Bogside Nil

A quick pause before we all go back to caring whether Cesc Fabregas is just flirting with Barcelona or is planning to go home with them: Spangly Princess has been to the funeral of Gabriele Sandri, the Lazio supporter whose death sparked the violence in Italy this week, and has written a vivid account of the experience. It’s admirable both for its immediacy and for its larger equivocal thoughts on the ultra mindset. There’s been a tendency in the blog coverage that followed Sandri’s death either to condemn the ultras as essentially dangerous thugs or to sentimentalize them on the basis of the fact that “they aren’t all violent”. Unlike the overwhelming majority of journalists and bloggers who have covered this story in English, Spangly Princess has spent time in the Curva Sud and knows the ultras firsthand. She consistently evokes both the appealing and the disturbing aspects of their subculture without sensationalism or condescension: very good work all around.