The Turin Mystery

 what really happened that fateful day in Turin

The game had been hyped up. Turin Mayor & Manager Gino Kinnear had been claiming the Spoon Army would not be allowed into the Stadio Olympico by the security forces, even going as far as to advocate placing a giant ribbed condom over the stadium!
The Spoon Army retaliated claiming they could and would take both the City and the Stadium whenever they liked, regardless of any oversized contraceptive obstacles placed in their way.

A ribbed condom

The Stadio Olympico Grande Torino last thursday

The gauntlet had been dropped and the Spoon Army were not ones to shirk a challenge.

My name is Python Lee and I accompanied a hardcore element of the Spoon Army on what has now become known as: ‘The Turin Mystery’.

6000 away tickets had been sold for the sell out league clash between Turin & Sao Paulo. Mayor Kinnears’ tactics of hyping the games’ potential for disorder had obviously borne dividends.

As expected the masses the Spoon Army descended on Turin and apart from isolated incidents of arson and looting the security forces did a pretty good job and the visiting supporters were largely peaceable.
As it approached kick off the fans began to stream south towards Santa Rita and the Torino Stadium shepherded by the security forces in a vast carnival of blue lights and sirens.

However that was not where we were heading.
I was with around 500 of the more hardcore of the Spoon Army, veterans of both the mass incarceration and the escape into the mountains. These people were survivors….and fanatics.
Their passion for Sao Paulo and it’s people ran deep and they weren’t about to let Mayor Kinnears’ slurs against them go unanswered.

A man holding several gelatos today

Wearing chinos and sunglasses, gesticulating and slurping gelatos we blended in effortlessly with both the locals and tourists alike as we made our way towards the Monumentale de Torino just east of the city centre. 
At this point I had no idea what our destination was, as a journalist I was tolerated, befriended even but totally trusted? Not yet.

We strolled around the monument taking selfies and drinking tiny coffees until 3.17pm, the exact time Nicola Sansone scored the first of his brace for Sao Paulo.. 
This was our signal. Gelatos were jettisoned, gesticulations ceased as we strode purposefully back into the centre. 
I recall approaching an imposing Cathedral and vaguely recognising it from somewhere, ‘Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista’, where did I know that name from?

 

The Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista earlier today

I was about to find out as we entered the Cathedral at jogging pace, an air of menace now exuding from the 500 strong group. It was then that I saw the first glint of stainless steel in the air, heard the first clink and clatter of the much fabled Spoons. Tourists and the faithful shrank back in fear leaving our path forward clear.

The altar yesterday

We reached the Altar and formed a protective circle as 50 or so elite Spoons decamped into the bowels of the building. My attention was distracted when a group of altar boys tried to make a run for it only to be horribly brought down by some well placed Spoons to the knees. 
One tourist, a massive American tried to take a photo of us, big mistake, a deftly aimed sugar spoon shattered his expensive camera lens followed by a dessert spoon to the neck, felling him faster than the Lehman Brothers empire.

Minutes later we were out in he bright Italian sunshine, heading out to the University campus where a fleet of luxury coaches were waiting to whisk us north, over the border into Switzerland and Geneva airport.

It wasn’t until we were back in Sao Paulo that I saw the reason for our days work and I still can’t believe my eyes.
We had the Turin Shroud. Yes the Turin Shroud, the Shroud of Turin, however you want to say it, we had it.
I broke the story via Reuters and the reaction around the world was predictably one of shock and horror.

Days later the Spoon Army issued a communique denouncing religious fervour and explaining they would be putting the shroud to a new and more fruitful purpose that would be revealed at their next home game against Besiktas. However, Python Lee your intrepid journalist has a world first, and it’s really gonna shock you.

The Spoonin Shroud

The Shroud has been renamed The Spoonin Shroud and it now bears the imprints of the the most rare and precious Spoons in the Spoon Army’s possession. 
It is to become the new club flag and will be paraded aloft in the terraces at every home game as a symbol of the strength and determination of this unique fan army.
It wasn’t just the club that benefited either, a few trinkets liberated from ‘Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista’ fetched a nice price on Brazilian EBay and as a result many Paulista Favelas received decent plumbing, hot water and some brand new automatic weapons.

Some Automatic weapons earlier today

I guess if there’s one thing to learn from all this it’s don’t fuck with the Spoon Army, that’s it mainly.

Oh, and as for Mayor and Manager Kinnear, his team Torino lost the game 2-0 somewhat against the run of play and he’s no longer Mayor. In the public furore that followed the theft he was stripped of the title and sentenced by a clerical court to polish the urns, light the candles and arrange the flowers in every Cathedral in Turin for the next 5 years.

And so ends the Turin Mystery.