Here We Go Gathering Cups In May. Nicky Allt
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On the Wednesday morning I opened me eyes about 60 km north of Rome. The dawn hadn’t long broken, and already the sun was on about gas mark four. The fields were baked dry, and everything was calm. You just knew we were in for a scorcher. Jimmy was half-awake, staring out the window, and Wardy was still asleep … grinning, with a can in his hand. It was early, and I was buzzing. It was a mixture of match excitement and relief that I was finally getting off the train. It felt strange. This was the run in – just a rag-arse kid from Kirkby ready to enter the Eternal City. It was a place that working-class lads weren’t expected to get to – a city I’d have probably never seen in me life if it wasn’t for Liverpool Football Club.
On the outskirts of the city the poverty was in your face – run-down blocks of flats with washing hanging from verandas and graffiti everywhere. It definitely wasn’t what I’d seen in the Mario Lanza film. Jimmy broke the silence. ‘It’s a fuckin’ dump,’ he shouted, which got a big laugh. We crawled along for the last mile, then finally, after thirty-seven hours of backache, arse-ache, heartburn, thirst, hunger and sweat, we pulled into Rome’s main Termini station.
The Siege of Rome
In 1944 a young Bob Paisley rode into Rome on a tank when the city was liberated. In ancient history it was the Etruscans and the Gauls who flooded in and took over. In the year AD 1977 it was the turn of the Scousers. To say that the Romans were worried is an understatement. English clubs’ rep abroad was well dodgy. Tottenham fans had rioted in Rotterdam at the ’74 UEFA final, and Leeds fans went berserk and wrecked the Parc des Princes in Paris during the ’75 European Cup, both with only a fraction of the fans we had in Rome. The I-ties were so paranoid about the situation that they had 4000 bizzies on duty that day, including crack sections of the Carabinieri (military bizzies) plus riot squads and anti-terror units. It was the biggest-ever police operation in Italy for a footy match. The Olympic Stadium owners weren’t taking any chances either. They actually took out extra insurance cover of seventy thousand pounds, in case we ransacked the stadium. I suppose the hysteria was understandable, but if they’d have done their homework, they could have all sat back with a big fat Italian cigar. Because we weren’t English; we were Scousers … you know the score.
‘Oh, we’re the greatest team in Europe and we’re here in Italy … Italy … Italy’ was the song that greeted Rome as we came out the station. The sun was now on about gas mark seven. The heat hit us like a flame-thrower. I reckon I can honestly say that not one of the 26,000 had sun lotion. Nobody went abroad on holidays back then, and at home the sun was like a UFO, so suncream was unheard of. Some beaut on the train was telling everyone that if it got too hot, the best thing to use was olive oil. The soft bastard must’ve ended up barbecued. Buses were laid on to take us through the city, but we headed straight for a cafe over the road and sat under a parasol. Jimmy had the Italian waiter fucked: ‘D’yer sell bitter, mate?’ The waiter just stood there.
Wardy’s attempt sounded African, like Idi Amin. ‘Bitter … beer,’ he said. The waiter came back with three lagers. Wardy raised a toast to Rome … grinning, with a bottle in his hand. We savoured the moment, watching hundreds of Reds pour out the station; dozens had criss-cross red marks on their backs from the luggage racks.
The I-ties had warned us all via the Echo to beware of pickpockets, Rome being the dipping capital of Europe. It was a big talking point amongst Reds. The bullshitters were in their element. One lying bastard by the cafe said that 200 people off our train were dipped as they came out the station. ‘D’yer mean by the same fella?’ Wardy said. Everyone absorbed the warnings, but by the time we got to Rome it’d become a source of pisstaking. The main prank on the day was sliding your hand into one of your mate’s pockets and watching his paranoid reaction. I had Jimmy spinning round like a gunslinger all day. If the dippers were rubbing their thieving hands waiting for 26,000 middle-class English tourists (the only folk who travelled those days) then they must’ve got a big shock when they saw the rough, unwashed hordes emerge from the station. We looked more destitute than them. One of the best shouts was from a white-haired old Scouser sitting by us outside the cafe. He said, ‘The coppers have just arrested a dipper. They emptied his pockets and found 150 giros and 200 sick notes.’
After a few cold beers and an oily ham cob we moseyed, not knowing or caring where we were going. We followed what sounded like a fox hunt to a street around the corner. It could’ve been any street in Liverpool. Hundreds were sitting outside bars, drinking and reading Tuesday night’s Echo. They were mainly from the airborne battalions that’d been winging in all night and morning blowing little trumpets they’d bought at Speke airport for a quid. A total squadron of sixty-eight planes had touched down since the weekend – the biggest airborne assault on Europe since the battle of Arnhem. For 99 per cent of Red passengers it was their first-ever flight. Some loved it, some hated it and some were so arse-holed that they probably still don’t remember it. A gang of lads told us about a couple of stowaways who hid on their plane at Speke. They almost pulled it off but were smoked out after being sussed sneaking across the runway.
Fleets of orange trams kept passing with dozens of Reds hanging off them holding up fat green bottles of ale and singing the ‘Arrivederci, Roma’ song. It was only early, but already our heads were starting to get fuzzy. We wised up and decided to shoot back to the station for a swill, then try and see a few sights: Colosseum, Vatican, Trevi Fountain and all that lark.
I got some weird looks from locals in the station bogs when I started using the bandage on me hand as a toothbrush. The bandage was decomposing by the hour. It had ale and orange-juice stains on it and was coming in handy as a sweatband. There were about fifteen toilet cubicles in there. They were the first bogs we’d ever seen with just a hole in the floor. We couldn’t believe it. Jimmy was pushing doors open saying, ‘Where’s the pans?’ I wouldn’t have minded, but the holes in the floor were tiny. We just had to get on with it. Quite a few Scousers were dotted about in the other cubicles. There was loads of laughing and shouting going on. ‘This is like The Golden Shot’ got a laugh. Someone came back with ‘Y’mean The Golden Shit’. Wardy got a giggle with ‘I’ve just gone in off the post’. Jimmy’s voice was unmistakable: ‘I think I’ve just hit the fuckin’ corner flag.’ It was a good grin but without doubt the most awkward, uncomfortable Barry White I’ve ever taken, especially with my bandaged right hand out of use. I was like a fuckin’ contortionist.
The phone boxes only took special coins with grooves cut into them. Jimmy’s translation was quality: ‘All right, mate. Have y’got any of them phone coin things … lire for the blower?’ It descended into sign language, with Jimmy holding an imaginary phone to his ear saying, ‘Hello … hello.’ He got two coins, and we headed for a phone box. Jimmy put his in first and dialled just the normal seven digits, like you do at home. ‘It’s dead,’ he said.
I thought I knew the score and, like a tit, said, ‘You forgot to dial 051 from outside Liverpool.’ Jimmy lashed his coin up the street. I’ve still got mine.
By two o’clock the sun had hit gas mark ten. I was down to my T-shirt, with me jumper tied round me waist. Wardy had done the same, and Jimmy was down to his skin. We bumped into a gang of Netherton Reds who were swigging from impressive, big, vase-looking wine bottles with basket handles. Wardy inspected one closer. ‘Fuckin’ ell, is there a genie in this?’ he said. They told us the bottles only cost two thousand lires each (about one pound fifty). Our sightseeing plans were about to be vinoed into touch.
We wandered the streets with our genie bottles. Every swig took our eyes up the walls of tall, baroque buildings that lined the roads and piazzas. The whole city was like a 3000-year-old museum. We passed an old tramp sprawled in a doorway with a flea-bitten dog tied to his wrist with string. Some Scouser had obviously walked past him earlier, because there was a piece of cardboard hanging off the tramp’s neck with the words ‘Gordon Lee’ written on it. We buzzed and threw a few thousand lires in his begging bowl. Whoever did it didn’t realise that it’d earn the tramp a tidy few bob off every Red who went past.
One bar we passed looked like something from The Godfather. Around three of its tables Reds were sprawled on