Borussia Dortmund v Schalke 04 - photo special

Derbysieg

Borussia Dormund 2-0 Schalke 04 (26:11:11)

Yesterday, Nick Coppack went to see surprise package, Borussia Mönchengladbach beat their near neighbours FC Köln to storm to the top of the Bundesliga (click HERE for those photos). What could possibly beat that? How about being in a crowd of over 80,000, a day later, at one of the biggest matches in world football, BVB v Schalke 04.. yes sir.. photo us up, Nick...

You can follow both Nick Coppack and European Football Weekends on Twitter.

European Football Weekends in Germany

Fußball-himmel

Fortuna Dusseldorf 2-1 Dynamo Dresden

Borussia Dortmund 5-1 Wolfsburg 

Alemannia Aachen 2-2 Duisburg

Chris Durning from The Bar and In blog on his European football weekend in Germany...

Its good to be back. After taking in two matches around this time last year in North-Rhine Westphalia involving Borussia Monchengladbach and Rot Weiss Oberhausen we just couldn't get enough of the wonderful world that is German football. This time we were set for three games in three days across the region which many refer to as 'Football heaven'. Flying out from London Luton Airport after spotting the legend that is Terminal Duty Officer Pat Salmon (from the ITV and now Pick TV's Luton Airport documentary) we landed in Dortmund a little after 9am. First on the menu for this footballing feast would be a game around an hour away in Dusseldorf between high-fliers Fortuna Dusseldorf and Dynamo Dresden. Arriving in Dusseldorf you quickly notice that its a far bigger city than Dortmund with the Konigsallee boasting Gucci, Prada and Armani amongst others, the only street we were interested in however, was Bolkerstrasse. Home to breweries Zum Schlossel and Im Goldenen Kessel which were quite literally heaving with fans from both sides.

Pitching up at the Esprit arena gives the impression that you are there for a conference exhibition rather than a football match, until you get through the turnstiles that is. Once inside the Arena is both modern and enclosed which aid's the noise of both sets of fans to be heard clearly creating an immense atmosphere even with the ground half full, as is regular. Fortuna bossed the game in the early stages and duly took the lead through Maximillian Beister's deflected effort, people around us were showered with the pre-match beer during the celebrations. As Dusseldorf went on the offensive again I spotted three large men from the row behind us sporting freshly re-filled pints of Altbier, I was beginning to regret not purchasing a Fortuna brolly. Thankfully Dusseldorf didn't score, in fact Dresden decided they had seen enough of their own half and went up the other end with Mickael Pote prodding a neat shot past the Fortuna 'keeper. This didn't do anything to dampen the spirit of the Fortuna support with a man behind us doing his best Gerard Butler of '300' by yelling 'FOOOORTUUUUUUUNAAAAAAAAAAA' at the top of his lungs.

The noise never let up inside the ground and the home support were rewarded when Jovanovic killed the ball on the thigh and lashed it into the top corner in stoppage time giving Fortuna the points. Getting away from the ground wasn't too difficult with the station being situated inside the complex of the Esprit Arena, bizarrely on the way back we caught sight of a Fortuna supporter cradling his pet hedgehog, only in Germany eh.

Fresh from the delights of Dusseldorf we had a second game to go to, my voice newly refreshed by an ice cold pint of Dortmund ale and we found ourselves at the quite magnificent Signal Iduna Park, the largest stadium in Germany I'll have you know. As we joined the sea of black and yellow cramming into the ground for what was to be a sell out, the sheer size of the place really hits home. Steep stands and unobstructed views aplenty with the largest standing area in Europe (known as the Sudtribune) it really did feel like the home of football. The lads at EFW of course love their roof's in stadiums and as far as roof's in stadiums go, this was a bobby dazzler, surely worth five UEFA stars? Dortmund I should mention were playing Wolfsburg and some of their supporters had gathered in our section around five rows in front which made a pleasant change. A huge display went up in the Sudtribune as the teams emerged with the message 'Dortmund until the death' underneath a headstone bearing a skull, if that doesn't say passion I'm not sure what does.

                                                                         
Dortmund started the much brighter and soon took the lead through German sensation Mario Gotze, surely bound for Real Madrid or Barcelona in January on this kind of form. Shinji Kagawa added a second and Wolfsburg's patchy away form began to haunt them. The second half saw Alexander Hleb, formerly of Birmingham City, find a way back into the game for the away side, with a tap in for 2-1. Sadly the Wolfsburg fan's joy was short lived as the towering Sven Bender powered a header over the line (just) to restore the two-goal cushion. Wolfsburg may have regretted sticking Liverpool reject Sotirios Kyrgiakos at centre half as Dortmund focused their attacks on the Greek defenders alarming lack of pace. Soon after Robert Lewandowski chipped the Wolfsburg 'keeper and Gotze helped himself to a second, the rout was complete. The Sudtribune were bouncing and Wolfsburg left with their tails between their legs.

At a little over 200 Euros a Dortmund season ticket on that magnificent Sudtribune is well worth considering as the yellow army play some truly magnificent football, next week its the big one against FC Schalke and it's sure to be a thriller.

                                                                       
Sunday's normally a day of rest for the Germans, but not for us. Up bright and early at 7:30am (ouch) we were off on the final leg of our journey to the border town of Aachen which straddles both Dutch and Belgian borders (in case you're interested). This would be Alemannia Aachens 1000th game in the second tier of German football and a near-sell out was the order of the day as once again we were surrounded by people dressed in black and yellow. A large police presence greeted us at Aachen Hauptbahnhof as this was a local derby and a full house at the new Tivoli stadium but as per, the fans mixed with no problems at all with a large travelling contingent from Duisburg. On the approach to the new stadium we passed the ruins of the previous Tivoli with those magnificent floodlights still standing strong along with some of the turnstile entrances.

The new stadium is literally a goal kick away from the old stadium and is of very impressive quality. Simple in design and execution with an entire end dedicated to standing, which would be our home for the afternoon. As we entered the Bitburger wall terrace we were handed large sheets of yellow paper, this would be for a display later on. Standing beside one of the Aachen flagbearers (top tip if you want a little more room on the terrace) the views of the action were superb and the atmosphere even more so. Aachen wasted no time in taking the lead through Radu's towering far post header, bizarrely pre-match the tunes played included Neil Diamond's 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Three Lion's' by Baddiel,Skinner and The Lightening Seeds. Aachen's theme however, is the Gloria Gaynor classic 'I will survive' very apt for a team who only managed one goal in their opening 10 matches. Duisburg soon responded testing Aachen stopper Boy Waterman who pulled off impressive saves throughout. Sadly Waterman was beaten when another Duisburg break resulted in Valeri Domovchyski levelling for the zebra's.

Aachen fans continued to lead the chants as the Duisburg away support jumped up and down and soon they were jumping for joy as Andre Hoffman peeled away at the far post to nod Duisburg ahead, mad celebrations in the corner as Aachen stood stunned. Aachen soon brought on two substitutes in a vain effort to rescue a point and with 68 minutes on the clock, star striker Beni Auer broke clear resulting in the Aachen man's shot turned in by the unfortunate Branimir Bajic. As 'I will survive' blasted around the ground the party atmosphere was back, with Aachen surging on for a late winner Duisburg stood firm and the game ended 2-2.

So three games and 13 goals later it was all over for (possibly) another year, top class entertainment and top marks once again to the German football system, free rail passes on the match tickets are a real god-send to those wanting a budget weekend watching football as we remember it. Go on, give it a go...

                                                                       

Chris Durning is the Editor of The Bar and In.

Borussia Dortmund v St Pauli

You'll Never Walk Alone

Borussia Dortmund 2-0 St Pauli (19:02:11)

Stepping up to the Readers' Lives plate today is Nick Davidson, author of Modern Football is Rubbish, to regale us with a story of his European Football Weekend in Germany...

Borussia Dortmund v St Pauli at the Westfalenstadion (Signal Iduna Park, if you must) was the first game I looked for when the Bundesliga fixtures were announced last summer. The Westfalenstadion was ‘The Big One’ (© Tony Pulis, probably.) Anyway, it was the one I desperately wanted to tick off my list of German grounds visited. I’d tried a couple of times to combine a trip to Dortmund en-route to watch St Pauli when we were in 2.Liga, and often played on different days to the Bundesliga, but the fixtures had never fallen for me. But to go there with St Pauli – that would be something else.

It still wasn’t that straight forward. The game, part of Spieltag 23, could be played anytime from Friday night to Sunday tea-time and the kick-off wouldn’t be confirmed by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) until a month or so before. The Friday fixture would be impossible due to work, and Saturday would be pushing it. As a result, I took a keen interest in Dortmund’s Europa League campaign, as BVB negotiating the group stages would guarantee a Sunday slot for our game. Unfortunately a 2-2 draw for Dortmund away at Sevilla wasn’t enough to get them into the Round of 16 and, as a consequence, my trip would rest on the whim of the DFL.
To add to the suspense – in my head at least – the DFL kept me hanging on until mid-January before confirming the kick-off times for Spieltag 23. Dortmund v St Pauli was scheduled for 15.30 on the Saturday – it would take some planning, but it was just about possible.

As I’m not overly keen on flying – don’t worry the Dennis Bergkamp jokes have been done to death already – my trip started on Friday evening at Milton Keynes Central (central to what? Not Milton f@*%ing Keynes that’s for sure.) As I walked towards the station I spotted a young lad in a brown St Pauli hoodie leaning against the wall. I took it as a good omen that, in the land of the concrete cow, anodyne shopping centre and Franchise FC, someone was sporting a Totenkopf – genuine fan or fashionista? I didn’t have time to stop and chat, I had a train (the first of many) to catch. Anyway, my trip appeared to be blessed with much better karma than in August when, on a rare plane journey to Hamburg, some clot in an English Defence League t-shirt was flitting around the platform of Birmingham International station looking for aggro as I was heading for the airport.

After an overnight stop in Brussels and a train ride to Köln, I met some fellow members of the St Pauli messageboard on the platform heading for Dortmund –all Port Vale fans and a sound bunch. In Dortmund, there was time to meet a few more messageboarders in the pub including a long awaited (and much postponed, last time due to the volcanic ash cloud) meet with a fellow Watford fan, before heading off to the ground to meet Justus from the St Pauli Fanladen who’d got my ticket. I can’t praise the Fanladen enough, they always try to sort us out for tickets, something that has become increasingly difficult after our promotion to the Bundesliga last May. Back in August, they’d been fabulous sorting seat tickets out for me and my 8-year old daughter for the game in Freiburg. In the wider scheme of things, helping international fans get to games is just the tip of the Fanladen iceberg, there’s a good summary of their work here.

Ticket in hand, I stood staring at the exterior of the Westfalenstadion thinking profound thoughts like, ‘bloody hell, it’s big.’ However, from the outside despite the vivid yellow roof supports, it does look a tinsy-bit like a lot of other new stadiums, just on a much bigger scale. Once through the ticket and security check – at an entrance shared by both home and away fans, imagine that at Old Trafford or Ashburton Grove? – it’s a different story. I was in Block 8, right at the bottom of the away terrace. As I headed down a short flight of steps, I noticed piles of seats stored neatly ready for the infamous conversion of terrace to seating for international fixtures or European competition. Then it was down some more steps to an entrance that brought me out into the stadium, right at the base of the away fans section – not that I was looking at that, my attention had been diverted to my first glimpse of the ‘Yellow Wall’ at the other end of the stadium. Much has been written about that vast expanse of terrace, so I won’t bang on about it too much, but seeing it pretty much full 30 minutes before kick-off was a sight to behold. In fact, the whole stadium looked huge, turning round looking at our section, the terracing was dwarfed by an upper tier of seated St Pauli fans stretching up to the heavens (and containing somewhere therein, the Port Vale massive.) Cathedral, temple or opera house of football – take your pick, it’s truly breath taking.

Cathedral, temple or opera house of football?

"Cultural magpies"

There was a bit of bother to the left of me, about 20 minutes before kick-off. A few fists went flying and I assumed that a home (or rival) fan had decided to get in amongst the St Pauli hardcore. Apparently, it was more to do with the stewards not letting the fans hang their banners over the advertising hoardings at the front of the stadium. The ‘over-enthusiastic’ police and stewards response, wasn’t the best move after the problems at Wednesday night’s game in the Volksparkstadion.

But things settled down, and it wasn’t long before the St Pauli fans were in full voice. Kick off was preceded by a sing-a-long version of You’ll Never Walk Alone, which, despite the piped-music accompaniment, was ace. Of course, being St Pauli (and YNWA being one of ‘our’ anthems) we managed another verse and chorus once the music had stopped, before launching into my favourite chant of ‘Aux Armes’ which sounded great bouncing between the upper and lower tiers. Cultural magpies them St Pauli fans, appropriating YNWA from Merseyside and ‘Aux Armes’ from the Marseilles…

Sing-a-long a YNWA

We are the ticks’  – can’t see the English translation without launching into a rakishly out-of-tune rendition of Suede’s ‘We are the ticks / we are the swine’ (with apologies to Mr Brett Anderson)

The game itself was unremarkable and the score line fairly predictable. Despite St Pauli’s recent run of form, most fans didn’t expect to be leaving the Westfalenstadion with more than a point, and even that slim hope was ended early in the second-half when Ralph Gunesch diverted a shot into his own net to give the league leaders a 2-0 lead. But I’d not come looking for a win, I’d come to stand and sing with the St Pauli faithful in this grand setting. And I’d come to see and hear the Südtribüne in full flow. In true, away fan fashion, it felt like we were out-singing the home fans for much of the game, especially as we had a new chant of ‘Derbysieger’ that needed a lot of airtime. If the noise coming from the Südtribüne wasn’t especially impressive, the sight of 20,000 fans pogo-ing on the spot sure made up for it, it was then I really appreciated the vast scale of the terrace. In the end it wasn’t the acoustics that blew me away, but the seething mass of bodies. Whether jumping up and down in unison or holding scarves aloft it was a sight that took me back to the great terraces of the 1970s. It was reminiscent of The Kop or The Stretford End as seen on old Match of the Day footage. Great stuff.

It finished 2-0. Fairly respectable considering we were missing derby hero, Gerald Asamoah and midfielder Fabian Boll (I think I’m obliged by European law to mention that Boll is a part-time police officer, even if I’m not 100% sure if it’s still actually true?) and centre-half Carlos Zambrano due to suspension. We also lost left-back Bastian Oczipka due to injury early in the first half, which meant another appearance from former Times columnist, Moritz Volz. As the St Pauli players came to applaud the fans, my mind was starting to wander to the long journey home.

Had it been worth it? Too right it had. I’d stood on the terraces, drinking beer and supporting my team (St Pauli having overtaken Watford in my affections sometime ago – a combination of the politics of the St Pauli fan scene, general disinterest in the English game and not helped by having Lord Ashcroft as club owner – give me the German 50 +1 over a Tory Peer anyday) in one of the greatest stadiums in world football. The only downsides being I didn’t get inside early enough to find a place to hang my handcrafted Sozialromantiker flag (it’ll keep until my next visit to the Millerntor) and trying to steer clear of the currywurst due to an attempt at a health kick!

My first attempt at a banner for football in about 20 years, aaah the distinctive aroma of Dylon fabric paint!

Worth the trip? Too right

Despite the bitter cold, I made all my train connections home, in fact so efficient was the free U-Bahn service from the ground back to the main railway station, I managed to get a train back to Köln an hour ahead of schedule.

Whilst on the subject of trains, over the weekend, I had traversed parts of Germany, Belgium and France without a hitch, yet there was the obligatory 10-minute wait 500m short of Milton Keynes station, as they struggled to find a platform for us. You’d think they’d get the idea by now: a train generally requires a platform on which to deposit it’s passengers. Yet, every time I get to MK it’s the same. Imagine Network Rail, or whoever is responsible for our running train stations this week, trying to transport 80,000 fans efficiently away from a major sporting event. Actually, don’t.

Another great trip, another great stadium, right up there with the Millerntor and Union Berlin’s Alten Försterei as one of my favourites.

Thanks a million to the excellent BVB Schwatzgelb.de fanzine for the photos.

Modern Football is STILL Rubbish by Nick Davidson

- Feel free to comment below - 

Munich weekend

The Allianz Arena from the ouside. Art or is it!?

Me (left) and Nick. Dortmund til we die!

Inside the Allianz Arena - large beer hall just out of shot.

The most impressive stadium ever* (*from the outside)

Generali Sportpark home to Spvgg Unterhaching.

The home fans trying their best at Unterhaching.

Nick and Big Deaks in drinking beer shock.

Inside the Olympic Stadium with predictable results.

Nice views from the Olympiaturm anyone!?

Friday night in Ingolstadt and we couldn't be happier. (L-R Big Deaks, me and Nick)

FC Ingolstadt 04 1-1 Karlsruher SC II (11:04:08)

Spvgg Unterhaching 1-1 Wacker Burghausen (12:04:08)

Bayern Munich 5-0 Borussia Dortmund (13:04:08)

Germany is synonymous with many things but for me and my mates, the two things it does best are both football and beer. This is why we keep coming back for more.

We have become firm friends with members of ‘The Unity’ who are the ultras group that follow Borussia Dortmund. We first met during my stag do when we were in the away end as Dortmund beat their old enemy Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirken for the first time in umpty thrumpty years and since then we always try and include a Dortmund match on our travels.

Initially on the Friday of this trip we were due to attend the Augsburg v FSV Mainz 05 match which kicked off at 18:00. The fact that we were flying out from the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport put pay to this cunning plan. A not entirely unpredictable delay to our flight meant that we missed the kick off.

Years of attending European football weekends has stood us in good stead however and we had a back up plan which was to attend FC Ingolstadt 04 v Karlsruher SC II which kicked off at the later time of 19:30.

Ingolstadt is located on the banks of the Danube River and lies around a 30 minute train ride north of Munich. It is also home to the Audi HQ which is why their sorry excuse for a football ground is smothered with the Audi logo.

It was a balmy evening in Germany when the match kicked off. We were relaxing on the terrace with a few nice cold beers and trying to enjoy the turgid football on offer. Ingolstadt 04 are top of the Regionalliga Sud in the third tier of German football but lord only knows how.

As the match – which finished 1-1 – drew to a close the most almighty storm passed over the ground. Thunder and lightning, very, very frightening. We dashed over to a nearby garage for cover, brought a few beers inside for our journey back and hitched a lift back to the station for the journey back to Munich.

The trouble with football in Germany is that it’s very easy to find yourself fairly drunk at the drop of a hat. You don’t get served watered down Fosters inside the stadiums. Instead you get quality premium beer and with this being Friday night, we were understandably a bit giggly, in a fine mood and the beers were flowing very freely indeed.

Upon our return to Munich we headed to a pub which had a couple of replica world cup trophies in a cabinet on the wall. Believe it or not we ended up singing “Da ya think I’m sexy?” with Rod Stewart in this pub! It was a mad night and quite frankly it was a brilliant one.

The next morning we headed to Unterhaching which is the second largest municipality in the district of Munich. Unterhaching is probably most famous for either its football team ‘Spvgg Unterhaching’ (who we were about to see) or the fact they have a very successful bob-sledding team, which is why there is a bob sleigh on the football teams club badge.

There is a brilliant set up outside the stadium at Unterhaching. It’s cut off from the town but this doesn’t matter as they have a large area to consume beer and food and soak up the pre-match atmosphere. As per usual we couldn’t help ourselves and down the hatch went some aforementioned beer (Lowenbrau – ouch) and food like it was going out of fashion.

This was another match in the Regionalliga Sud and again the quality of football on offer didn’t amount to much. At times like these it’s very for me to perform the ol’ switcharoo and start looking at the fans instead of the game.

Both Spvgg Unterhaching and visitors Wacker Burghausen had small but loud and active sets of ultras. They created noise, jumped about, let of flares, backed their team and provided a wonderful alternative to watching the football.

The game was 0-0 up until the last 5 minutes. Then both teams scored and a red card was issued. All and in fact the only action of the match crammed into the last few minutes. Enough to leave us thinking we’d seen the best game ever and certainly enough to give us a spring in our steps as we headed back into Munich for a night on the beer.

We met up with our friends from Dortmund back in town and they gave us our tickets (thanks chaps!) for the game the following day against Bayern Munich. We then rolled back the years and engaged in what can only be described ‘brilliant night out’ in which at 2am we found ourselves in a bar singing traditional German songs in our newly discovered fluent German language.

What better way of a Sunday morning to rid ourselves of a bit of ‘tiredness’ than to visit the Olympic Stadium in Munich, home to last good performance by an England team in 2001. For 2 euros we were allowed inside the stadium and have a good old reminisce which we certainly did.

Just outside the stadium stands the Olympiaturm – a huge tower which dominates the Munich skyline. We went up to the top of said tower where we were afforded wonderful views of Munich (e.g. The Olympic Stadium and Allianz Arena) and the Alps.

After this we headed to the north of the city to the Allianz Arena – home to both Bayern and 1860 Munich. From the outside the stadium is the most impressive I’ve ever seen. On the inside it’s nice but really just like any other modern stadium of its size. It is occasionally nicknamed Schlauchboot (“inflatable boat”) in Germany.

I was amazed at the lack of security outside the stadium. We had tickets in the away end but there weren’t separate turnstiles and we were allowed to wonder all around the stadium before taking our seats. A huge amount of beer was being consumed by all but there wasn’t a hint of trouble.

Bayern Munich won the game 5-0. They had it wrapped up inside the first 22 minutes, scoring four quite outstanding goals in the process. In Luca Toni, Bayern have the best finisher in Europe at the moment – he really is different gravy.

There is a small amount of terracing behind one of the goals inside the Allianz Arena. This is where all the support and noise comes from the home fans. Why they don’t extend this and rip out a few seats I will never know. In fact I do know, they’d rather have a few extra quid than a better atmosphere.

As mentioned we were in with the Dortmund supporters and you would have thought being five goals down would dampen the fans spirits – not a bit of it. They sang for 90 minutes as did we. No goals!? It didn’t matter, after a while they decided to start randomly celebrating goals anyway. All brilliant fun, they don’t come much better than The Unity when it comes to fan support.

If you could dream up a better of way of letting a crowd of 69,000 die down than by attending a large beer hall built into one of the stands serving up quality beer in glasses not plastic then please let me know about it. That’s what we did before returning to the city and enjoying our last few beers of the weekend.

I started this piece by explaining that for us Germany does football and beer best. I hope by reading this you’ll have just a flavour as to the reasons why. Good old life!