Please Don't Take Me Home , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Simone Abitante

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176 pages

English

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Please Don't Take Me Home is the emotional tale of Italian immigrant Simone Abitante's 20-year love affair with Fulham Football Club. After leaving his native country, Simone falls in love with London and its oldest club, embarking on a personal mission to spread the word and get Fulham recognised beyond Britain by as many people as possible. Following the Cottagers through the most successful spell in their modern history, Simone takes his nephews to Craven Cottage where - together with new friends and Whites addicts Jeff, Mark and Ben - they experience unforgettable wins, exhilarating highs and devastating lows, amid rivers of beer, true friendship and an unquenchable passion for the beautiful game. Even after leaving London for Mallorca, Simone keeps following his beloved Fulham, with that famous white jersey serving as a second skin. Played out against a backdrop of heartbreaks, departures and life-changing decisions, Please Don't Take Me Home is a footballing story every fan can relate to.

Sujets

London

Grand Londres

Greater London

Memoir

Gran Londres

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	07 mars 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781801502306
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Simone Abitante, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801500654
eBook ISBN 9781801502306
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eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Why Fulham?
My First London
In-Between Years
Here to Stay
The 2006 Streak
The Day I Almost Signed for Fulham
The Great Escape
Seventh Heaven
My Ground, My Seat, My Fulham
The Rest Is History
One of a Kind
When I Feared Everything Was About to Come Down
Winners Take It All
Sparks
It s Never Too Late
One of Us
Back Where I Belong
That s All Folks
To the Rescue
You Never Stop Learning
The Only Way Is Up
Ouch!
Early Scare and the Bid for Joy
The Unbeaten Run
We Are Premier League
Moneyball
London, Beers, Laughter and Tears
Doomed
One More Time
Is It Really Just a Game?
2020
Really?
My Personal Lists
Acknowledgements
Photos
This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my dear friends Umberto Scomparin and Giampaolo Bonato, who both departed this world too early. They taught me what true friendship means and that will stay with me forever. Their passion for football was second only to their love for life.
To friends, to love, to vodka
Why Fulham?
Soundtrack: The Rhythm of the Night - Corona
BEING AN Italian in London, I got used to this question when declaring my love of the Whites of west London, Why Fulham?
People, even nowadays, keep asking me why I support Fulham.
People, even nowadays, keep receiving the same answers. The easiest one is simple, Why not?
The more romantic one, Because it s like love and most of the time there s no explanation, it happens, that s it.
Got it?
My true, passionate, berserk, total love for Fulham FC kicked off between 2000 and 2001 when I was a full-testosterone, adrenaline-charged young Italian guy moving to London from a little village in the north of Italy.
Before talking about it though, let s rewind back a little because a strong feeling like the one I developed for Fulham is something that goes beyond compare and logic and needs explanation.
Being born on 1 November 1975, I was not even seven when the Azzurri claimed an important part in my future life when winning the 1982 World Cup. I still have clearer memories of those games than other much more recent ones. I know the starting XI by heart and pictures of what happened are printed forever in my mind: Paolo Rossi nicking goals in the box, Marco Tardelli s iconic screaming celebration after netting in the final, Maradona s shirt trashed by a young badass in the making, Claudio Gheddafi Gentile 1 , the perfect example of when your destiny is not in your surname.
That same summer a certain Michel Platini signed for Juventus and I became a Bianconero. In a black-and-white-striped shirt, with the magic number ten on the back, he resembled my life dream. I had found a favourite player and Juventus was my chosen team.
As a kid I was playing football every day. I quickly joined the club of who broke a window with a ball at least once in his life and quickly after also another one, less desired, who broke a bone playing football . Ouch!
My uncle then took me to a football ground for the very first time. I m from Vicenza and Lanerossi Vicenza in the mid-1980s were still a very respectable club, playing in Serie A. During the late 70s they were even nicknamed Real Vicenza , finishing second, behind Juventus and our Paolo Rossi being crowned top scorer. When he died in December 2020, his funeral was held in Vicenza s main dome.
The city s ground is dedicated to former player Romeo Menti, who died in the Superga disaster on 4 May 1949 when the aeroplane flying back Torino FC s players and staff crashed on the hills of the city of Turin.
I love our stadium because it s quite English. It s built right in the city, surrounded by houses and inside you re close to the pitch. Its capacity is around 20,000 and the atmosphere has always been great.
In Vicenza we re very passionate about football. In the 2019/20 season, with the club in the third tier, there were 8,000 season ticket holders!
Back to my uncle, and at the time he was also a season ticket holder but a quiet one who used to sit in the side stand. He was not a terrace man, let s put it like that.
My brother though, 13 years my senior, actually liked being in the crowd of the Curva Sud , what in England would be called the South Terrace or South End. So, together with his friends, one Sunday, the day of football in Italy before the pay-per-view puzzle, they grabbed this young football fanatic and took him again to the Stadio Romeo Menti in Vicenza.
Those days you could get a cheaper ticket to the parterre , similar to a lower end, and then be helped up to the upper end in the actual Curva Sud where the hardcore fans used to be.
That was amazing and crazy at the same time for me; thousands singing, shouting, smoke flares, huge flags, scarves, a couple of guys playing drums, and it looked to me like a nice party. Booze and joints completed the picture but at the time I had to be told what they actually were. I totally loved the experience and wanted more.
The excitement was superb and for a little boy aged 11 in an era where PlayStation, internet and social media were far away from people s imagination, being taken to a game was luxury.
I went again with my uncle and I ll be always thankful to him for that, but remaining seated on the family-packed side of the pitch was simply not for me.
Instead, I wanted to be up there standing, jumping around singing, actively supporting my team among my friends, getting behind the players with all my voice, disregarding the weather conditions.
That wish came true when my great friend Mirko asked me to join him and his uncles, God save the uncles, in getting a season ticket. We were 16 by then and thankfully my mum agreed with it. That was 1991 and the under-18 season ticket cost me something like 80, a bargain.
Those were also the days I discovered English football and the then-called First Division, soon to become the Premier League. Peter Schmeichel was a Manchester United player as was a young Ryan Giggs. Vinnie Jones wore Chelsea colours in mid-table and the red and white Arsenal got my early sympathies while the John Fashanu myth started up here in Italy thanks to a TV show called Mai dire Gol 2 .
During the mid-1990s most of the world s best footballers were playing in Serie A, which was also the most watched league in the world. Juventus won their last Champions League in 1996 while the English Premier League was growing fast.
And the mid-90s were also the most successful years in Vicenza s football history.
After being promoted to Serie B in 1993, only two years later they got back to Serie A and finished in an extraordinary ninth place. The following season, 1996/97, was incredible. In the opening game Vicenza won 4-2 away to a Fiorentina team managed by Claudio Ranieri and including Gabriel Batistuta, Rui Costa, Francesco Toldo and Lu s Oliveira. By the end of November they were even topping the Serie A table.
Impressive performances also saw them beat Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan on the way, improving on the remarkable achievement of the previous season by ending up in eighth.
That would have been enough for club and supporters but the icing on the cake arrived at the end of May when, at home, they beat Napoli 3-0 to win their very first Italian Cup 3-1 on aggregate. A fantastic achievement for the Noble Provincial as the club was often called.
I was there and that was mental. We invaded the pitch at the final whistle and were celebrating together with the players after that totally unpredictable trophy win.
It was one of the best nights of my life, and carousels of cars shortly followed through the city streets and even the police got nicer. As I was waving my own red and white flag with my upper body outside the car window while controlling the pedals with my feet, my mate actually managed the steering wheel from the passenger seat. Hey, genius, get inside your car, now, they scolded me. It all ended with some blushed cheeks and a loud laugh from the three of us.
That win meant Europe the following season and Vicenza enjoyed another memorable campaign, getting to the semi-finals of the old European Cup Winners Cup and making a name for themselves even outside Italy.
Unfortunately it ended in tears. After beating Chelsea 1-0 at home, Vicenza went one up at Stamford Bridge and scored a second goal, which would have definitely been enough, only for it to be ruled out for a non-existing offside. That was it; the star-studded Blues came back with Poyet and Zola, the Magic Box, with a certain Mark Hughes scoring the fatal third goal towards the end. A usually average Ed de Goey was Chelsea s saviour in both games.
Now you know when my sporting hate for the other team in Fulham began.
I often go back to that game thinking about the what ifs. Chelsea played Stuttgart in the final, although many pundits at the time said Vicenza-Chelsea was the real final as the Blues had a very strong tea