Thursday, February 15th. Selhurst Park. Seven o'clock in the evening. Europa League, Round of 32, first leg. AC Milan.
The flares started at six.
The Milan ultras had arrived in South London on a fleet of coaches from Gatwick, two thousand of them, and they had brought the theatre of Italian football with them.
Red smoke rising above the Arthur Wait stand an hour before kick-off, the acrid, sweet, unmistakable smell of pyrotechnics drifting across the Selhurst Park car park and settling on the evening like a fog.
The stewards were confiscating flares at the turnstiles and finding more. The ultras were experienced. The ultras had been smuggling flares into stadiums since before Danny Walsh was born. They treated English stewards the way a river treated a dam: as an inconvenience to flow around, not an obstacle to stop at.
The noise was different from a Premier League night. Not louder. Different. Rhythmic. Organised.
