I find this really disturbing, even though it has happened several times in the past (perhaps that's what makes it disturbing). I'm so glad North American sports are free from this nonsense. For all the hoopla about English hooliganism, there has hardly been anything like this here for decades.
A Tottenham Hotspur supporter has been seriously injured and several hurt in clashes with rival fans in Rome.
Quote:
The Spurs fan was stabbed at the Drunken Ship bar in the Campo de' Fiori district and is understood to have suffered a serious injury to an artery...
The owner of the bar, Mario Manzi, told the BBC: "At 1am there were around 30 English fans here, plus some American students, and some Italians.
"At some point, from around the corner, some 40 guys, all wearing helmets, faces covered with scarves, came here, destroyed that window, and came in.
"The English people hid behind here, and everything was destroyed. There were rocks, iron bars, everything."
He said: "The English fans were very calm, they weren't even drunk, then these men with heads covered came barging in throwing cobblestones. They had clubs and metal rods. It lasted about 20 minutes."
Mr Manzi added: "This was a planned thing. They had studied it. The English people had been here since the afternoon. They were circled, cornered, and weren't allowed to go out."
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And here is an older story entitled
Why is there buttock stabbing in Rome?
Living within sight of Stamford Bridge, I last year saw a number of these crazy Ultras last year when Napoli played Chelsea in the Champions League.
My barber told me how the police had described to him how the Ultras would land en masse at the London area airports and would march shoulder to shoulder, in step out of the airport, leaving behind on the floor paper sheaths of miniature knives they had smuggled in. Double the number of allotted away fans would flood the stadium using counterfeited tickets. There were a number of clashes in the streets around Fulham and Chelsea, which is rare since Chelsea fans are usually sedate (despite their reputation, which dates back to the wild days of the 70s.)
For some people, sports are just an excuse to cause pain and destruction. It's really sad.