Naples Watching calcio in Naples…there’s nothing quite like it, as Tom Flaherty explains… (February 07)

I don’t think there’s anywhere in Europe quite like Naples. Dirty, overcrowded and beleaguered by large and small scale criminality, there are parts of it which make the bar scene in Star Wars look like a night at Glyndebourne. It is without doubt, one of the greatest cities in the world.

No one visits Naples and leaves without an opinion of it. You’ll either hurry away, never to return or become as protective of this “petulant” city as its citizens are. Moreover, if you have any footballing blood in you whatsoever, you will find nowhere in Europe as committed in such large numbers to its team – Napoli. Last year, the derby with Avellino, played in the third (regionalised) tier of Italian football, drew a crowd of just under 70,000.

You’ll need to readjust some of your sensibilities to get the most out of the place. For example, if you get a taxi from the airport into town there is a chance that your driver will invent a couple of new taxes en route to bump up the fare or maybe add a baggage charge per suitcase and all of this will be irrelevant anyway because he won’t have used the (broken) meter in the cab. You can either get arsey and have an argument with him or you can enter the type of negotiations common across Italy where a middle ground is met and everyone’s happy. Whether you’ll be able to do this after the helter skelter, “there’s a tram coming straight for us”, tyre squealing car chase drive to your destination is another matter.

When I first visited Naples about ten years ago, no one really paid attention to traffic lights. Red merely indicated that the driver ought to, maybe, drop a gear. However, innumerable traffic accidents have seen things come full circle and I am told that green now means stop and red means go. This will not sound as baffling once you’ve been there.

The city is the most densely populated in all of Europe and there are times when it feels more like being in South America than a two hour flight from London. Take the funicular up to Vomero and you can see the (unregulated) sprawl of low and high rise buildings disappear into the distance. You’ll also see Mount Vesuvius. This still active volcano features in many anti Napoli songs as many of their opponents fervently hope that one day there will be a loud bang and no more Naples. And of course this is exactly what happened a couple of thousand years ago in Pompei, a couple of miles outside the city.

It’s an incredibly superstitious place, steeped in Catholicism. Every street has dozens of lottery card sellers, lottery number predictions and psychics who will tell you which numbers are favoured in the next draw. Confusingly, there are two lotteries. The first is run by the government, but the second is run by the Camorra (Neapolitan mafia) and is more popular. The feeling is that you’re more likely to be paid by a fellow Neapolitan (criminal or otherwise) if your numbers come up than a national government that is widely distrusted.
Neapolitans are a great bunch, as long as you’re “onside”. It is impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone about Napoli the football club if you don’t subscribe to the accepted facts that 1) Maradona is the greatest footballer ever, EVER and 2) Napoli’s recent fall from grace has been engineered by those in the North.

Maradona and conspiracy are ever present themes.

Common folklore has it that when the club announced that it intended buying Maradona but was a million or so short of the asking price, the streets around the San Paolo quickly filled as fevered (and mainly impoverished) locals emptied their savings accounts and brought their money to the club. I have spoken at length in broken Italian/English with several fans who fervently believe that there is a plot to rid the world of their team and nothing, absolutely nothing will disavow them of this opinion.

Recent history has been unkind to Naples and it would take several thousand words to adequately summarise the various name changes, relegations, resignations, floods, crowd trouble and various other woes that have beset the club. The club was taken over by the film director Aurelio De Laurentiis a couple of years ago and he has overseen an upturn in the club’s fortunes. Asked why he loved the football club he responded “all cities in Italy are black and white. Only Napoli is in colour.”

At the time of writing, the team have escaped Serie C and are currently riding high in B.

To say that the fans can be a fiery lot is something of an understatement and the San Paolo is one of the last places in Italy where the authorities still struggle sometimes to keep a lid on things. My first ever teargassing at an Italian stadium took place here – I wouldn’t recommend it.

With the exception of Genoa, it would appear that every single football team in Italy has a special dislike for Napoli, and whilst many teams do not bring many supporters to the San Paolo, Napoli traditionally have a very good away support, bolstered by those who have moved north for work. Teams from the North call Neapolitans “i terroni” which translates as “people of the earth” and is hugely insulting. Being an away fan in Naples can be like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LZ93MN62QI.

The San Paolo itself is an ugly, bruised behemoth, smothered in graffiti. The official capacity is currently 75,000, although I went to the promotion party in 2000 against Genoa and there must have been more than 100,000 in the place. Some of the younger fans scale impossible walls to get in free, jumping from one vertical drop to another and scaling the plexiglass walls that separate the various sectors inside. Injuries are commonplace. Curvas A and B can be cauldrons, capable of lifting any team, although those with kids in tow should be aware that both ends of the ground are sometimes used by local gangs to sort out their differences. Catch it right though and a game in the San Paolo is one of the most exciting venues in Europe.

Buying tickets is easy at the moment as few games sell out. There are touts everywhere anyway and even the official club outlets are not averse to the odd bit of skulduggery. I once bought tickets for a game which were in row 28 of a stand which only had 25 rows! Someone later explained that this was a way of those in the ticket office earning a bit on the side.

Perhaps the best way of keeping up with the club is via the English translated www.clubnapoliinternet.com or www.clubnapoli.it The official website disappeared a couple of seasons ago.