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Untypical Boro is a lively topical blog by the Evening Gazette's award winning football columnist Anthony Vickers that aims to get behind the headlines to flesh out the stories that Boro fans are talking about.

Incisive, provocative and well informed it seeks to engage with articulate supporters and give them a platform to help set the agenda on the issues that matter.

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Normal Service Is Resumed

Posted by on March 17, 2006 8:53 AM | 

RIGHT, I'm back from being pushed around by the goon squad gorillas who think football is a police state with a few apologies.

Firstly, an apology that for a string of reasons I couldn't do the blog in Rome. After the brutal assault on Boro fans news desk hi-jacked me and sent me scuttling around the city looking at people's battle scars and phone video-clips so my plan to post casually from sophisticated pavement cafes overlooking fountains never came off.

Secondly an apology for playing down the early reports of the violence. On Tuesday night myself and camera-lugging snapper Dave Charley walked around Rome for four hours actively looking for Boro fans. We felt like the Proclaimers.. I have walked 500 miles and I will walk 500 more. You should see the blisters.

The Drunken Ship was one of the three bars we were looking for. We found the Albert and the Fiddlers Elbow but not the Ship, although we must have walked within 100 yards of it at one point.

That either makes me a bad journalist for not finding the story or a lucky lad for not getting my head stoved in. My wife and the editor take different positions on that.

Then when I got to the Stadio Olimpico I couldn't get a good enough signal to keep the link up long enough to post. Most of my impressions from the game went into yesterday's Gazette piece on the atmosphere accompanied by a brilliant Charley pic of the flag-wielding ultra silhoutted against the smoke.

But I'm back now so normal service is resumed.


Comments (2)

Rob Harris wrote...

Normal ? my backside is still sore with having to sit around for hours while Roma police finish their pasta, or whatever they were supposed to be doing in those hours leading up to the game. Don't get me wrong, I love Italy and have been there on holiday quite a few times, but this visit was the torturous one of my life.
It was obvious from our apologetic travel guide on our coach that she wished us "enjoyment" but not victory. Turned out she was a Roma fan,surprise, surprise, we were kept standing in the road beside the coach for 25 minutes plus and then let into the coach to sit for another 1 hour 20 minutes cooped up. As one of my fellow passengers remarked you could not help believe they and the police were taking us for a ride and a laugh. By the end of this time the enbankment next to the coach resembled another fountain if you get my drift.
Although I personally did not have direct contact with any of the police officers, I did experiance the result of their inactivity. Why were we kept waiting another 2 hours after the game cooped up in the ground? -in England, if any such known hooligans were waiting outside the ground after at the most 45minutes, they would have been arrested!
No mate, it isn't back to normal, it was barbaric and an insult that should not go by without them being told what we thought of their "organisation". AS Roma, after the terrible incidents on the eve of the game should be banned for a number of years from european competition until they get their act together. It wasn't just Boro getting victory on the 15 March 2006, it was sanity.

Posted by: Rob Harris  | March 18, 2006 11:12 AM

John Powls wrote...

Vic

Read again my comments on "Europe Through The League" before and after the Charlton game.

I know you and I disagree about this but The Current Manager has done it again today at Blackburn. In common with his colleague managers who disresepected the league and their opponents we got what he, and they, deserved.

The difference is that the other 2 are both at 40 points plus and safe - we are well away from that. They didn't have the advantage of playing against 10 men for 35 minutes either.
Bolton next week - do you fancy us for that? I don't.

As predicted in my earlier posting I can see us changing places with Pompey after they cane us at their place on Easter Saturday with us on the same points as now. We are only relying on all of the others below us doing worse than we do and it'll only take one more of those to do a Pompey and we're in the do-do.

Why won't he ever learn - so yes normal McLaren service in the Prem is resumed!

Posted by: John Powls  | March 18, 2006 5:16 PM

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