One year on, I can still hear the screams

The moment we enter that ageing coliseum, memories will flood back of the brutality that scarred last season's Roma-United quarter-final.

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I'll remember the unprovoked charge by the riot squad, the flailing batons that slammed mercilessly into heads and bodies. I'll hear the roars of the aggressors and the screams of the victims.

I will relive being caught in the terrifying crush as fleeing fans tumbled down that giant bank, triggering momentary fears of another Heysel. I will see once more the broken bodies and bloodied heads of people whose only crime was to watch their football team.

Why am I going back? It is a question I've asked myself many times these past few weeks. I have not yet come up with a convincing answer. But as we touch down in Italy, as well as the feeling of trepidation will be the hope that everyone has learned from that dreadful night.

This time United have not issued the extreme pre-match warnings to their followers which so upset the Rome authorities 12 months ago. With luck, the Italians will not repeat their mistakes.

What I'm looking for is the kind of firm but fair policing we take for granted in Britain. Officers and stewards are needed in all areas of the ground, not just in the visitors' section.

What I do not expect again is the chaos that left so many United fans angry, frustrated, and believing the disorganisation was a deliberate plan to goad them into behaviour that would justify retaliation.

I go there as a football supporter hoping only to see a great game — I don't want once more to be a journalist filing copy from a battle zone.

A year ago, via text message and mobile phone, I reported from the terraces on the brutality as it was happening, accounts that appeared in the Daily Mail the next morning.

Those reports, and a lengthier version I was asked to submit, form part of evidence presented by a prominent Italian lawyer to his country's legal authorities considering prosecutions. Separately, Amnesty International are pressing for action.

However, nobody has yet been charged. Two explanations have been offered – that the wheels of Italian justice are, as ever, turning slowly (despite pressure from the European Court of Justice), and that it is proving difficult to identify the policemen responsible.

Perhaps the reason I am going back is to prove that what happened was an aberration and that my respect for that great country has not been misplaced.