“WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT…”
Fear not, everyone: the disco police have arrived. Kick-off is closing in at Venezia’s Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, but if anybody expected to see the riot squad out in force for tonight’s Serie A game against Fiorentina, they’d be very mistaken.
Instead, tonight’s law enforcement officers are arriving very slowly, in a little boat with flashing lights that could have come from a nearby nightclub. It’s a less-than-fearsome entrance, but misbehaving fans be warned: get on the wrong side of the disco police, and not only will you end up in a cell, you might have to dance to YMCA en route.
Welcome to the world’s weirdest football stadium, in one of the world’s greatest cities. FFT has headed to Venice, and surely the only top-flight venue on the planet that has no road access. With the city’s network of canals and small streets making driving impossible, your options are an hour-long walk from the train station, or going via water.
“It’s unusual, and I know that some of our fans find it uncomfortable to come here, but I insist that it’s wonderful,” beams supporter Cecilia Tonon, having just stepped off one of the various vaporetti that ferry people to the ground, traversing one of the most scenic waterways on Earth. “It’s the most beautiful stadium in the world. Nowhere else do you have a stadium where you have to travel by boat. It’s part of this city’s way of living.”
Tonon is vice-president of the Alta Marea fans’ group, which translates as ‘High Tide’ – a fitting name given that Venezia go into this game at their highest point for two decades, a period in which the club went bankrupt on three occasions. For the first time since 2002, they host one of Italy’s most famous teams in a Serie A fixture. “There used to be 500 of us in the stadium – it was rather sad,” says Tonon.
