Roma Club Bristol: ''The club was born on the day we won the Conference League''

On 25 May 2022, the same day the Giallorossi triumphed in the Conference League, the Roma Club Bristol was born. President Giorgio Carrieri tells us how the initiative for a club in the south of England was born and how he realized his dream by running a club entirely dedicated to his favorite team. 

How and when was your Roma Club born?
'The Roma Club was born on the day of the Conference League final, born from a personal need and desire to see the game altogether. I, along with many other Roma people, tried to get tickets to Tirana. But I had no success, and I did not want to see the final alone. When you live abroad there are not so many other Romanists around. So from there came the intention of wanting to find out how many Romanists there were in the southwest of England. We started by writing on various social media platforms. Then we found a pub (Hall Pass) thanks to our vice-principal Pete and sent the address to anyone interested. That night there, unexpectedly, were about 50 of us. And since there were all these people I proposed the idea of creating an official Roma Club. From there the Roma Club Bristol was born. We have a membership card and our logo that was recreated from the 80' wolf cub. Our graphic designer made the logo by using the Clifton Bridge, which would be the cornerstone monument of Bristol. We currently have 25 members, but we are slowly growing.'' 

What does Roma mean to you?
''I was born in Taranto, and Roma is everything to me. When I lived in Italy I used to follow Roma wherever it went. When I arrived here in England I continued to follow it away but less. That was until I created this club, which for me was like fulfilling a dream to be able to share this love and to be able to make the away trips all together.''

Since it is a new club, how do you plan to expand it, and what are the main activities you organize? 
''We are starting to advertise ourselves on various social media, with Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to this publicity work, we have had several students from Rome visiting us at the club. This is because, every year, there are new students coming to England, and considering that the University of Bristol is gaining momentum we will have more people coming. Further, we are trying to promote various activities to incorporate more people, but it is clear that the important thing now is to get publicity. This is because, same as before, we didn't know that there were 50 other Roma people in the southwest of England. There are a lot of people who, when they find us, swear they are surprised because not everyone knows yet. We printed stickers so we could leave them around to make ourselves known and through those they looked us up on the Internet and came to see us. We then have our own trusted pub that has offered to be our official venue, so we don't have to wander around looking for a place. We also try to organize Roma's away trips. We also did an evening to celebrate Roma's birth on July 22, and the next event will be a Christmas dinner. There are also other activities planned such as maybe some soccer games.''

Eurojapan aside, how do you think the Special One will use the time off for the World Cup?
"What I believe, and what I hope, is not to cause us more injuries. We get a lot of injuries every time, and they weigh us down so much. So hopefully we will do well from that point of view and Mourinho and the staff will do what they can to get the injured people to recover during this break.''

What do you think about Roma's first few days in the Serie A and Roma's position in the Europa League?
'Regarding the League start, it is a fair start considering the position in the standings. We also have to consider important elements such as Dybala and Wijnaldum have been out, and so hopefully also with the return of these two important pawns, we can continue our run against climbing the standings. As for the Europa League, in these competitions, one game can make the difference and in fact, the difference is being made by the game we lost in Bulgaria against Ludogorets. Thus, we are in this situation, however, we are the architects of our own destiny so we have to try to take the points on Thursday. In the game against Helsinki we saw that the team coached by Mourinho that, if there is a need to win, they win. That is why I feel hopeful and positive that the team's mental approach supported by a sold-out stadium in Thursday's game will lead the team to the achievement of those three points.''

Finally, do you think that compared to last year, have the new signings changed anything about the team? And what merits does Mourinho have in this regard?
''The team has improved a lot. We have more experience with Dybala, Matic and Wijnaldum. Of course, there are more options to choose from; a longer bench always helps. If last year we had all these injuries the situation would not have been the best. While with the injuries we have this year we end up with last year's starting team, which is not bad. We have to grow every year, step by step without making any false steps.''