Victoria Barrett  wrote in message
news:tmtviv61n67f05@corp.supernews.com...
> Recently, on a thread that is being avoided like the bubonic plague by many
> rss'ers, I revealed the reasons of why I am Tottenham. Now, I'd like to hear
> from others, please.
>
> - What is the story behind your love of [fill in the football team blank]?
> Please give as terse or as colourful detail as you'd like.

I'm a Juve fan because when I was a little child I was the
biggest bandwagoner of them all! I could say that my love
for Juve began in the mythical 1976-77 season. I was in first
grade. That season was the greatest ever in Serie A history:
Juve and Torino battling neck to neck. In the end Juve won
the championship with 51 points out of 60 (a record), followed
by Torino with 50. With that point average, Torino would have
won every single other championship in the history of Serie A.
Anyway, as Juve and Torino traded places at the top
of the table, I switched my allegiance: one week juventino,
the next ardent granata. In the end, Juve came out on
top (they also won the UEFA Cup that year, and I remember
crying because my parents didn't let me stay up to watch
the return leg of the final) and I became juventino for life.

Or did I really? The next year my family moved to
London for three years (there, by the way I
became an Arsenal fan, because the cool kid in
my class was an Arsenal fan as well).
When I came back to Italy, my best friend
showed me a letter I wrote him in which I asked
about how "our" Torino was doing. He laughed at
me, because in the meantime he had become an Inter
fan, and denied that he had ever been a Torino fan.
Little bastard. That letter caught me by surprise, because
by then I was definitely a Juve fan, and I thought
that my Torino days were well behind me.

Other factors that made me a juventino:
a) In one of my Juventino weeks, my parents bought
me a Juve shirt. It was ugly, and the neck was too
tight, and it itched terribly (they used wool at the
time, no flashy materials like today), but I absolutely
loved it.
b) My childhood idol, Bettega, had his birthday
exactly one day after mine (or rather, 20 years minus
one day before mine)
c) The 1979/80 EC2 semifinal put Arsenal
and Juve face to face. I was a pretty big Arsenal
fan by then: I had gone to Highbury several
times, I distinctly remember the 1979 FA Cup
final, as well as the bitter disappointments
of 1978 and 1980 FA Cup finals, and the 1980
CWC final. So this was a big dilemma for me.
I went to see the first leg, where Juve scored
an early goal, and then went into catenaccio
mode for the rest of the match. I don't remember
supporting one team or the other in that
match (so maybe I was happy that Arsenal
equalized in the final minutes), but I have
a vague recollection that I was disappointed
when Arsenal scored another last minute goal
in the return leg to advance to the final.

These days, I don't care much for Arsenal
any more. The distance has taken its toll.
I watched the final match of the 1988-89
season (Thomas' goal in the last minute
over Liverpool giving them the championship)
and I wanted them to win, but it was more
out of anti-Liverpool sentiment than anything
else. There were no leaps of joy as
when Juve wins. Finally, when the Italians
moved to Chelsea in 1996, I started looking
up their results first.


> - Did you ever get into trouble because of your supportership? (Thinking
> there might be one or two Stoke supporters lurking).

No. Only irritated by all those self-righteous
jerks who bug me with "How can you be from Rome
and support Juve". When they became Roma or
Lazio supporters just because their dads,
brothers or uncles bought them a scarf when they
were little. Or, even worse, started as
Juve/ManU/Bayern fans, and then turned to the
local team in their teens because they realized
it was more cool to spend Sunday afternoons
at the stadium.


> - What is the best thing you like about your team? (It can be monumentally
> stupid, if you'd like, such as mine ---> I love their kit).

The victories.

> - And, yes, the worst?

That some of those victories were not ... ahem,
crystal clear. :-)

> - Who was your childhood football idol? (Paul Gascoigne, I was there for
> that wonderfully cheeky free-kick goal *sigh*).
>

Bettega (who has turned into a whining money-seeking executive
of the worst type.


Daniele