Product Description

Is Italy a united country, or a loose affiliation of warring states? Is Italian football a sport, or an ill-disguised protraction of ancient enmities? After twenty years in the Bel Pasese, Tim Parks goes on the road to follow the fortunes of Hellas Verona football club, to pay a different kind of visit to some of the world's most beautiful cities, and to get a fresh take on the conundrum that is the national character. A book that combines the tension of cliff-hanging narrative with the pleasure of travel writing, and the stimulation of a profound analysis of one country's mad, mad way of keeping itself entertained.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14253 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
For the last few months Anglo-Italian novelist Tim Parks has been writing of his devotion to Italian football club Hellas Verona in The Guardian. In A Season with Verona we get a chance to read the full and absorbing narrative that lay behind those short snippets.

In some ways the book is a standard travelogue. In following his lowly Series A team in their seasonal slog around Italy, Parks gets to visit all the famous sights and cities. What makes this journey so different and so interesting is that Parks is accompanied by vividly ordinary, honestly working-class, determinedly urban Italians and gets to share their Nick Hornbyish highs and lows. This in turn provides a credible, fresh and revealing insight into the Italian character. These fans do all the normal soccer-supporter things like fight, drink, despair, exult, rant and put each other in comas; but they also do more surprising things, like sing songs in praise of the murderous Liverpool fans of Heysel and give voice to racist feelings about their southern compatriots.

This may not sound like most people's image of southern loveliness. Indeed it isn't. But it is a much needed antidote to all that saccharine-sweet Under The Tuscan Sun stuff; and it also makes this book a splendid bedside companion to the Italian campaign in the next, or indeed any, World Cup. --Sean Thomas

Review
For some people football is just a game, for Tim Parks it is much more important than that. As an immigrant to Verona, his sense of belonging is inextricably linked to his vehement support for his local team. Even after living in Italy for 20 years, and after writing the bestsellers Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education, Parks strongly identifies his struggle to fit into the local community with the struggles of his adopted football club, Hellas Verona, a team who have to fight a constant battle to maintain their position in Serie A. For many years Parks has been a regular at the Bentegodi stadium, but for the 2000-2001 season he decided that for the first time he would go to every away match too. And that he would write a book about his experiences. The result is not just a travel book, but one that examines the way Italians in general, and Veronese in particular, relate to football, and is jam-packed with hilarious anecdotes and bizarre incidents witnessed by Parks during his year of football fanaticism. Verona might be a much smaller, and less wealthy, club than Juventus, Inter Milan, or Lazio, but their supporters are just as passionate about their team and none more so than Parks. As he journeys around the country Parks encounters the 'brigate' - infamous hardcore fans, uncooperative policemen and hostile opposition terraces. His match descriptions veer from joyous triumph to the depths of despair as Verona fight, amongst persistent rumours of match fixing, to avoid relegation to the despised Serie B. Even non-football fans cannot help but be attracted by the infectious enthusiasm with which he writes about those myopic referees, incompetent players, staunch comrades and incredible goals common to football matches the world over. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
Is Italy a united country, or a loose affiliation of warring states? Is Italian football a sport, or an ill-disguised protraction of ancient enmities? After twenty years in the Bel Pasese, Tim Parks goes on the road to follow the fortunes of Hellas Verona football club, to pay a different kind of visit to some of the world's most beautiful cities, and to get a fresh take on the conundrum that is the national character. A book that combines the tension of cliff-hanging narrative with the pleasure of travel writing, and the stimulation of a profound analysis of one country's mad, mad way of keeping itself entertained.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
Wow, I don't think Tim Parks could have chosen a better season to follow Verona. If he hadn't written the book, it would still be a great story to tell. I'm not going to spoil the ending for everyone, but it really is an amazing season which ends spectacularly.

I love the fact that the author actually attends the games as a true spectator instead of press or pundit. He joins in with the chants, the drinking, the travelling - all as a die hard fan and he never hides any of the gory details of Italian football.

There's a few other books like this and this one stands out a mile because you actually know the author is educated with regards to football and is a true fan, as opposed to some other authors who have a blinkered and often glamorous view of what can be an ugly game.

Excellent book and I highly recommend it.

Parks Plays A Blinder!
This is a must for all literary football fans, following one of Italian soccer's less fashionable, and decidedly right wing, clubs Hellas Verona during the ill-fated season when they were last in Serie A. Like his previous books, Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education, Parks really delves deep into the psyche and delivers prose with all the colour and vivaciousness of a carnival parade. The noise, the sights, even the smells and tastes of top-drawer Italian football leap from virtually every page and the real emotion which simmers eternally can be sensed as it reaches its inevitable, sometimes violent, crescendo.
The Englishman abroad style of book has often been criticized, sometimes quite rightly so, for its over prosaic, condescending treatment of the "simple, rustic locals" but, thankfully, Parks is a writer who is too close to his subject to stoop so low; he is also a writer who can express his own emotive state whenever his side loses as readily and as honestly as when he is chanting and celebrating a goal with his fellow supporters.
Great books about football are about as rare as honest politicians (or football Presidents) in Italy; this is one of those gems.

Per sempre Gialloblu!
I won't bore you with my loquacious opinion on this magnificent book (other people have done that probably better than I can among these readers' reviews). No, I will simply tell you the truth.

When I finished reading the book in May 2003, I booked a flight to Verona and a hotel near l'Arena, and went to the stadium for the last game of that season (Bari, 1-1, for the statiticians among you). I had to see la Curva Sud for myself. Since then, having made friends with one or two members of I Piu Mati (ciao Christian, ciao Alberto, ciao Fabio!) I've been back several times (including a memorable 5-3 win over rivals Vicenza [di merda!]) and they've even been over to see my humble bunch of sleeping giants (the West Country's top team, Bristol City. Well, excluding Yeovil). In short, the book inspired me, it coursed through my veins and I was like a junkie, needing a fix of the Brigate Gialloblu (minus the violenza!). A terrific, vibrant, inspiring read. Forza Signor Tim!

(PS If you liked the social/cultural/non-football parts to the book, make sure you read his Italian Neighbours and Italian Education books. The description of which coffee to drink when in the former book is as good as the opening chapter of A Season With Verona)