Rot-Weiss Essen 1-1 Sportfreunde Lotte, Friday 1st August 2014 (Regionalliga West)

Old floodlight, new stadium

Rot-Weiss Essen 1-1 Sportfreunde Lotte (Regionalliga West), att: 10,260
Platzek 26’                Batarilo-Cerdic 51’

I’m an idiot. An over-confident idiot. The very worst kind of idiot. Despite having bags of time to get to a 7:30pm KO, setting off from nearby Dortmund at 5ish, I never got to this game till half time. In a nutshell: slow train to Essen, quick (failed) nip to Schwarz-Weiss Essen to have a look at their stadium but it looked like a jungle out there and I didn’t have time to get lost; by which time, all the Rot-Weiss shirts at Essen station had disappeared. This had repercussions, despite knowing to get on Line 2 to Bergeborbeck, as the train trundled through the industrial Ruhr, I realised I’d gone further than I anticipated, so I jumped off at the next station (Kray Nordbahnhof). Turned out I was too early (though, in a way, it didn’t matter, since the train was branching a different way at Gelsenkirchen). I thought I’d simply go back to Essen and start all over again. Perhaps there was a shuttle bus at the station for latecomers? I checked the timetable at one of those fabulous DB machines (far superior to the English versions).  Everything was all over the place. I needed a bus, a walk, a U-bahn and a tram.  Christ.

The Main Stand.

I wasn't going to get to the tram station nearest the stadium till nearly half time.  Luckily, He was obviously looking out for me, cos after a couple of stops, four punks in RW scarves got on the bus, so I simply followed them.  Instead of whatever the DB machine told me, they took me on line 101, where, by the time they got off, a couple more fans had entered the picture. Perhaps a HT entrance at RW is not so rare - or a 7:30 on a Friday is no time for a kick-off!

The away end.  I PROMISE you there's 46 of 'em.

The stadium is brand new (2012) replacing a previous one in more or less the same position (a la Blackpool...or Wembley...or Carlisle if it ever gets finished).  Charmingly, they've left one of the old floodlights still standing, just outside the new-build.  The ticket booth was still open and, whether it was my English accented attempt at German, or just that it was HT, the mature lady who served me charged me half price - €5.  THERE'S customer service for you.  I have every intention of going back purely because of this.

I wonder who decided the ratio...?  And how?

While I could see the away end was empty, which was tempting, the booth was at the home end, so I elected to stand on that terrace.  Once past the turnstile, the concourse was packed.  No worries - there must be plenty of room on the terrace. It was busy there too, most of the crowd choosing the home end terrace.  I'd expected a crowd of 6-7000 for this 4th tier game, in the end it was 10,260, of which the best part of 6000 were behind that goal.  They certainly weren't in the away end, where I counted 46 Sportfreunde fans (twice - just checking!)  Those away fans in the seats were easier to count: nil.

Half time at Rot-Weiss.

I found the stadium a bit odd.  It seems they've knocked down a cosy, if ramshackle stadium of 20,000 for something big, bright and white, all high roofs and open corners.  While one end houses a large terrace, opposite, the stand is split between seats and standing.  I'm not sure how many teams in Regionalliga West will fill that, but RW obviously have pretensions to reaching the higher echelons again (they were in Bundesliga 2 until 2007).

The home end

I stood right at the top of the terrace.  No beer or wurst - I couldn't miss any 2nd half action. Sportfreunde looked the better team and certainly their attackers gelled , playing some excellent one-touch stuff.  RW meantime looked very 'English', with 2 up front, one a lumbering wreck and the other even worse.  They could barely hold a ball up between them while long hoofs up front merely left the midfield miles behind play.

Was this an afterthought?

Then, a ball was played through the RW defence and the Lotte forward shrugged off the challenge and blasted a half volley past the head of the keeper.  Shearer-esque.  I nearly burst into a round of applause but no-one else in the home end looked amused.  Too timid to ask, I had to guess the score from people's demeanors.  I'd say 0-1. (No scoreboard in the new stadium.  When you DON'T need one, they're everywhere.)

Come on Rot-Weiss!

RW had tremendous support.  Constant chanting, despite no response from the away end and a home performance where the closest they came to scoring was a 20 yarder which skimmed into the keeper's arms.  At the end, the RW players were made to listen to 5 minutes of chanting before crawling themselves off.  I revised my score prediction to 1-1 (which it turned out it was).  Surely these fans wouldn't have stuck around to show their adoration for a big city team who'd lost to some village minnows?

That's my boy block!

Afterwards, I wouldn't get a sew-on badge (sold out) but I'm worried I am developing a new crush; pin badges showing the stadium.  I am up to 3 - Borussias Mönchengladbach and Dortmund, as well as RW.

The Damage: 
ent: €5 (!)
postcard / badge €5.50
badge: €3
Beer: €3
bratwurst: €2.50 (after the game, obvs)
= €19

The tunes:  
The Death of Cool (Kitchens of Distinction)

Nice angles at Stadion Essen

Back of the Main Stand

The home end under lights.