua Zirkzee at all. This little man is just a racist looking for an excuse; and he’s found football.
I’m not going to pretend I understand Hellas Verona better than anyone else. I think it’s foolish to generalise entire fanbases but I find the all-too-common act of being soft on or fetishising far-right ultra-culture in football teeters far closer to fascist apologism than I’m comfortable with. Hellas Verona’s curva is one with a weighty reputation, one that is unfortunately often accurate.
The game comes to an end and the Hellas players approach the curva to receive their cheers, even the most pessimistic of the Gialloblu know this is a good point against the strong young Bologna side that Thiago Motta is building. As we filter out of the stadium and back into the streets of Verona I decide to go looking for Zanzi Bar, a place Tim Parks mentions frequently in his 2002 book ‘A Season With Verona’. The British author spent a full season attending every Hellas Verona home and away game alongside their famous ultra group the Brigate Gialloblu and this was their meeting place. It’s still a popular spot over twenty years later, just a stones throw from the stadium and full of fans loudly discussing what they have just seen. Who was brilliant, who was terrible, but mostly just whether they think they’ll be relegated to Serie B again this year. I approach the bar and after just a few words the young man jokingly decides I must be lost and sits me with some Hellas fans he knows speak English, they immediately ask me if I know Josh Doig. I just say yes.
Pictures from the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi:
Lewis Urquhart
