Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Augsburg, Tuesday 20th December 2016

Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Augsburg (att. 81,360 – ‘ausverkauft’)

There but for the grace..etc.  I may not be religious, but it’s worth taking a moment to think why I’m in Germany at this time: the Christmas markets.  I was in Dusseldorf and Dortmund, but it could so easily have been Berlin, where, yesterday, some maniac murdered a lorry driver and drove his vehicle into a crowd of shoppers at one of Berlin’s Christmas markets.  What a world we live in.

Signal Iduna Park from the Rote Erde.

My partner and I work hard.  So with a fortnight off at Christmas, we planned a short foreign trip to get us in the mood.  ‘Let’s visit a German Christmas market.’  I was sold.  After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, (basically, looking up cheap flights) we plumped on Dusseldorf. Even better, there were midweek Bundesliga fixtures.  Where is near Dusseldorf?  That’s right, the Big Fish - Borussia Dortmund.  If I could just get hold of some tickets, there’s one Xmas present sorted there and then.

Colour co-ordinated portaloos

Borussia sell out every game, so what to do?  Well, opponents Augsburg are based over 300 miles to the south, in Bavaria.  And if they’re entitled to 10% of tickets, surely they’ll not sell out 8,000?  I went on their website.  After sale to the members, they’d go on general sale. I sent them a cheeky e-mail about my chances and they replied; wait till general sale.  I was back on the website on the day of general sale.  Turned out I had to live within a certain postal address to get tickets and SE5 wasn’t among them.  I sent another e-mail to the ticket office.  I think the earlier e-mail had softened them up; tickets were sorted, an invoice sent and I had to sort out an international bank transfer.  OK, so not cheap (seating tickets were €49.10) but you don’t visit the Westfalenstadion every week.

An Augsburgian pre-match.

FYI, the Dortmund Xmas market is much better than Dusseldorf, which is far too spread out and is more a case of lots of markets in lots of places.  And in Dortmund’s case, there’s a metro station right in the middle of it which will take you direct to the stadium (‘stadion’).  I’d already had one transport victory: having match tickets entitled us to free travel from Dusseldorf, as it’s in the same region.  Super, smashing!

Happy Xmas!

We got to the stadium early, to savour the atmosphere and enjoy sausage and gluhwein in the Rote Erde beer garden.  Including the Xmas market, I drank over a pint of the stuff. But it is nice.  And it is cold.  So much so, we head to the club shop, and even that is one of the finest of its kind, incorporating a pretend stand and an indoor court for the kiddies to kick a ball about.  We escape relatively unscathed (a programme and a bell for my bicycle).

Plenty of angles in scoreboard corner.

Next, I have to drop off my man-bag in a portacabin, as it’s not allowed in.  Woman-bags are.  I shouldn’t grumble.  I’m not grumbling.  Means more space inside.  What I can grumble at is the cashless prepaid card-only payment system.  How do I know how much I’ll buy at the counter?  Actually, I know exactly how much: nothing.  I refuse to be part of this gimmick.  So no beer for me, though as I said, it’s freezing in here.  Not sure I wanted one.  Bah humbug.

The pre-match flag waving.

Our seats turn out to be up in the gods – 2^nd off back row, top tier.  So we can’t see the entire ‘Gelbe Wand’ because the front of the roof is lower than we are.  But we are on the halfway line, so not a bad view.  We’re in amongst about 30 Augsburg fans (the rest are in the corner, to our right).  Their other tickets appear to have been devoured by Dortmund fans, judging by the yellow.

Looking towards the Yellow Wall.

I am unsure who to pull for, I like both these teams.  However, Augsburg start the brighter and score a canny opener, Ji being put through for an easy tap-in.  So easy, he misses, but the rebound falls to him and he bundles home.  Then Augsburg miss a crucial chance before half time.  The centre forward goes to control it (and fails) when all he had to do was lift it over a stranded keeper with his head.  He may regret that.

The Gelbe Wand.

Halftime comes.  We go for a wander.  The toilet break takes longer than it should and we get back in time to hear an almighty cheer; we have missed one minute of action and all of Dortmund’s goals (they don’t get another).  An old woman goes nuts at us for getting in the way of her seeing everyone else celebrate.  At least she saw the goal!

The expected onslaught never really appears.  Aubameyang is off colour, Götze anonymous and sub Schürrle haphazard.  Dortmund never really look like getting another and one breakaway nearly results in an Augsburg winner.  Still, at full time, there’s no doubt who’s happiest, as the Augsburg fans are delirious.  Imagine if they’d won.  Then it’s time to head to the main railway station and a couple of Paulaners for the journey ‘home’ to Dusseldorf.  I am cold.  I am tired.  But I am alive.

Home time!

The Damage: 
€49.10 match ticket (x2) 
€5 delivery fee
€10 international payment fee 
€2 programme 
€6 bicycle bell 
€3 mulled wine (x2) 
€2.50 sausage (x2)
= €132.20 (for 2)

The last remnants.

Rhubarb beer.  As bad as it sounds.

Borussia Dortmund 5-0 Wolfsberger AC, Thursday 6th August 2015

Borussia Dortmund 5-0 Wolfsberger AC (att. 65,190)

Finally, I see a game at the temple of football, the Westfalenstadion (AKA Signal Iduna Park). And being in pain (a problem with my neck has reached my back – any doctors out there?) I thought I’d have the perfect afternoon: a leisurely dip in the open air pool next to the stadium, pre-match. Christ, with the heat too, I think I was looking forward more to this than the match. So, what a blow it was when I found it was closed on matchday. I’d brought my swimming cozzie and everything.  I wasn't the only one.

Welcome to ....

There were still five hours to go to the match. Do I go back into town or find somewhere to drink next to the stadium? It’s b). A pub on the north-east corner was open. Cue bag check from over-officious bouncer. No, I may not bring my bottle of water in. The beer garden in their old stadium (Rote Erde) next door wasn’t open yet, so I stayed in and enjoyed a beer, some German Sky Sports and air-con.

Then I went in the beer garden. It made me wonder who would rather be in the pub? Sunny day, picnic tables, cheap beer and schnitzel, all within view of Borussia’s old stadium (now used by their reserve side). I could flick through my €1 programme.

The new stadium dwarfs the old.

What is there to say about the stadium itself? Steep stands and, due to the one-tiered ‘yellow wall’, not uniformly 3-tiered all round. Tonite though, the yellow wall was a pale imitation of its usual self, as the near 25,000 terrace was all-seater for Europe (not that anybody sat down). The given attendance of 65,000 was capacity, though I spotted the odd few empty seats.

The Yellow Wall (a photo of a photo..in the club shop)

I’d decided to treat myself, given it was Dortmund. I coulda had a ticket for as little as €22 but I wanted a guaranteed good view, so went large, €48, for a second row ticket in the upper tier, behind the goal, opposite the ‘yellow wall’. A fine view, and the cost still compares favourably with the £47 I was quoted for a Man U-Norwich league cup game a couple of years back (I didn’t go).

The flags fly pre-match.

The opposition were Wolfsberger AC, a team I’d never heard of till the draw was made. Austrian apparently. At 0-1 down from the home leg, surely they were going to be lambs to the Dortmund slaughter?

No and Yes. The Wolfs (Wolves?) somehow made it to half time goalless. The ref missed a blatant pen on Marco Reus (the keeper taking him out in a scramble) while a goal for Aubameyang was chalked off for offside despite him running PAST the defenders onto it. Oh well, any (Borussia) goals would now be at the opposite end of the stadium – and they were, five of them.

A lone Wolf  in the home end.

Reus, the best player on the pitch for the first hour, opened the scoring, having all the time in the world to hit it across the keeper from the edge of the box. The dam had burst. Soon after, Aubameyang lifted the ball over the keeper for #2 before the Henrikh Mkhitaryan Show began. Bam! Left foot from 20 yards to the keeper’s right. Bang! He reverses the move and the keeper fails to get down to it again. Then a composed finish for his hattrick, from just inside the box. I’ve previously seen him shoot from all over the place (and miss). Was tonite a new, improved Mkhitaryan? Or were Wolfsberger just a yard too slow?

The Westfalen under lights, a sight to behold.

Another sign of the gulf in class was the corner count: 11-1 in Dortmund’s favour. And the Austrian’s one? In front of the yellow wall, he slipped over when taking it and the ball dribbled over the line for a goalkick. You could hear the laughter all around the stadium.

It was the usual (mis)adventure after the game as I sought to reach Dortmund hauptbahnhof. Instead of going to the stadium train station, (cos I worried I’d not get on the train), I followed the crowd and jumped on a bus…to the university. I was no closer to my destination and I had an overnight train to Warsaw to catch. Luckily, I spoke to a student who pointed me in the direction of the university’s own station and I reached the main station in time for a beer before I was off again.  Phew.

Full time, five-zero.

The Damage:
€48 ent
€1 prog
€2.50 schnitzel
€3.50 beer
= €55 (£39)

The Tunes:
ACD (Half Man Half Biscuit)
Versions (Spring Heel Jack)
The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman (Sparks)

Pre-match Rote Erde beer garden.

Signal Iduna Park

Wall of stickers

Here's a few we stuck on earlier.

The teams come out.

The Dortmund ranks.

Yellows!  Yellows!

Fortuna Dusseldorf II 3-0 Borussia Dortmund II, Monday 3rd August 2015

Fortuna Dusseldorf 3-0 Borussia Dortmund (att. 836)

Welcome to ....

It's 2pm, midweek.  Perfect time for some regionalliga footie!  Fortuna Dusseldorf's (mostly) under 23 side are playing Borussia Dortmund Under 23.  Would this game kick off at this time if it involved a 'proper' team?  I presume not; most players at this level are part time.  As it is, on the approach to the ground I see various fans in the yellow shirts of Dortmund.  Are there any HOME fans?

Even banners for reserve games!

It was a fair walk from the hauptbahnhof, but I had time.  It was another roaster of a day (making the 2pm KO even more crazy) and my hour walk even included a trip into a furnishings store just to take advantage of their air-con.  (I thought it was a shopping centre, so actually popped in for a pee.  Oh well, the cool air was welcome.)

The queue for a RESERVE game

The Paul Janes Stadion used to host Fortuna's 1st team till the Rheinstadion was built for the 1974 World Cup and, until recently, they'd return for the odd game.  What a great idea!  This is difficult to digest though when you see the stadium, one small stand and 3 sides of small terracing.  With capacity a mere 7,200, I suspect the terrace has been 'chopped' considerably since the good old days when it hosted a record attendance of 36,000 in 1950.

The bottle collectors are still here...

I was wondering what the crowd might be today.  I didn’t actually know who Dusseldorf were playing, and, being the reserve team, midweek against (possibly) a village side or somebody else’s reserves, I thought it could be 250.  In the end, the best part of a thousand were there in what was basically a 1½ sided ground: Dortmund were given nearly half of a terrace behind the goal, while home fans had the seats (and, crucially, the shade).  €10 in, though many appeared to have a card; 1^st team season ticket holders?

The Main Stand

I took my seat high up on the halfway line, amongst lots of men with pens and pads – scouts.  I’ll say now, only 2 players stood out for me (so let’s see if anything becomes of them): the tall, left-sided centre half of Dortmund and the Dortmund sub (more of whom later).  Dusseldorf’s players wore black armbands.  Had news of Cilla Black’s death filtered through to Germany?  The fans?  As befits a home reserve team, no noise save for the chuntering of folk to their friends, while Dortmund started well, before realising how hot it was and having a collective sit-down in the 2nd half.

A scout checks his notes...

Fortuna won the day, 3-0.  The 1^st, a forward makes a hash of a chance, chases after the ball, turns and has a snapshot.  Defenders asleep.  Then the Fortuna sub came on (‘Sangare’) and ripped Dortmund to pieces.  Sangare was bigger, stronger and BETTER than anybody else.  Was he a first teamer just back from injury?  2-0 is a Sangare sidefooter from 20 yards which had more pace than others who were trying to leather it.  Sangare makes it 3 with another 20 yarder, this time effortlessly hammering it into the top corner.  As you do.

Drinks break mid-match.

Afterwards I stepped out into the working class suburb of Flingern and rather enjoyed a couple of half litres of Konig Ludwig weissbier in some down-at-heel bar.  Just what the doctor ordered, before I walked back to town and saw a family giving its rabbit a run out in the local park. Risky.  Then, and I still can’t figure out how this happened, I spent 3½ hours looking for the railway station.  Railway lines crossed hither and thither and I just could not find my bearings.  I was an hour late for my train.  The train however was two hours late.  There IS a god!
The Damage:
€10 ent (£8)The Tunes:
Untitled (Burial)
Blissed Out (The Beloved)
Blue Bell Knoll (Cocteau Twins)
Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (Belle and Sebastian)

Great choice of footwear for the big match.

Advertising the next FIRST team game

I love this.  This is someone's house.

Old ticket booths left to stew.

Fortuna 95.

Outside the stadium.

Match action.

A plan of the Rheinstadion c.1974

Behind the goal.  One man and his...stall?

The far side.

Final score.

Full time as fans and players make their exit.

Oh dear, never a good sign.  R.I.P.

Even their toilets are better than ours!

The Dortmund team coach is filled.

The funky side of the Main Stand