Geordie Al's Groundhopper Scrapbook: Unterhaching 1-0 Schweinfurt, Tuesday 4th August 2015

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Unterhaching 1-0 Schweinfurt, Tuesday 4th August 2015

Unterhaching 1-0 Schweinfurt (att. 1100)

So good they named it twice...

Unterhaching is a strange place. On a map, it looks no more than a suburb of Munich, but catch the S3 there and you find Munich ending…lots of fields…and then some flat-roofed estate in the middle of scrubland, THAT’S Unterhaching. Like Stevenage – and with a similar lack of pubs and amenities.

About as characterful as Unterhaching (the place) gets.

Still, the stadium is easy to find. You can see it from the train inbetween the stations of Fasanenpark and Unterhaching. It’s then maybe 15 minutes walk, through scrubland if you chose the former station or avenues of flats if the other. Whatever you do, don’t follow the crowd (cos there won’t be one). Unterhaching have fallen on hard times from their zenith, a one-season stint in the Bundesliga, and now reside in the 4^th tier regionalliga Bayern. Today, 1100 rattle around a 15,000 capacity stadium, paying €6 to stand (€15 to sit). The club can hardly be making any money and a quick recovery looks remote.

The box office.

It’s worthy of a visit though. They’ve closed 2 sides until better times, save for opening the corner for the away fans. (‘Schwein on tour’ – brilliant!) The large Nord terrace languishes at one end while the smaller Süd terrace (both open air) is the main home end, housing a couple of hundred spread out loyalists and an ultras faction of a dozen. Let’s hope they never consider the futility of it all. There was also no need for the cheerleader to have a microphone. He simply stood, with his back to the pitch, exhorting his comrades to sing blithely into the sky.

Those Schweinfurters

By the side of the pitch there’s two all-seater stands, one, a modern no-mark effort while the other is the complete opposite; a curved stand with a zig-zagged roof. You don’t see them anymore, least not in England. I think Arsenal, Charlton and Wolves used to have one back in the day. This stand maybe covered 2/3 of the touchline.

The zig-zaggedly roofed main stand.

I stood on the terrace and watched the action for a little while. Ike German teams further up the pyramid, they were all for passing it out of defence…tap, tap, tap…then once in the opposition half another simple pass would go astray, like they had a mental block once entering enemy territory. I queued for a beer, from where you could still pretty much see the action. Weissbier! While everyone else enjoyed a ‘helles’ I went for the Bavarian speciality. No tap here though – the staff opened a 500ml bottle and poured it into a 330ml beaker. I guess the rest went to whoever bought the next weissbier. Then, while waiting for my wurst (a Cumberland-type thing in a bun), a cheer went up: Unterhaching had scored. I take my eyes off the pitch for a second and I miss a goal. Players retreat to their own half, the ref points to the centre circle and a minute later the scoreboard remained 0-0. Turned out it was disallowed.

Come on you Reds!

At half-time I have a nosey at their souvenir shop’s offerings. 2 different badges and at €1 each, I’ll take both. And another beer and wurst (it being my main meal of the day). The second half was slightly more upbeat and ‘haching finally notched: Schweinfurt keeper and defender clatter into each other, allowing a home midfielder to ghost in and head the ball on the bounce into an empty net. Suitably scrappy. Schweinfurt then carve open a couple of opportunities themselves from which they couldn’t even hit the target. Far from a classic, but Unterhaching are happy enough, a first win in five attempts.