‘I’m not a person who puts up with rudeness’: unpicking fantasy and reality with an Italian football ultra

<p>I’ve met many hardcore, violent fans, but the hostage-negotiating, cocaine-smuggling, Marxist-Leninist Alessandro Casolari still stood out</p><p>I had heard the name Alessandro Casolari on and off for years. From 2016 onwards, when I was researching my book on Italy’s ultras – a cross between English football hooligans and Hells Angels – the nickname “Caso” kept coming up. In the late 80s and early 90s, he had led the ultras in Ferrara, whose football club is known as Spal.</p><p>A red-brick city in northern Italy between Bologna and Venice, Ferrara has always felt sidelined, languishing in a marshy land of fog and floods. I used to go there quite often, drawn by its festivals and famous writers and film directors. A few years ago, when I&nbsp;started writing another book, about the Po River, I&nbsp;hung out there again, but I never bumped into Caso.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/jun/16/im-not-a-person-who-puts-up-with-rudeness-unpicking-fantasy-and-reality-with-an-italian-ultra">Continue reading...</a>