Geordie Al's Groundhopper Scrapbook: Carl Zeiss Jena 0-0 Schönberg, Wednesday 5th August 2015

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Carl Zeiss Jena 0-0 Schönberg, Wednesday 5th August 2015

Carl Zeiss Jena 0-0 Schönberg (att. 6,623)

Welcome to ....

I’ve wanted to visit Carl Zeiss Jena for years. A name redolent of my childhood, that team wot played Newport County in a European Cup Winners’ Cup quarter final. It doesn’t look more believable when written. A time before history, a time when the Premiership didn’t exist, a time when the romantic still held sway. A time when Eastern European football teams seemed almost mystical. A time when the songwriting influences of Half Man Half Biscuit were formed. (See ‘All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague away kit’ and ‘I was a teenage armchair Honved fan.’)

Ticket office behind the Main Stand

Today was a real highlight, where I was adopted by a couple of Jena fans and treated to a few beers after the match. Here’s the trick. Take a pic of some floodlights (or, more specifically, the base of what were the old floodlights; they’d been pulled down for safety reasons…before they FELL down) and you may be approached by a couple of unlikely looking young lads (mid 20s) for a chat. Turns out they had a fanzine to sell.

Check out their blog here: http://dergastbeitrag.blogspot.de

Ernst Abbe Sportfeld stadium plan

Once the introductions were made, they were intrigued that I’d come to see a 4th tier nordost regionalliga game. After chatting for a while I simply MUST come into town for a beer. Ok then, you’ve twisted my arm.

Jena is actually a nice little place – I’m told 20-25% of its population of 100,000 are students. It also has a strip of bars I problies couldn’t find again cos I’d been taxi’d there by one of my new chums. Still, do they have weissbier? But of course – Erdinger. Conversation revolved around politics, floodlights and what they thought of Erfurt. The usual. (Rot Weiss Erfurt are the local rivals and one of the most beautiful towns which ever hosted a professional football team; they agreed, nice place – it’s the people they take exception to.) I remember visiting Rot Weiss and, like Carl Zeiss, there’s a real anger towards their rivals, with plenty of scarves and badges on sale to say so.

'Fuck RWE'; a scarf on sale inside the ground.

Mind, I have some apologies to make. I ran out of money and couldn’t stand my round. When the bar guy came to the table for payment, I discovered I only had coinage left. No, they don’t accept cards. Thus, I fell on my saviour’s generosity even more. I felt so guilty I showed them what I’d spent my last €10 on: a Carl Zeiss t-shirt which one of the lads was also sporting. I was home and dry.

Souvenirs here: the supporters' club hut.

So, of course, I’d recommend a trip to Carl Zeiss to anyone. Who knew for instance that they are named after a famous optometrist rather than, say, an ex-player? Who knew that the Ernst Abbe Sportfeld was named after a compadre of Zeiss? Well, not me, obvs. Science was never my forte. If only I knew of any scientists and where they were from…we could have Isaac Newton Park Rangers playing at the Joseph Lister Arena.

I'll park my car here...

The earlier struggle in finding the stadium was almost forgotten. Being a late choice of match, I’d not looked up where the ground was. Dammit. I’d intended on being in Jena a few hours early to have a gander around. Instead, I had 2 hours. No sign of a stadium from the train but I did see a few CZ supporters dotted around town. So I followed one – and ended up in a shopping centre. Every cloud though - I nipped into a bookshop and one reading of a map later, I had an idea: cross the railway and the river and it’s somewhere over there. In fact, you walk through parkland, all trees and paths and beach volleyball courts (this is decidedly NOT England) and, by now, if it’s less than half an hour to kick-off, you have plenty of other fans to follow. I did.

The teams line up. It is HOT.

I never saw any Schönberg fans though, all day. While the division is regionalised, Schönberg are as far away as you can get, somewhere in the far north. Also, a 6pm kick-off can’t help, if you’ve any kind of employ. Still, I expected a few of them. Surely it’s a big thing for them to be playing at a side with CZ’s history? (Looking them up, they were formed in 1995 and come from somewhere between Hamburg and Kiel. As I said, miles away.)

The Main Stand and athletics track.

The match? Nil-nil. Characterised by me having a splitting headache during the 1st half while nursing a cricked neck from sleeping funny. (The lack of sleep also can’t have helped, as some ar5ehole in my hostel room was desperately trying to impress some female with his tales of travelling around India.) At least I could sit down on the sparsely populated terrace at the opposite end from their ultras, though watching a game 50 yards away (bloody athletics track!), through a fence, was hardly conducive to enjoying the footie.

Fans discuss what they can see...

I arrived at the stadium early enough to do a lap, after I’d secured my €9 ‘stehplatz’ ticket. From memory, it was €12 to sit in the roofless stand down one side, yet a whopping €24 to sit down in the main stand opposite. Plenty still chose the latter, perhaps looking for shelter from the relentless sun. I’ve never been so hot at 6pm in Europe. Both ends were open terraces, though one end was taller than the other and housed the vocal element. Second half, headache mysteriously having disappeared, I decided to join the ultras and actually had a better view despite the numbers – I was standing, higher up.

The roofless side of seating consisted of a permanent set of seats, backed up by a temporary stand, ready for the season’s highlight: the forthcoming DFB Pokal match against the formerly mighty Hamburger SV (who they would beat 3-2).

This will be full a week or so later.

But of more intrigue were the floodlights. The situation was thus; about 3 years ago the pitch was flooded and afterwards someone thought to inspect the floodlight pylons. Turns out they were full of corrosion and so were chopped down ASAP. Now, with talk of a new stadium, the installation of new floodlights could be a failed investment, so they’re doing without. Night games are being played 40km away in Meuselwitz. The whole thing sounds a mess.

R.I.P. Jena floodlights

Carl Zeiss obviously have potential though. Today, a crowd of 6,000 odd turned out. Nice weather? Early season optimism? Certainly not the latter, cos none of the lads at the pub felt they’d get promotion this season. And on a separate note, no, they didn’t like other teams’ reserves being allowed to play in their league.

Of course, being goalless, the rules are I must go back and see another game in Jena. It will be a pleasure. But will it be at the Ernst Abbe Sportfeld?

The players give thanks to the fans

The Damage:
€9 ent
€10 t-shirt
€4 badges
€2 a massive sausage in a bun
€2.50 weissbier: Benediktiner (x2)
€1.50 prog (poor value, despite the price)
= €31.50 (£22)

The Tunes:
Souvlaki (Slowdive)
Music for the motion picture Victoria (Nils Frahm)
New Forms (Ronni Size/Reprazent)
Finisterre (St. Etienne)