I needed a holiday and had some cash squirrled away so I mentioned to my mate John that I was looking to go away. Was he up for it? He was and with him being a teacher February half-term was the time to do it. Where to go was the question and the main motivation was football. Go somewhere where we could watch some games. The answer had to be Germany and more specifically the North-Rhine Westphalia.
The reasons were simple. Plenty of clubs in that region so we could get to as many games as possible. The clubs in Germany’s industrial heartland are legion – Shalke, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Monchengladbach, Dusseldorf, Colne, not to mention smaller clubs such s Rott-Weiss Essen and Duisburg.
We flew to Amsterdam from Bristol and arrived in the Dutch capital at around 10pm on Friday night. We found the youth hostel where we were staying and a few beers were consumed. In the hostel were staying in a dorm with two Belgian lads who enquired as to the reasons for our trip. We explained that we were heading to Germany the next day to spend a few days watching football. They seemed amazed at our reason 'you have come all this way just for football?' What were they doing in Amsterdam then? 'The same reason anyone comes to Amsterdam, to take drugs' Glad that cleared that up then....
Early Saturday morning John got his train to Hanover where they were at home to Kaiserslauten. I decided to head for a different venue and we would meet later that day. I boarded a train to Dortmund via Duisburg where I would be watching a team that gets the highest average attendance in Germany and one of the best in Europe – Borrussia Dortmund.
I arrived at Dortmund station two hours prior to kick-off and the station was already packed with fans of both Dortmund and St Pauli, that day's opponents. Almost every one of them was enjoying beer and plenty of fans were carrying crates and necking bottles like their was no tomorrow. The atmosphere between the two sets of fans was boisterous without being intimidating and not looking at spilling into violence. The Dortmund fans were chanting 'shit St Pauli!' in English at the St Pauli fans. They responded by chanting back the same with piss taking looks on their faces suggesting that the Dortmund fans had mental heath issues. I joined a queue to catch the train to the ground as the stewards on the platforms poured away the remaining beer in the hands of fans and kept the bottles.
The train to the stadium rocked with songs from both Dortmund and St Pauli and was absolutely packed.
When you approach the ground it looks impressive but not as impressive as you would expect a stadium with a capacity of 80,552 to look. The frontage is bright though and very smart. The stadium approach was full of bratwurst, beer and souvenir sellers that were all doing a roaring trade and I had a wander round the ground to where I would be watching the match – The 25,000 capacity terrace known as the Sud Tribune. Tickets for this end have a face value of 12 euros’ about 10 quid but such is Dortmunds support that these sell to members within hours and the match as a whole was sold out within days. Although there were plenty of tickets on offer outside the ground, I didn't want to chance it and my ticket arrived via Berlin before I left for a less than cheap 70.00 quid.
It didn’t disappoint. I was up in the top right hand corner of the terrace which was packed 1 hour before kick-off where fans drank beer from plastic cups and smoked if they wanted to. The ground rocked as the Dortmund fans jumped up and down and sang for thee support for BVB, a song that sounded like 'BVB for me'. Even the stewards watching the fans were swigging beer. A massive difference from those in England who spend most there time telling people who want to stand to sit down
Once the teams took the field to a rendition of you'll never walk alone, sang in English with a German accent, bizarre, the game kicked off. Dortmund had control of the match and it was no surprise when they took the lead through Lucas Barrios, the Sud Tribune erupted and 25,000 people proceeded to jump up and down and with BVB already 15 points clear at the top of the bundaslega, it was party time in Dortmund. St Pauli was never in it and despite being in mid-table were over whelmed by wave after wave of Dortmund attacks. In the 2nd half they relented and Dortmund added a 2nd through an own goal by Gunesh. Despite being 2nd best throughout and only having one optimistic attempt on goal, the St Pauli fans sang, jumped up and down and got behind their team. Compared to the sterile atmospheres in England the noise generated by both sets of fans was mind blowing.
I made my way to the St Pauli souvenir van on my way back to the station to pick up a scarf. St Pauli had just won promotion the previous season from Germanys 2nd division and they are Germany's most unique club and one of the most unique in the world. Hailing from Hamburg they are SV Hamburg’s poorer relations and play their matches at Milleretor-Stadion in Hamburg’s red light district. They have spent most of their history in the 2nd and 3rd divisions with a few brief appearances in the Bundaslega. Their fans have an anti-racist agenda and had Germany’s first gay chairman. They run out to Hells Bells by ACDC and are considered the alternative club. In their shop was a t-shirt in the style of the Sex Pistols one and only album which read – Never mind the Hamburg......here's St Pauli. While pursuing the St Pauli shop a Dortmund fan by the name of Helmut asked if I was a St Pauli fan. I told him I was English and had come to see BVB play and to stand on the sud tribune. He was taken aback. 'You have come all the way from England......to see Dortmund? I told him that I had. He then took the Dortmund scarf from round his neck and put it on mine. 'take this my friend and when you look at it, always think of Dortmund'. A top gesture from the lad. We continued talking on the way to the station, and he asked me where in England I lived, Manchester I replied and he assumed I was a Man Utd fan. I explained that although I have lived in Manchester for 9 years and that it was now home, I was originally from Bristol and so Bristol City was my team. He was going one way and I the other. I wished him and Dortmund all the best. Was he confident of them winning the league? He hoped so and added that if they didn't then as long as Bayern didn't he would be reasonably happy. I arrived back at Dortmund station and there were still plenty of fans stood around drinking and smoking and taking advantage of large bottles of kromenbacer at 80p a bottle.
I got talking to some St Pauli fans while waiting for John to return from Hanover and ended up drinking with them for 3 hours. After confirming my footballing allegiance they led the way with anti Bristol Rovers songs that they had been taught by visiting Bristol City fans to their ground. I discovered later that they actually have a link up with the dreaded Gas due to the Pirate connection. Rovers are the pirates due to Bristol’s navel history and St Pauli have a skull and cross bones as their unofficial badge. They were too friendly to bring this up. They were still buzzing about their derby win at Hambergs gaff and were confident that this time they could secure their Bundasegia status.
Names were swapped for adding on facebook at it was time for them to catch their train back to Hamburg.
Once back at the youth hostel we hit the town in Dortmund. For a club that have such high attendences at home, Dortmund itself is unimpressive. It is not a big place and we had some beers on the main square which only had 3 bars on it. There wasn't a great deal of people around and they all seemed to be wearing Dortmund tops. As with most of Germany and the Westphalia region in particular, being the industrial region of Germany it was heavily bombed during the war. The result being that there were hardly any buildings that weren’t grey 60’s style buildings.
John assured me that there wouldn’t be a lack of bars in Dusseldorf, our next port of call.
Football in Germany is still a working class game. Fans can stand and ticket prices are cheap. This is reflected in the superb atmospheres at matches and high attendances. The next day We headed for Germany’s most middle-class club – Bayer Leverkusen.
Leverkusen is a small town between Dusseldorf and Colne and would be a completely non-descript place and certainly no sort of footballing power if it wasn’t for the town’s biggest employer - Bayer. The German Pharmasutical giant owns Leverkusen and bankrolls them. The club was set up as a team for the employees of Bayer and has always been supported financially by them. It's only through this backing that Leverkusen have reached the champions league final and won the Uefa cup but have never won the Bundesliga despite several near misses and so are known as Neverkusen. The Bay Arena was redeveloped in 2009 and has a capacity of 30,210 with a small section in the corner for standing. Upon approach to the stadium from the station you walk through a very pleasant park, think a trip to Craven Cottage with the skyline looking more like Middlesbrough and your there. The stadium itself is smart from the outside and smart on the inside but feels much more like a modern Premier League ground than a Bundaslegia one.
The terrace in the corner houses the Leverkusen ultras and ironically for a club with a fanbase such a Leverkusen's they were the first team in Germany to have an Ultra’s group.
Stuttgart were the visitors and the match was a hugely entertaining 4-2 win for Leverkusen. The Stuttgart fans were superb throughout and contantly sang and got behind their team despite the score and their league position.. Stuttgart played much better stuff than St Pauli the previous day and didn’t look like a side that should be in the bottom three although their defence was hugely suspect. Leverkusen had old premier league veterens Michael Ballack and Sami Hypia in the side and played good quality attacking football although would not be a match for a top premier league club.
We left Leverkusen and headed for Dusseldorf where we met Rob who had been to bottom of the table Borussia Monchengladbach. They hadn’t won at home all season and were rooted firmly to the bottom of the table. Rob brought them luck though and they gained their first home win against what Rob described as a very poor Shalke side. It may have been a local derby but they pulled in a gate of 55,000 despite their league position. At 9 quid a ticket to stand behind the goal it's perhaps not that surprising.
A day off on the Monday with no football that evening but as we were in Dusseldorf station looking to see if their might be a local non-league fixture. It was while thumbing through Kicker (Germany's best selling football magazine) that we came across a lad with a backpack, glasses and an enormous jaw. He was from Sheffield also had what looked like a toothpaste stain hanging from the corner of his mouth. You lads looking for games? He asked. 'Yeah but there’s nothing round here tonight.' He enquired where we had been. We told him between us Hanover, Dortmund, Gladbach and Leverkusen. He also had been to Dortmund and Leverkusen and was heading to Berlin to watch Hertha in the 2nd division that night. Berlin being a 4 hour train journey away this lad was clearly into his football or off his box. The toothpaste stain was a suggestion that this fella was an anorak who was clearly beyond help. I bet he looks good on the dancefloor…
Later we hit Dusseldorfs old town and had a few beers and watched the Herta Berlin game. After the game a champions league preview show was on featuring the upcoming game between Bayern and Inter. After about 5 mins of the show one fella who must have been in his sixties waved a disapproving hand at the screen 'Bayern! Again! It's enough to make you sick!. It was at this point that the barman turned the TV off much to the thanks of the Bayern hater. A lot of people in England dislike Manchester United (although not me and I think the ABU's can be quite sad) but the bile reserved for Bayern in Germany really was palpable.
Tuesday we headed to Wuppertal which is a town that boasts the worlds only upside down mono rail. Impressive though the mono rail was is wasn't our reason for visiting this pleasant town. Down in the German regional league play Wuppertal Borussia and tonight they were at home to FC Trier. The trip so far had been cold and my decision not to take my extremly warm parka was looking like something of an error. We decided to board the mono rail and head for the stadium to see if the game was going to be on or if horror of horrors it may be off due to a frozen pitch.
We got off at the station opposite Wuppertal's ground which is called the Zoo Stadium. A strange name for a ground but the reason why it is called this is quite simple – It's next to a zoo. It looks quite smart from the outside and we decided to walk into the entrance to look for signs of life. There wasn't anyone about so we walked through the tunnel and out on to the pitch to be greeted to the sight of 3 reasonaly large open terraces. A few photo's were taken and I then decidede to take a seat in the dug out. It was at this point that the groundsman decided to make an appearance. 'Who are you and what are you doing here' he asked. John who's German is fluent told him were were sorry but had come into the stadium looking to see if the game was on tonight. He wondred why we might of thought it would be off. We said that in England most games would be called off if the ground was too hard for the players. He laughed and said 'this isn't England, we're much tougher here!' In The game would definatly be on.
The Zoo stadium is a very inpressive stadium in size to watch what amounts to non-league football in. Two relatively large open terraces behind each goal and a large open terrace down one side of the pitch and the main stand is a smart affair. The stadium holds 23,000. Tonight the capacitry weas not tested in any way as just over a thousand souls bared the cold with around 60 noisy away fans. German fans do travel in numbers to watch their team and even when they are being soundly beaten they still vocally get behind their team.
Wuppertal started brightly but their suspect defence was soon cut open and they went in at half time 2-0 down. They couldn't make their chances count and looked low on confidence. One local who we spoke to had seen Wuppertal play in the Bundaslega in the early seventies. What had gone wrong? They have no money and the council now own the stadium he said. Attendences had been poor for a number of years due to a lack of success and too many large Bundaslegia clubs nearby. The final score was 3-1 to trier.
As we headed to take the train back to Dussledorf we stopped for a quick beer at the kiosk outside the Zoo Stadium. It was there that we were approached by two middle aged blokes who enquired if were were English. We told them that we were and beer bottles were clunked, a German greeting. They were Gladbach fans and often watched Wuppertal which was their local team. They told us that they though it a travesty that England hadn't been awarded the 2018 World Cup and wanted to talk about english football. It would appear that Germans liked our bid even if FIFA did not. They wanted to know who we supported and the answers of Bristol City, Blackburn Rovers and Stafford Rangers seemed to take them by surprise. Their favorate English team was Manchester United due to the clubs tradition. They disliked Chelsea because they had bought success like Bayern. Bayern, again! the national obsession.
The next day we headed back via Amsterdam, Rob stayed for the rest of the week to take in games at Leverkusen and Rott-weiss essen. On the Saturday it was Bristol City Vs Scunthorpe United to make it 4 matches for me in a week. Despite Ashton Gate having arguably the best atmosphere in the Championship the return to watching English football after the superb matchday experience in Germany was a real comedown. Football is still affordable in the fatherland and as a result it’s still a working class game. Being able to stand and drink certainly helped but the football culture there is like it was when I started going in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It seems to me that the only way we can improve the atmosphere in English stadiums is to make ticket prices affordable for the average fan and to bring the terraces back. Safe standing is safe and having seen it first hand in Germany there really is no logical argument against it. As for ticket prices, clubs here will never lower prices unless attendences drop. They would also never welcome a return to standing as prices would have to drop for standing places and renovations would have to be made to stadiums. German fans want the option to stand and if ticket prices became too high then they simply wouldn’t go.
At the end of the season Dortmund were champions and Leverkusen runners up (their hoodoo continues). Bayern came third and as a result then did what Bayern do,. they sacked the manager and appointed Leverkusen’s. St Pauli’s defeat at Dortmund was the beginning of a period of freefall for them and were relegated. Dortmund and Leverkusen won’t be much of a threat in this seasons champions league as there is not the money in the Bundeliga as in England or Spain but if this is the price to pay for the superb fan culture then perhaps it’s a price worth paying…………
From Manchester....
James Bolam
