La stampa romanista e le lettere al Commando Ultrà Curva Sud

Abstract

Football fandoms traditionally communicate through writings, particularly correspondence with periodicals and bulletins related to their favourite team. The present article focuses on a peculiar kind of that literature, by shedding light on letters addressed in the mid-80s by common AS Roma supporters to the Commando Ultrà Curva Sud (CUCS), which was one of the largest European ultrà groups as well the leading group within the romanista fandom. Most letters are written by young people (men and women) who considered CUCS as a source of their own faith, a collective of heroes that were able to sublimate tifo into a holy ritual. Some of those letters were published in periodical press while some others are unedited but accurately catalogued in the AS Roma historical archive: in both cases they witness the ideals of a generation that believed in football as a civic religion.