THE SARTORIAL ELEGANCE OF SERIE A: A.C. MILAN, 1987-92 [KAPPA/ADIDAS]

What makes for a good football strip? A number of things, but distilled to its essence there are four primary concerns: colour, array, trim, fit. Colour can be problematic as it can't really be tinkered with (unless your team’s majority shareholder has other ideas). The array – or pattern, if you prefer – tends to be more mutable, although radical alterations may invoke the ire of any football club’s loyal fan base. Embellishments, such as those to the collar and neckline, will vary from season to season, normally without so much as a raised eyebrow. Finally, the way a kit is cut will only ever come under close scrutiny if it’s noticeably out of keeping with prevailing trends – for example, the shirt Kappa presented to the Italian national team for the 2000 UEFA European Championship, which had the players so spooked they insisted on sizing up.

But wait, there’s something else to consider, something that football purists would rather wasn’t there, but is so we must: the football team’s sponsor writ large across the chest. It might seem odd that something as ostensibly functional as text should amount to anything more than a mere distraction, until one remembers that such monograms were in the first instance designed to hold the eye. This is one of the reasons why the football shirts A.C. Milan wore from 1987 through to 1992 are superior to those that came immediately before and after.

The A.C. Milan of the early 1980s was in bad shape. Saddled with debt, they’d not won a major trophy since their Serie A triumph of 1978-79 and had been relegated to Serie B twice (once as punishment for their involvement in the Totonero match-fixing scandal of 1980) which for a club of Milan’s standing represented failure, not to say ignominy. That being said, the thinly striped jerseys they played in during this period looked pretty good, especially the Oscar Mondadori sponsored edition that the English paring of Ray Wilkins and Mark Hateley had the pleasure of wearing in 1984-85. Whether this acrylic sark was particularly comfortable is another matter.

Then in 1986 the media tycoon, politician, and former crooner, Silvio Berlusconi decided to buy the club, paid off its debts and set about the business of reviving its fortunes. Within a year he’d offloaded Wilkins and Hateley and added the Dutch internationals Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten to a squad that already contained the likes of Franco Baresi, Roberto Donadoni, Pietro Virdis, Mauro Tassotti and a youthful Paulo Maldini. Only then did Silvio Berlusconi consider who he wanted as coach, sacking the incumbent Nils Liedholm in April and appointing Primavera manager Fabio Capello as caretaker while he made up his mind. More than likely, Berlusconi had Arrigo Sacchi’s card marked from the moment his team dumped Milan out of the Coppa Italia in the second round. By summer the former Parma manager was in charge and proceeded to bring in Carlo Ancelotti from Roma and Angelo Colombo from Udinese.

A.C. Milan won the league in 1987-88 by a three point margin over reigning champions Napoli. They did this wearing a jersey provided by Kappa that was quite different to the one the firm was supplying to Juventus over in Turin. Made from polyester, rather than cotton, the Milan version had a shorter collar and a shallower neckline. Moreover, whereas the sponsor’s name on Juve’s kit was flocked, on Milan’s it was printed by way of a process known as dye-sublimation. (It should be noted that Italian sportswear manufacturers were behind the curve in this respect, and I wonder whether Berlusconi might have recognised this and persuaded Kappa to utilise more up-to-date methods.) Then there was the sponsor itself – financial servicing firm Mediolanum – with its name written in a sans-serif, uppercase font and the company logo hovering above, all in white. This simple text, resting neatly beneath the Kappa logo sewn to the right, and a gold star (denoting 10 titles won) on the left, is almost as recognisable as the colourway of the strip itself; one cannot conceive of the shirt without it.

In 1988 the Italian football authorities allowed for an extra foreign player, and Frank Rijkaard was invited to join his fellow Dutchmen in Milan. All three of them had been instrumental in The Netherlands' victory in the 1988 UEFA European Championship in Germany that summer. With the scudetto now adorning their chests they must have felt like a million dollars.

The 1988-89 season didn’t go entirely to plan. City rivals Inter won the title, and comfortably so, while A.C. finished third behind Napoli. But Serie A was no longer Berlusconi’s priority, the European Cup was, and in that regard the season was a huge success. Despite wobbling against Red Star Belgrade in the second round, the rossoneri went on to beat Steaua București 4-0 in the final. Perhaps even more revealing was the 5-0 demolition job they did on Real Madrid in the second leg of the semi-final.

Ostensibly, Milan’s strip remained the same for the following year’s campaign, but there were a few subtle changes. As with Juventus, Kappa still didn’t feel the need to append anything like a club crest (although they afforded Sampdoria the privilege) but they did see fit to attach an embroidered, celebratory image of the European Cup in place of the previous season’s scudetto. Then there was the material itself, which now incorporated a micropatterned matrix made up of hollow, inverted squares. (Juventus’s shirt received the same treatment, but not Sampdoria’s.) AC Milan finished 1989-90 second in the league, again behind Napoli, and retained the European Cup, beating Benfica 1-0 in Vienna.

In 1990 Milan ended their association with Kappa and signed a contract with Adidas. Under normal circumstances I’d finish this article here, but the shirt Adidas came up with was so similar to Kappa’s that I feel I must to go on. Adidas didn’t have much of a presence in Italy at the time so maybe they wanted to avoid making a statement. They didn’t even bother adding their name beneath their – admittedly, instantly identifiable – trefoil logo. The micropatterning was removed and the neckline trimmed, but in every other respect the jersey was very much the same: same colour, same collar, same width of stripe, same patron, same embroidered European Cup motif.

The move to Adidas did not immediately pay dividends. A.C. Milan were Serie A runners-up for a consecutive season – this time trailing Sampdoria – and were knocked out of the European Cup by Marseille in the quarter-finals. (Arrigo Sacchi subsequently accepted an offer to manage the Italian national team, and Fabio Capello was appointed in his place.) This meant that for 1991-92 Milan’s shirt would for the first time in three years be reduced to displaying a solitary star.

Or it would have had they not decided to fill the void with a depiction of the Intercontinental Cup that they’d won the year prior, positioned beside the star rather than under. When Red Star Belgrade beat Chilean side Colo-Colo in December to claim the same trophy, A.C. were obliged to get rid of it. Instead, they saw out the season with club crest attached to the jersey. By May, the rossoneri had been crowned champions again, unbeaten and eight points clear of second placed Juventus.

1990-91

Italian confectioner Motta succeeded Mediolanum as club sponsor, and the year after Italian sportswear manufacturer Lotto wrestled control from a reticent Adidas. ‘Motta’ lacked the graphic subtlety of ‘Mediolanum’, whereas Lotto relied too heavily on dye-sublimation, refusing to sew key details into the fabric the way their predecessors did – be it the Kappa or Adidas logos, the scudetto, the European Cup, that solitary star – which made their shirts look cheap.

But five years in pretty much the same shirt was good going, even back then. If you had to narrow it down then the Kappa version probably edges it over Adidas’s effort – the 1988-89 iteration in particular, with the scudetto contrasting nicely against the red and black stripes of A.C. Milan. In any case, Arrigo Sacchi’s team more than lived up to the standard this iconic top conferred upon them.

THE SARTORIAL ELEGANCE OF SERIE A: FIORENTINA, 1988-90 [ABM]

In 1980 construction magnate Flavio Pontello assumed control of Fiorentina and appointed his son, Ranieri, as president. Within a year they’d changed the club’s badge and struck a deal with the clothing company JD Farrow’s to sponsor the kit, which was not the done thing back then. The new circular emblem comprised of half a fleur-de-lis (a stylised lily, or giglio) appended to the letter F, taking on the appearance of a halberd, and was displayed in the middle of a red-trimmed shirt, occupying a fair proportion of it, with the club’s sponsor transcribed above.

Fiorentina’s new look was not popular, but when Pontello & Son started investing in actual players opinions softened. In 1981-82, the club finished Serie A in second place and would probably have won the championship had a goal not been controversially disallowed against Caligari in the last game of the season. Thereafter Fiorentina’s form was inconsistent: in 1983 they placed fifth, in ‘84 third, and in ‘85 ninth. Meanwhile, Ennerre had taken over as kit supplier and set about reducing the size of the club’s inflated crest, while also accommodating car manufacturer Opel as the team sponsor.

1985-86’s strip could itself be considered iconic. The red trim was discarded and the badge moved to the more usual position over the left breast. This made room for Ennerre’s wonderfully minimal (green) insignia on the right, while the sponsor was set against a white band that wrapped around the trunk of the shirt. Fiorentina managed a respectable fourth place that term, although it’s worth pointing out that they drew 13 of their 30 matches, which wouldn’t now place them quite so high (at the time, two points were awarded for a win, inflating the value of a drawn game). Moreover, their top scorer was the defender Daniel Passarella, prompting Inter to divest Fiorentina of the player’s services.

For what would be club captain Giancarlo Antognoni’s final year at the club, Ennerre handed over shirt making responsibilities to the their subsidiary brand, N2 (or 'Ennedue'), to be sponsored by the non-alcoholic aperitif Crodino. N2 reverted to issuing purple shorts, rather than white, and Fiorentina finished a disappointing ninth, although new signing Ramon Diaz impressed with 10 goals and Nicola Berti was looking like good value after his transfer from Parma in 1985. In 1987 Sven-Goran Eriksson was drafted in as technical director, to be assisted by Sergio Santarini in the role of coach. The managerial partnership coincided with the emergence of Roberto Baggio as a force to be reckoned with after struggling with a serious knee injury the previous season. Fiorentina ended the campaign in eighth place, Diaz scoring seven leagues goals, Baggio six.

The situation for 1988-89 looked precarious. Nicola Berti and Ramon Diaz had both signed for Trapattoni‘s Inter, while doubts still remained regarding Baggio's fitness. Incoming players included defensive-midfielder Dunga, signed from Pisa, and striker Stefano Borgonovo, taken on loan from AC Milan. At the same time sportswear firm ABM succeeded Ennerre/N2, introducing a micro-patterned shirt utilising subtle shifts in the fabric’s texture [65% polyester, 35% cotton] to make a pattern out of the manufacturer’s logo.

Fiorentina did all right, finishing in seventh place and reaching the quarter finals of the Coppa Italia. Fortuitously, AC Milan went on to win the European Cup and Sampdoria the Coppa Italia, effectively freeing up an extra place in the UEFA Cup, which went to Fiorentina after they defeated Roma in a play-off. Even more auspicious was the fact that Baggio and Borgonovo had formed a very effective partnership – as well as a close friendship – scoring 15 and 14 goals respectively. Or it would have been if AC Milan didn’t then recall their man to provide cover for Marco Van Basten.

For 1989-90, Fiorentina were furnished with white shorts and purple socks. It is this iteration of the ABM strip that is by far the best. Local rag La Nazione took over as sponsor, their uppercase, serif-font emblazoned in yellow (yellow being the complimentary colour of purple). The shirt was neither tight nor overly loose and could flatter a variety of physiques. Finally, the red parallelograms that constituted ABM’s logo complemented the simplicity of the giglio, as well as making its presence felt against the whiteness of the shorts.

Fiorentina replaced Borgonovo with Argentine striker Oscar Dertycia, as well as bringing in Czech midfielder Luboš Kubík, winger Renato Buso, and defender Giuseppe Volpecina, among others. The results were mixed. On the one hand Fiorentina only just avoided relegation after beating Atalanta in their final game. On the other they reached the UEFA Cup final, controversially losing to Juventus 3-1 over two legs; Fiorentina were forced to play their home leg in Avellino, despite having played the rest of their European campaign in Perugia, which was far closer to home (Stadio Artemio Franchi was undergoing refurbishment prior to the 1990 World Cup and judged unfit for European competition). Nonetheless, the images of Roberto Baggio and the rest of the team, resplendent in purple and white, are some of Fiorentina’s finest.

ABM hung around for another year but reverted to issuing purple shorts, as well as adding white trim to the neck-line. In 1991, Lotto took over, and all was lost. Not only did the white shorts go for good but so did Pontello’s giglio. In an era where clubs re-design their insignias with mild regularity, one can only hope it might one day make a return.

THE SARTORIAL ELEGANCE OF SERIE A: INTERNAZIONALE, 1988-91 [UHLSPORT]

1987-88 was not a good year for Internazionale Milano. Karl-Heiz Rummenigge had recently left the Lombardian capital to be replaced by Aldo Serena, who the coach Giovanni Trapattoni had brought in from his old club, having purchased him from Inter in the first instance while at Juventus. He scored just six goals in 22 matches. The Belgian attacking midfielder Enzo Scifo also disappointed, scoring a mere four times over 28 games. Alessandoro Altobelli managed a respectable nine goals, in what would be the aging forward’s final year for the Nerazzurri, but it wasn’t enough for the club to finish the season any higher than fifth – two places down on the previous season.

Trapattoni didn't muck about. Scifo was sold to Girondins de Bordeaux, Altobelli moved to Juventus for one final fling in Italy’s top flight, and Daniel Passarella returned to Rive Plate. In their place came established German internationals Andreas Brehme and Lothar Matthäus, two promising Italians by the name of Allesandro Bianchi and Nicola Berti, and the proven Argentine, Ramón Díaz (Díaz was actually a late replacement for the Algerian Rabah Madjer, who failed the club’s medical exam).

The arrival of these new players coincided with the appointment of Uhlsport as kit supplier, taking over from Le Coq Sportif. The shirt didn't change much: the sponsor remained the same, the club’s crest, the number of stripes. Only the German manufacturer’s logo was noticeably different – square instead of triangular. Nor was the all-white away jersey radically altered, save for a band of alternating blue and black rhomboids, slightly out of sync with each other, across the front of the shirt. There was, however, one modification that completely transformed the strip's general appearance, and that was the shift from acrylic to polyester. Inter's Milanese neighbours had been wearing polyester since 1986, but the rest of Italy had been slow on the uptake. The dull patina of acrylic now gone, the team looked, quite literally, like a modern outfit.

Internazionale dominated in 1988-89, winning 26 matches, losing only twice, and accumulating a record-breaking 58 points, at a time when two points were still being awarded for a win and Serie A only accommodated 18 teams. Aldo Serena racked up 22 goals – the highest number in any one season since Paoli Rossi’s 24 for Juventus over the course 1977-78 – Lothar Matthäus provided nine, Nicola Berti seven, and Ramón Díaz contributed twelve, many of them absolute belters. In total, Inter Milan scored 67 times, which is an impressive number in a league renowned then for its defensive acumen.

Inter began the 1989-90 season with the scudetto sewn upon their shirts and the club’s badge relegated to the shoulder. But it wasn’t the same badge. Inter had ditched the biscione – a graphic of a serpent, representative of the city of Milan – in favour of their original emblem, which had never previously graced the shirt on account of the fact that Italian clubs only began to display their crests sometime towards the end of the 1970s. (Why, when they did, Inter opted for the profile of a snake, rather than their traditional insignia comprised of the club’s initials, I am unable to ascertain.)

Most Italian jerseys come alive when bearing the scudetto. AC Milan’s handles it very well, while for Juventus the opportunity to inject some colour into that achromatic strip of theirs must come as something of a relief. Strangely, Inter’s away shirt carried it better than the home equivalent; the away shirt was improved by it, whereas the home shirt suffered. It could be that the blue and black stripes combined with the red dots incorporated into the word ‘Misura’ detracted from the scudetto’s visual impact, whereas the predominantly white iteration offered something of a blanker canvas.

Inter were unable to reproduce the imperious form that had secured their 13th domestic title. They started well, beating Sampdoria in the Supercoppa Italia (Italy’s version of the Community Shield, except held in higher regard), but exited the European Cup in its early stages, losing to Roy Hodgson’s Malmo, and finished the season seven points behind champions Napoli, in third place behind cohabitants AC Milan. The problem? New signing Jürgen Klinsmann, brought in to replace Ramón Díaz, failed to combine with Aldo Serena the way the Argentine had the previous season. Despite this, the German striker finished the season as Inter’s top scorer with thirteen league goals, compared to Serena’s nine and Matthäus’s eleven. Meanwhile, Díaz scored fourteen times for Monaco playing three games less than Klinsmann.

In 1990, the Italian colours of the scudetto now absent, Internazionale’s badge shifted from the right shoulder to the left breast. Tradition prevailed, as any temptation to revert back to the ‘serpent’ badge was resisted, a decision that stands to this day. Inter went on to repeat their third place finish of the previous year, albeit by a slighter margin. This time it was Sampdoria who were victorious, with AC Milan again finishing in second place. But all was not lost. Inter made it to the final of the UEFA Cup, beating eventual Coppa Italia winners Roma 2-1 on aggregate. (English readers may recall Inter knocking out Aston Villa in the second round, courtesy of goals from Klinsmann, Berti and Bianchi during the second leg at the San Siro).

Giovanni Trapattoni returned to Juventus in 1991 in an effort to curtail the club’s gradual decline (he partially succeeded, winning 1993’s UEFA Cup, before moving on again to manage Bayern Munich). In an act that can be seen as retrospectively symbolic, Inter turned to Umbro to supply their gear – an association that would last the next seven years. During this period, Inter won the UEFA Cup for a second and third time… but nothing else. Moreover, their league form became erratic. Placed second in 1992-93, followed by thirteenth in 1993-94, it would be more than ten years before they were again crowned champions of Italy.

1989-90

The Uhlsport strip represents something of a high-water mark, a three year period where Inter were more than equal to whatever AC Milan or Napoli could throw at them, but which didn’t quite lead to where it perhaps should have. It is not the point of this article to reason why but merely to delight in how fortuitous it was that Inter’s brief resurgence, as the eighties turned into the nineties, corresponded with shirts that were worthy of the moment.

STADIA: STADI COMUNALE ARTEMIO FRANCHI, FLORENCE AND SIENA

Purple permeates the city – Florence in Tuscany – in tribute to the football team that represents it – ACF Fiorentina, aka La Viola. It is said that the colour has no actual connotation but came about fortuitously after the original red-and-white halved shirts of Fiorentina were washed, presumably at too high a temperature, and the colours ran. Most likely apocryphal, and cannot explain the switch from black to white shorts that followed. In any case, such a diffusion would have resulted in pink.

Conversely, the club's badge is informed by the city's heraldry. The roles are transposed, a fleur-de-lis does for both, typically in red mounted on a white background, certainly in the case of Fiorentina and often for the metropolis too. An ordinary state of affairs, except Florence is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site – has been since 1982 – remarkable for its Renaissance architecture. Football is an irrelevance generally for those who visit here and few will make the connection, let alone be aware of it. But the effect is the same: purple seems to suit the environment, just as if some design agency had proposed it as an apposite hue (no doubt for an exorbitant fee).

Stadio Comunale Artemio Franchi is placed well away from the older material that draws in the tourists, probably with intent. Why locate something as utilitarian as a football stadium alongside buildings as venerable as the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Palazzo Vecchio? Yet the Artemio Franchi offers more than mere function and was perhaps as progressive in its day as the Il Duomo di Firenze was in its.

Pier Luigi Nervi was tasked with building the ground: a structural engineer and architect renowned for his pioneering appropriation of reinforced concrete, and a progenitor of Italian Modernism. Work began in 1930, was completed in 1932, and the stadium has changed little since. It could be said that Stadio Artemio Franchi kick started Nervi’s career. His portfolio is impressive: he designed the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris; the Torino Esposizioni in – you guessed it – Turin; the Palazzetto dello Sport in Rome; the ‘Hall of the Pontifical Audiences’, which bridges the border between Italy and the Vatican City; and he also had a hand in engineering the Pirelli Tower in Milan. [Built some 25 years later, Nervi’s finest contribution to stadium architecture is actually the Stadio Flaminio in Rome, which the Italian Rugby Federation is supposedly in the process of bastardising while their rugby team play out their international fixtures at the capital’s aesthetically flawed Stadio Olimpico.]

The slightly out-of-town location of the Artemio Franchi works to its advantage. It is a very low-rise structure, save for its svelte tower, and would be utterly overwhelmed among the grandeur of central Florence. Instead, we have residential tenements to the west, the modest Stadio Luigi Ridolfi to the south (a municipal athletics facility), and unabridged views towards the mountains north and east – the Florentine hills of Fiesole and Settignano. Trees dot the perimeter and a road encircles it. The stadium’s concrete framework can be viewed from all around.

From above, the stadium’s footprint traces a rather awkward ‘D’ shape. This is because the Artemio Franchi once accommodated a 220 metre sprint track – so long to cater for the completion of marathons. In preparation for the 1990 World Cup, the entire running track was removed to allow for a second, shallower tier, requiring that the pitch be lowered by 2.4 metres. This in turn facilitated the extraction of the temporary stands set behind each goal, which stood in isolation and probably didn’t hold that many spectators anyway, as well as freeing up the parterre to function once more as a parterre, rather than the secondary viewing platform it had ineffectually become. Other changes included the replacement of some pretty awful roof extensions with ones more sympathetic – although still far from ideal – and the installation of individual seats in place of the existing wooden benches. The seats of the new lower tier were initially green, which worked, the rest a tasteful shade of grey. Now almost all are grey save for those in the tribuna centrale (grandstand) and the lower tier facing it, which are purple – as is the club’s name spelled out in seats in the tier above; this also works. Since the 1990 renovations, the concrete has been refinished a second time and the stairways have been painted yellow.

Despite the increased capacity, plastic chairs, and the removal of much of the clutter that afflicted the stadium prior to 1990, it is many of Artemio Franchi’s pre-existing features that make it interesting: three helicoid staircases that provide external access to the upper gallery; the tower – streamlined, glass-fronted, almost art-nouveau; the bare concrete underside of the terracing and its gentle curve; the outward facade of the tribuna; the roof. The tower might be considered extraneous, the stairs merely salutary, the façade functional, but the roof is to be greatly admired. It is cantilevered – or not, depending how you interpret the stresses placed on the bifurcating structure supporting it: 24 corbels, the tiers below serving as their counterweight. It is a shame the two (genuinely cantilevered) roof extensions weren’t done away with completely, but the original structure doesn’t provide much coverage.

It’s all very pleasing, yet Fiorentina has plans to construct a new home. Perhaps this is why, contrary to the attention lavished on Artemio Franchi’s interior in recent years, the exterior – the underside of the exposed terraces – is spalled, shabby, and neglected. The ground of arch-rivals Juventus has been cited as an inspiration and probable template, a stadium that was built on the site of the much maligned Stadio delle Alpi, which was too large, had a running track, lacked intimacy and atmosphere: built anew in 1990, things didn’t work out and Juventus ended up again sharing the Stadio Olimpico with Torino, before they knocked the Alpi down and put the Juventus Stadium in its place. Fiorentina does not share a ground, and theirs is listed, comfortable in its surroundings. Does it not seem absurd to move away from a unique and perfectly serviceable structure in Florence only to then mimic a building contrived to address a predicament that had arisen in Turin? Could Il Duomo di Firenze have once been torn down and the Mole Antonelliana replicated in its place?

If only Siena was faced with such a dilemma. Despite sharing a name, Siena’s Artemio Franchi – aka Montepaschi Arena – is shambolic by comparison. But then, Siena have not met with the same success as their northern cousin, or much success at all.

Siena have been playing football since 1908, which is longer than Fiorentina, who formed in 1926. Siena’s Artemio Franchi is a very low key affair. Little remains of the structure as it was in 1938 when the ground hosted its first game: a friendly against another Tuscan neighbour, Empoli. Initially consisting of just a single grandstand, it wasn’t until 1955 that the stadium grew in size with the construction of an additional stand directly opposite. These two stands remain, and stood alone for a long while, quietly overlooking the athletics’ track, and themselves quietly overlooked by the surrounding tenements and lines of trees. This wouldn’t do for Serie A, but AC Siena had never played in Serie A. Then, in 2003 AC Siena were promoted to Serie A, and they would have to do something about their stadium.

I can find no definitive information as to whether the Artemio Franchi was expanded in stages or all at once. What I can tell you is that the ground as it looks now was pretty much how I came across it when I visited in 2005, so however they went about it, it took less than two years to complete. In any case, the result is a mess, quite frankly, but not without its charm, comprised of – count them – twelve distinct sections with a collective capacity of 15,373.

The Tribuna Danilo Nannini (the original, covered section of the ground) has aged remarkably well. The cantilevered roof resembles a smaller, slightly less daring version of the one seen at the Artemio Franchi in Florence. Its underside is even the same colour: a sort of pale yellow. To its rear, a private road providing access and the Fortezza Medicea obscured by trees; to its side, a small covered section with room enough for 40 wheelchair users. The Danilo Nannini itself holds 1,500 fans, despite not being be much more than 60 metres in length.

If you’ve come to Siena as a tourist, by car or by bus, chances are you’ve approached from its south-western aspect having disembarked along the western edge of the Fortezza Medicea and wandered through the Giardini Pubblici. There in front of you is the entrance to the Curva Ospiti (Guest Curve). Now would be a good time to point out that Siena’s Artemio Franchi is surrounded by higher ground, which means its barely discernible from any angle. If you tore down the fences, cut back the shrubs, chopped down the trees and tilted your head downwards then you’d behold a symmetry of steel: at the curve’s apex, a fairly low-rise structure; either side, two sets of much larger terraces fan diagonally out; at each end, smaller sections. The Curva Ospiti takes up the smaller section closest to the tribuna, two of the larger sections next along, and the wider, shallower terracing directly behind the goal. Collectively, these stands can accommodate 3,000 away supporters. The south-easterly sections constitute the Curva Beneforti (also known as the Curva San Domenico in tribute to the Basilica of San Domenico that stands behind) and can house 2,000 fans.

Next, the Gradinata De Luca – capacity: 4,081 – on the ground’s eastern edge facing the tribuna. The stand that was added in 1955 has been extended upon, probably about doubling its capacity. This seems natural, but the façade of the lower tier is now completely hidden. Because of the buildings that line Viale Curtatone it wasn’t particularly visible in the first place, and not everyone will consider that a bad thing. Still, the reinforced concrete supports are one of the few architectural details of interest here, so it is a bit of a shame.

Which leaves the Curva Robur and its little brother squeezed into the corner between the Robur and the Gradinata De Luca. The Curva Robur holds 4,700 and it’s from where the ultras offer their support. The other stands have followed the shape of the athletics track. Not the Robur, which has been built parallel to the goal-line on top of the defunct athletics’ track, almost as if it was never there. Behind, more trees, a large hotel, and the Regione Toscana Genio Civile, which I think is something related to civil engineering.

All these (relatively) recent additions are essentially temporary structures that have become permanent. They are supported by identical steel trusses and are equipped with identical green, plastic seats. Behind them all, either trees or buildings, or both. It is this backdrop, augmented by the fact that the stadium has been built into the ground to maintain a lower profile, that provides a cohesion that is structurally lacking. The ground is so beautifully hemmed in, that those coming to marvel at the Piazza del Campo will probably miss it.

Curva Robur circa 2005

In 2009/2010, AC Siena were relegated to Serie B. They bounced straight back only to be relegated for a second time in 2013. Within a year the club was bankrupt and had to register under a different name – Robur Siena – and begin again in Serie D (although they have since been promoted to Serie C).

Siena had plans to build a new ground, but these have understandably been shelved. The concept looked strong but, as with Fiorentina, it involved moving away from the town centre, sacrificing views and vistas that imbue a sense of identity and create a unique atmosphere. Neither club should mind if such schemes never reach fruition.

LINER NOTES: TIED UP IN NOTTZ [2016-17]

1.    Nissim – The Gaslamp Killer (with Amir Yaghmai)

2.    The Zoo – FEWS

3.    Deceptacon – Le Tigre

4.    Low – Traams

5.    Sunday’s Coming – Eddy Current Suppression Ring

6.    Lake Superior – The Arcs

7.    Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings – Father John Misty

8.    Sketch for Summer – The Durutti Column

9.    Hard Hold – Jaala

10.  Tarantula Deadly Cargo – Sleaford Mods

11.  Excitissimo – William Sheller

12.  Soul Vibrations – Dorothy Ashby

13.  Balek – Placebo

14.  More Mess on My Thing – Poets of Rhythm
15.  All My Tears – The Frightnrs

16.  Nightbird – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

17.  The Wheel – PJ Harvey

18.  All I Wanna Do – Splashh

19.  Tied Up in Nottz – Sleaford Mods

20.  Gosh – Jamie XX

21.  Get Innocuous – LCD Soundsystem

22.  Star Roving – Slowdive

23.  Come Over – Chain & the Gang

24.  In the Mausoleum – Beirut

The Gaslamp Killer is the stage name of a hip hop producer and DJ from California. 'Nissim' is a reworking of an instrumental track called 'Yekte' by Turkish guitarist Zafer Dilek, which itself seems to have been influenced by a track entitled 'Gurbet' by singer/songwriter Özdemir Erdoğan. To capture the flavour of the source material The Gaslamp Killer worked with a guitarist named Amir Yaghmai, who in turn brought in a number of Middle-Eastern musicians he knew to really nail it. The tune takes a while to get going, suggesting that it might have worked better further down the playlist, but Spotify introduced me to it very early in 2016.

FEWS are a Swedish band that play post-punk, although 'The Zoo' also echoes the sound of shoegaze. It was issued as a single first, in 2015, and then surfaced on the album Means a year later. 'The Zoo' is reminiscent of British band TOY but with a greater sense of urgency. Unfortunately for both acts I get the feeling that the post-punk/garage rock revival has run its course. Or perhaps we’ve reached a state of perpetual revival where nothing ever really goes out of fashion but is recycled again and again by way of the internet.

To add to that thought, you wouldn’t believe that Le Tigre recorded 'Deceptacon' as long ago as 1999. There are a few clues – the use of an Alesis HR-16b drum machine, a spot of sampling – but it wouldn’t feel out of step played next to anything around today. The same could be said of 'Low' by UK band Traams, released in 2013, and 'Sunday’s Coming' by Australian group the Eddy Current Suppression Ring, released in 2008. What does this all say about the evolution of music? Is Devo’s theory of devolution being played out before our ears?

There are subtle differences. As I said, I detect the hint of shoegaze in FEWS; Le Tigre are quite lo-fi; Traams are sort of punk revival mixed with indie rock, as are the Eddy Current Suppression Ring. All emanated from Discover Weekly on Spotify, bar the Eddy Current Suppression Ring which the Australian at work accurately identified as something I might appreciate. What these songs all have in common is that they’re noisy, loud and faintly aggressive. Such sonic qualities can be sustained for only so long.

The Arcs are the side-project of Dan Auerbach of blues-rock band The Black Keys. I don’t mind the Black Keys but I prefer the lo-fi dreampop of The Arcs. Or rather, I prefer the lo-fi dreampop of 2016’s 'Lake Superior', because the record put out the previous year by The Arcs does sound a lot like The Black Keys. Perhaps this is the type of thing that’s now in fashion. Whatever, Father John Misty (real name: Josh Tillman) inhabits the folkier end of the spectrum, which isn’t surprising given his involvement with Fleet Foxes. Yet 'Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings' is no folksy ditty: it stomps along, demanding your attention. Only the vocals recall Tillman’s work with his previous band, for whom he played drums.

The Durutti Column derived their name from the Durruti Column, a phalanx of anarchists who fought against Franco’s Falangists in the Spanish Civil War. The name ‘Durruti’ acknowledged one of the column’s most admired commanders, Buenaventura Durruti, who led a pre-emptive attack on General Goded’s barracks in Atarazanas/Drassanes, ensuring that Barcelona remained under Republican control. Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus intended the group as a sort of art statement and set about gathering musicians to implement their vision. By the time Wilson and Erasmus had established Factory Records and arranged for The Durutti Column to cut an album, only guitarist Vincent Reilly remained. Vini Reilly is one of those talented types who struggle within the music industry (see Syd Barrett, Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities, Lawrence from Felt). I’d given his music a go before but didn’t get very far with it. Discover Weekly offered up 'Sketch for Summer', which is an oddly beautiful instrumental backed by the sound of tweeting birds.

Jaala: another Australian band, again from Melbourne, but this time The Australian had nothing to do with it. Singer Cosima Jaala’s delivery is reminiscent of Lene Lovich – she of 'Lucky Number' fame, which I included on 2007-08’s Harmony in my Head. 'Hard Hold' jumps about in a way that can be divisive. Personally, I like their playful time signatures, but my partner can’t stand them.

I used to share a similar antipathy towards to the Sleaford Mods. A chap who I worked with during my days as a transcript writer inadvertently brought ‘the Mods’ to my attention after he posted a video on his blog of them performing 'Fizzy' outside of Rough Trade West. It’s not entirely comfortable viewing. To start off with, one of the crowd – perhaps mistaking the occasion for an open-mic event – attempts to get in on the act, and for a moment it looks like it’s going to turn nasty. Then there’s the way the group presents itself. Andy Fearn, bedecked in a baseball cap, nods along nonchalantly. Meanwhile, Jason Williamson’s twitches angrily, constantly rubbing the back of his head and flicking the end of his nose like he might be on amphetamine. I think I watched it three times on the bounce. At first I tried to suppress the memory but soon found myself watching videos for 'Tied Up in Nottz', 'Tarantula Deadly Cargo', 'Jolly F*cker'. I met up with one of the guys who hadn’t turned up for last year’s Dickensian Pub Crawl, and when I asked if he’d heard of Sleaford Mods I saw the same glint in his eye that there must have been in mine. Before long, I was sharing my experience with my bouldering buddies. Even my boss was intrigued (although The Australian and the South African sales manager weren’t – I’m not sure it’s the sort of music that travels well). Come November, I’d bought tickets to see them play live at The Roundhouse in Camden.

I try to avoid doubling up on artists but I’ve made an exception for the Sleaford Mods. 'Tarantula Deadly Cargo' is taken from the album Key Markets, which was released in 2015. Like most of their music, it’s fairly minimal: a deep, plodding bass-line layered over a brisk, repetitive beat. Their other contribution comes later.

Florence

An opportunity had been missed to visit Florence while we were out in Tuscany for a wedding in 2005. Instead, we’d been persuaded that Siena better catered for day-trips: it was smaller, slightly nearer, and parking more convenient. Florence is certainly the more prodigious town, and an afternoon would have never done it justice. Not that it did Siena justice either, but I was glad now to be going to Florence instead of Siena.

Walking through Piazza Pitti, we turned down a narrow street – Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti – and came across the sort of shop that my partner likes to browse in, selling a variety of disparate things. What wasn't for sale was the turntable, playing a compilation entitled Wizzz! French Psychorama 1966​-​1970, Volume 1. I made a note of the details in the back of my guide book and tried to find a copy. Couldn’t locate one anywhere, so ended up ordering it directly from the record label, Born Bad Records, in France. The track that had been playing in that small shop in Italy had been an instrumental, which means it could only have been 'Exitissimo' by William Sheller.

Wizzz! French Psychorama 1966-1970, Volume 1 isn’t available on Spotify, so at work I settled for playing the Blue Break Beats series, which had previously given rise to the inclusion of 'Ain’t it Funky Now' by Grant Green on my 2000 compilation The Ladies of Varades. The algorithm kicked in and before long Discover Weekly was offering up tunes as delectable as 'Soul Vibrations' by Dorothy Ashby, a jazz harpist who recorded for the Chess Records subsidiary Cadet. Ashby struggled to find acceptance within the jazz community; the harp was a classical instrument, and a novelty one at that. Fortunately, in-house arranger Richard Evans, who had been given carte blanche to work with pretty much whomever he desired, saw potential and signed Ashby up. Afro-Harping was the result, released in 1968, garnering positive reviews, and where you’ll find the tune 'Soul Vibrations'. (Ashby went on to add the koto to her repertoire, specifically on 1970’s The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby.)

'Balek' is not an obscure B-side by alternative-rock act Placebo but an obscure album track by a Belgian jazz combo of the same name. A guy called Marc Moulin was the prime mover, and his version of Placebo recorded three albums: Ball of Eyes in 1971, 1973 in 1973, and Placebo in 1974. 'Balek' is the fourth track on 1973 and it also makes a showing on It’s a Rocky Road: Volume 2, a mix compiled by The Gaslamp Killer, which might explain how it ended up here. We’re talking jazz-funk, but what attracted me to it was the way the second blast of the trumpet is truncated and set slightly ahead of the beat.

The Australian used to put on The Poets of Rhythm, often when he couldn’t be bothered to look for anything else. They play funk, but as the guy who used to own a pager was quick to point out there’s something not quite right about it. This is because they’re not black Americans recording in the 1970s but white Germans performing in the 1990s. This was not something I was entirely sure of, but the guy who used to own a pager, who is a musician, could immediately spot. 'More Mess on My Thing' is typical of their album Practice What You Preach, and if you like this sort of thing then don’t let my friend’s musical snobbery put you off.

The Frightnrs [sic] had me completely fooled. When Spotify generated them, I assumed I was hearing original rocksteady music from the late 1960s, when in fact it had been recorded as recently as 2015. The effect is deliberate: the band’s Brooklyn-based record label, Daptone Records, eschew digital recording techniques and work using analogue equipment (it’s where Amy Winehouse recorded Back to Black). Moreover, The Frightnrs’s debut LP, Nothing More to Say, was recorded monophonically. Tragically, their singer Dan Klein died from motor neurone disease while the record was still in post-production. His vocal possesses a delicacy that seems all the more poignant in light of this, but he leaves a powerful legacy.

After the bearing witness to the depredations on show in the so-called documentary Dig! it had been gratifying to discover in 2015 that Anton Newcombe continued to produce music to such a high standard. This is not to say that I'd purchased The Brian Jonestown Massacre album Revelation, but I had least deemed another of its tracks worthy for inclusion here – the acoustic 'Nightbird'. [Edit: I ended up buying the album some years later and have bought other BJM records along the way.]

I was excited to discover that PJ Harvey had a new album on the way and bought it almost on the day of release. Plenty of good tracks to choose from but I plumped for 'The Wheel' with its epic 1 minute-plus overture, replete with Iberian hand clapping, wailing guitar and saxophone. The lyric concerns Kosovo and the atrocities committed there.

The single 'All I Wanna Do' by Anglo-Antipodean band Splashh appeared on Discover Weekly, despite being approximately four years’ old. It seems the group were a victim of what’s often termed ‘difficult second album syndrome’. By the time their sophomore effort hit the shelves in April 2017 I’d completely forgotten about them, yet 'All I Wanna Do' remains one of my favourite tunes on this compilation, and I consider this to be a very strong compilation.

The Sleaford Mods in a more urgent mood: the ‘Nottz’ they’re tied up in refers to Nottingham, a town that gets a bad press these days but which I thought was rather pleasant when I went there 20-odd years ago. (Take a drink in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem if you’re ever passing through).

I don’t like The xx. My primary objection is Oliver Sim’s vocals, which sound like they’ve been cut four sheets to the wind. This is particularly evident in the song 'VCR'. So when my Australian co-worker went to put on In Colour by Jamie xx, who’s the principle songwriter for The xx, I wasn’t expecting much. How wrong I was. 'Gosh' is a very odd tune, at once industrial and harmonic, that draws you in slowly. As The Australian rightly pointed out, it’s best played at a very high volume.

The Australian returned to Australia in early 2017. Before leaving he made a final, unwitting contribution to my playlist by utilising some sort of function on Spotify that randomly plays songs by the same artist, in this instance LCD Soundsystem. 'Daft Punk Is Playing at My House' was massive in the UK, but I never liked it enough to include it on 2005’s Aka 'Devil in Disguise'. Had I heard it I would certainly have made room for 'Get Innocuous!' on 2007-08’s Harmony In My Head, which sounds like a cross between Talking Heads and David Bowie doing disco.

In October, my bouldering buddies and I travelled to Fontainebleau for a third year in succession. I again roomed with Mr Wilkinson, who brought along a musical device and the means by which to amplify it. 'Star Roving' by Slowdive was subsequently amplified, from their new album, their first in 22 years. [The chap who introduced me to Sarah Records and I once found ourselves hanging out with Slowdive at a party in King's Cross – this must have been around 1995. I wasn’t familiar with their music back then and didn’t even realise who they were. It was an awkward situation, made more awkward when Miki Berenyi from Lush came over and offered around canapes. We went outside to consider our options just as Donna from Elastica arrived bearing booze. She smiled at first, and then, upon realising that she didn’t know who the hell we were, regarded us with complete contempt. Elsewhere, Jarvis Cocker played records to an empty room. After an hour or so the guy who invited us still hadn’t turned up, and we decided to leave. With not enough money for a bus, we then proceeded to walk all the way back to Hounslow, which took over four hours.]

My enthusiasm for Chain & the Gang was reinvigorated after 2014’s Minimum Rock n Roll and I made a point of buying their new album on its release. It proved impossible to get hold of on vinyl and I would have to wait until the band toured the UK in February 2018 to obtain a copy. In the meantime, I listened to the record on-line and downloaded the track I wanted for my compilation: 'Come Over'.

Seville

After numerous trips to Spain, Italy and France, I advocated for a return to central or eastern Europe. And so in the summer of 2016, I flew to Krakow with my partner for what should have been a relaxing four days and four nights. On the third night we ate bad goulash, and the rest of the holiday was spent in bed, in the bathroom, or tentatively wandering around the city’s main square, Rynek Główny.

Before consuming the offending meal, I had been privy to Krakow’s Fair of Folk Art (Targi Sztuki Ludowej), centered around Rynek Główny, which consisted of artisanal market stalls and traditional live music. These musical performances were a delight. They were more like plays really, acted out by players of various ages wearing traditional costumes, sang in that distinctive timbre that often typifies the vernacular.

The following Easter and we were back in Spain, just in time to celebrate Holy Week in Seville (Semana Santa de Sevilla). This was not a deliberate move on our part, but it made for an interesting holiday. We arrived on Holy Monday and departed on Good Friday, and on every day we were there, at around 16:00 the festivities would commence. Large floats called pasos, depicting various scenes pertaining to the crucifixion, were paraded around the city by their respective cofradías (brotherhoods). In front, cloaked nazarenos holding candles; behind, brass bands playing a maudlin sort of mariachi.

There must be so much music from around the world that’s worth listening to, but who has the time – or even the ear – to sift through it all and decide which of it is any good? There was a new guy at work who generally played stuff that didn’t interest me. One day he put on an album called The Flying Club Cup by a group called Beirut. ‘Balkan folk’ is how Wikipedia describes it, but the band are from the state of New Mexico. 'In the Mausoleum' was the track that jumped out, and I made a note of it. Although sung in English, it feels authentic, even though it can’t be. Or can it? Band leader Zach Condon travelled around Europe in his early teens, and he cites the films of Federico Fellini, the mariachi music he was exposed to growing up in Sant Fe, and French chanson as influences. He’s not appropriating anything but absorbing various influences and reinterpreting them. And now, like Bombay Bicycle Club did, he’s stopped doing that, and Beirut’s music, like Bombay Bicycle Club’s, has taken a very average turn.


[Listen to here.]