I’ve been obsessing over football ultras for a while now and the fire is only getting stronger inside me… we need to do something to address the lack of atmosphere at games in this nation, particularly in England.

It occurred to me that it might be worth trying to get lots of people who:

a) consider themselves ultras and belong to a group,
b) would like to start a group at their club or
c) just want to see what it’s all about

together in one place.

This could happen over a weekend - I was thinking mid-July 2010, before any country’s league has started (well, obviously apart from those which do Feb-Nov) but after the World Cup has finished.

The aims of the conference would be:

a) To bring together people who have built ultra groups at their grounds with those who would like to or are generally interested.
b) To generate a sharing of ideas which could then be implemented in time for the 2010-11 season.
c) To meet fans from all over Britain and, hopefully, Europe.
d) To have a great laugh.

I need ideas for the following:

a) Which city should we have it in?

I have considered this question and there’s no easy answer. Aberdeen would be significant as the first place in the country to have Ultras, and it would be just as difficult for everyone to get to so there would be no complaints about London-centrism. York is one of the latest teams to have Ultras and it’s bang in between Glasgow and London (211 vs 203 miles), making it a good central location. Please suggest other ideas.

b) What sort of venue should we look for?

There’s a building at the end of my street called Langside Hall which has lots of different meeting rooms. if we took over a building like that, we could have lots of stuff going on at once - and they don’t tend to be extortionately expensive. It would be good if the building had a bar, but if it’s in a city centre this wouldn’t be necessary. I also think it would be awesome if there were football pitches nearby so that we could have a tournament - maybe we should have the event in Glasgow, since Langside Hall is surrounded by pubs and has a five-a-side centre right next to it! Also, it would be good if there was a cheap hotel nearby to help people find convenient accommodation, or failing that, good transport links to the city centre.

c) Most important - ideas for events!

This is what I have come up with so far:

- Invite people from clubs with organised ultras to form a platform to speak about how they did it and offer encouragement and advice.
- Get the invitations translated into as many languages as possible and invite people from other countries to share their experiences.
- See if we could get a couple of the players who have overtly supported the ultra groups associated with the teams they play for or support to come and speak - Cristiano Lucarelli (who pays Livorno fans’ fines) and Artur Boruc (who sticks up for Legia Warsaw fans when they clash with the authorities) come to mind.
- Send a call for papers round as many universities as possible. I don’t want to turn this into an academic talking shop, but I’m a Masters student and planning to do my dissertation on political affiliations of football firms - I can’t be the only one writing a paper on something interesting. I would stress in the letter composed that workshops based on papers should be accessible and preferably interactive, not like lectures.
- Have a banner-making workshop!
- Fun ideas for the evening - 5-a-side tournament, pool tournament, curry tasting, beer tasting…

Obviously this isn’t enough and I really, really need the help of everyone who’s interested to make this a GREAT idea rather than an OK idea.

If this were to go ahead, we would need volunteers for translating invitations, leafletting stadiums, building a website, selling tickets etc. and at the conference we would need a small team to chair meetings and sort out any administrative issues. We could reward volunteers with a free ticket.

If you’re interested in participating in any way, please either reply to this thread or email me (vieira4@gmail.com).

The next step will probably be a further online discussion, maybe in a chatroom which all potential volunteers are invited to at a certain time. After that, we could try and arrange basic details and organise some open public meetings in different cities to collect more ideas and volunteers.

Over to you!

God bless, Jenni xx

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