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A TALE OF INTERNAZIONALE FRIENDSHIP
How did a team of Liverpool supporters end up being official guests at Inter Milan's recent home fixture against Lazio at the San Siro? Let Nigel Shaw explain all.
I've never known so much gratitude in all my life. We are just a humble bunch of Liverpool supporters who call ourselves iLFC, having responded to a call two years ago from our manager Andy Heaton on the Red and White Kop website for a fans team to enter The Northern Football Supporters' League. Then, at a tournament in Leeds last summer, we were drawn to play against a visiting team of Inter Milan fans from Italy and the first words they said to us as they shook our hands before kick-off that day was of course, 'Thank you for Istanbul! Grazie Reds!'
They beat us 1-0 with a dubious penalty but they were a great bunch of lads and naturally we supported them vocally in their match later in the same tournament against a Man United fans team who, of course, we'd already beaten. That support helped cement a friendship between our two groups before the Inter fans team eventually won the 'Plate' tournament that weekend.
Little did we know then that we'd end up with a warm invitation to Italy for a weekend of football and friendship almost a year later. Sure enough though, on March 17 2006, 18 Reds headed off to Milano to enjoy the Italian hospitality. As soon as we arrived, we were whisked off to the Inter supporters' favourite pub, where several of our hosts wore 'Grazie Reds – 25/05/05' T-shirts and insisted that we all re-watched the Istanbul final video. While the final was playing, we taught them some of our songs – 'We all dream of a team of Carraghers' proved a particular favourite with some of the Inter lads.
Later in the evening we realised that the bar owner, along with several other customers, were in fact AC Milan fans but they put up with our boisterous re-living of the triumph with good grace. All the locals seemed particularly impressed when they realised that there were 3 generations of Reds in our Kop choir and team, ranging from our veteran goalkeeper Harry Trow (58) to his grandson, striker Chris Trow (17). As the night wore on, speedy young Chris challenged all comers to sprint races outside the pub whilst Harry stubbornly refused a taxi and disappeared mysteriously into the night to stroll back to the hotel alone.
On the Saturday, it was a late breakfast before we all popped off to the central square opposite the cathedral and took souvenir photos outside the cafe where Football Italia's James Richardson usually does his round-up of the Italian sports papers. There's not much touristy stuff to see in Milan, so as skipper my only duty was to ensure that too much afternoon pizza did not ruin my players' highly professional preparation for the supporters' game, scheduled for 6pm at the Inter Youth Academy pitch on the outskirts of the city.
iLFC meet Inter Milan
At the shared AC / Inter museum we noticed that the most recent item on display was a match programme from Istanbul with no mention whatsoever of who the opponents were or what the result was! Fortunately, to remind everyone, there was some familiar 'Grazie Reds - 25.05.05' graffiti spray-painted in the Inter colours on a nearby wall!
Once again it was the Inter fans themselves who ferried us to the pitch and back in their own cars. Before the match, several gifts were exchanged and the Inter 'manager' Luca Renoldi was particularly delighted with our presentation of a framed picture of Jerzy Dudek saving one of the spot-kicks in Istanbul. Complete with snakes around the goalposts, as emblems of Inter, this picture was inspired by a banner displayed by the Inter Ultras in the last Milan derby match. (At this point I must thank the Liverpool FC PR Department, especially Olivia and Bev, for supplying us with some LFC publicity items to exchange, as well as some training tops to play in.) |
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