Hannover 96 2-0 St.
Patrick’s Athletic, Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round, 2nd leg (att. 24,500)
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After the grime of Chemnitz,
it was good to get back to the more usual beauty and greenery of a German city,
this time Hannover. I got lucky with my accommodation,
right in the city centre but inbetween the 2 places I needed most; the railway
station and the football stadium. I’d
also developed a migraine (perhaps another reason for my low morale yesterday)
so the first thing I did was go to bed.
A mid afternoon nap turned out to be just the medicine!
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| 1st view of the stadium. |
Since it was now 5ish, I thought I’d better have a wander to the ground. I’d no idea what time kick-off was (though at
least I knew there was a match). It was
a beautiful walk too, taking me through the ‘Maschpark’ which contains possibly
Hannover’s most stunning building, the Neues Rathaus. And I was there, the AWD Arena (formerly the Niedersachsenstadion, which sounds much grander). Turned out I was early too, as I saw other
fans being turned away from the closed fanshop. I figured it must be a late
kick off as I circumnavigated the stadium and saw two teams of security given
their pep-talks.
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| The Neues Rathaus |
By the time I’d done the once-around, the main ticket booths had opened. ‘What ticket would you like?’ ‘The cheapest.’ 25 euros to sit high up in the corner. The stadium holds 49,000, including 8,000
standing places (still a far cry from its record crowd of 86,000). The lower tier ‘terrace’ (where everyone had
a flip-up seat, thereby fulfilling the all-seater directive) was sold out. Given the (relative) steepness of price, I
wonder how much it was downstairs? St.
Patrick’s Athletic in August can’t bet that much of a draw.
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| How to turn all-seater. |
It’s an impressive ground, one for which the term ‘stadium’ was invented. It
sits atop a hill, looking every inch the modern day castle. Inside, perfect
views all-round, the stands arching around the pitch. Yet there’s something too sanitised about it
all. Too perfect. Though for any Premiership fan below the age
of 30, it’s all they’ve probably ever known.
It reminded me of the Etihad, yet with a mid-tier walkway for the fans,
a la the Riverside, Middlesbrough.
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| The home end is a lot busier than the rest of the stadium. |
I scurried off, ticket in hand and when I checked my ticket…still no kick-off
time. So I picked up the courage to
speak to someone. ‘Half past 9’. ‘No, half past 8’ his colleague corrected.
(In some parts of Europe they say ‘half to’ rather than ‘half past’.) So, time for a quick wander round town then
back again. I had no penchant for lying
around the nearby park, or the Maschsee, a massive artificial lake built by the
unemployed under Hitler. I still had a
bit of a headache.
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| Ticket booths before my lap of honour. |
On looking at the match ticket, I also discovered who the opposition were, St.
Patrick’s Athletic of Ireland. Should be a cakewalk. I bought a programme and
so it looked: the 1st leg had been won 3-0 by the Germans,
away. In this one-sided game, Hannover
cruised to a 2-0 win, mainly characterised by their players jumping out of the
way of anything approaching a tackle, so as not to get injured for more
important games to come.
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| The teams come out. |
Both goals were headers from set pieces but you got the impression if they’d
needed to score 5 or 6 they would have done.
The Nordkurve fans intermittently chanted, but you could tell it was low
key, despite the relative fullness of the end.
The attendance was given as 24,500, which I found suspicious given it
was EXACTLY half the overall capacity. St. Pat’s brought around 300and they
loked like they were having a whale of a time, constant singing and occasional ‘Poznans’,
also going topless to wave their shirts in the air (like they don’t care). After all, they were in Europe!
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| St. Pat's huddled together in the far corner. |
One drawback was the refreshments. Being
a slick operation, of course this was one of those ‘pay by stadium card’
things. I found this out as I queued for
my ‘fischbrotchen’ (fish bread: a side of pickled herring, with onions, in a
baguette). Thankfully, upon hearing my
plight, a 96 fan offered to buy it for me, and wouldn’t accept payment. I salute you, sir! In chat, he was very much looking forward to
the coming Saturday: a friendly v Manchester United. And I’d been wondering why tonite’s programme
had so many pages devoted to last season’s Premiership runners-up!
Finally, what team still
comes out to Queen’s ‘Rock You’? Hannover 96 of course! But on the plus side, there
were plenty of bars around the Maschsee later, for an after-match drink.
The Damage:
€25 ent
€1.50 prog
= €26.50
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| Entrance/exit. |
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| Steward teamtalk (1) |
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| Mosaic outside the stadium. |
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| Mounted police pre-match. |
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| Steward teamtalk (2). |
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| This place wasn't selling quite what I'd hoped...! |
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| Pre-match parking. |
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| The fans queue to enter. |
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| The Hannover home end. |
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| A less than packed Main Stand. |
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| The view towards the far end (Sudtribune). |
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| Busier on this side. Cheaper? |
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| Match action. |
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