SSV Jahn Regensburg 2-0 Hansa Rostock, Saturday 30th July 2016

Jahn Regensburg 2-0 Hansa Rostock, 3.liga, att. 7,683

Welcome to the....West Stand

Regensburg is an agreeable place, plenty of squares, plenty of old buildings…yet the old stone bridge (and cathedral for that matter) are perennially under repair. And could I hell as find the Tourist Information – if it even has one!

No matter, I was here for the football. Since I was last at Regensburg , they’ve built themselves a new stadium, been relegated during the last year of the old stadium, promoted in the 1st year of the new, So, an eventful couple of years. I remember seeing plans for the new stadium in the programme, which I thought would be a vast improvement on the old.

The South Stand (main home end).

Rundown and characterful as it was, the old stadium lacked atmosphere. There was a small paddock in front of seats behind the goal, while the ‘ultras’ (few as they were) crowded on a small uncovered terrace on the touchline. The new stadium would, crucially, have a large covered home terrace, though I did wonder how and when Jahn would ever fill its 15,000+ capacity.

Have you got the name yet?

The Continental Arena (named after the tyre manufacturer) is a well-designed stadium, four separate stands, with one side devoted to VIPs/families. However cheap it was to stand (€12 today) the cheapest seats started at €24. The away fans had their own end, with about 80% given to seating…so you can bet the 20% that was standing looked rammed with Hansa Rostock in town. Why give so much of the stand over to seating? Rostock brought maybe 1500 today, not bad considering the distance, to the far north of Germany, over 400 miles. Crazy.

The Hansa hordes (while a man interviews a bear, big screen).

Everything about the Continental Arena was so slick. Queues for tickets were small (with 20 mins to KO it was virtually empty outside). Beer queues were ok and the transport to and from the stadium was perfection. There were special buses laid on from the hauptbahnhof, which left for the stadium every 10 minutes. And with full time about 4pm (it kicked off 6 or 7 mins late, dunno why) and a train to catch at 4:30pm, I was on the first bus back and was at the station by 4:10. It’s one advantage of building the stadium about 3 miles south of the station – there’s none of the city centre traffic. I’m pleased that for once I elected not to walk it. Not only was it a long way, but it was sweltering and looked a bit of a dull route.

Back of the VIP (East) Stand.

Oh, and little Jahn celebrated their return to 3.liga by winning 2-0. A (dubious) penalty, the player making a point of going down once he’d got the wrong side of the defender was matched by a free kick from right of centre (as you looked at the goal) where the keeper expected a cross. 2nd time in 2 days I’ve seen that.

The Damage:
€12 ent
€1 prog
€2 postcards
€3.50 beer
= €18.50

The Tunes:
Silver or Lead (Ursula Rucker)
Silence (Pete Namlook and Dr. Atmo)
Wakin’ on a Pretty Daze (Kurt Vile)
Lost in the Dream (The War on Drugs)
Loveless (My Bloody Valentine)
The Marshall Mathers LP (Eminem)
A Grand Don’t Come for Free (The Streets)

Panorama from high up the terrace.

Match advert in department store

Match parking.

Fence to prevent bumping into away fans.

Hansa team coach

Main entrance.

Jahn Ultras.

The VIP/Family Stand.

Gimme an 'R'...etc

Smartphone aus!  Emotionen An!  Here here.

Jahn slot home a penalty.

Those VIPs.

On the outside looking in.

A bit fence happy, low down.

A down low panorama.

Goodbye Continental!

Wuppertaler SV 3-3 Viktoria Köln, Friday 29th July 2016

Wuppertaler SV 3-3 Viktoria Köln, regionalliga west, att. 5,705

Welcome to .....

Wuppertal is a big place, with a population of 350,000. So you’d think there’d be a fair few things going for it. But I can’t think of any. I got out, took one look – and got back on the train to Dusseldorf, 20 odd miles away. Like Kaiserslautern, there’s a reason Wuppertal doesn’t get a mention in Lonely Planet. And that’s DESPITE having a zoo and a ‘sky train’ (like Dusseldorf airport, only more rickety).

The sky train.

I’d done my homework re: trains and knew that if there weren’t any lockers at Wuppertal Zoologischer Garten (there weren’t) then I’d need to store my stuff at Dusseldorf, ready for a later train. Mind, I did get off at Wuppertal Hbf only to find a portacabin for a ticket office and a back street for an entrance. What a hole. (Having said all that, I do a visit to Stadion am Zoo a disservice; I’ve always wanted to visit, since I saw pics of it. It’s like no other stadium I know)

Some younger WSV fans amusing themselves.

So I went to Dusseldorf, ate (Korean, if you must know), then trained it back to Wuppertal. One advantage, it’s easy to get to the stadium (well, easy cos I followed someone). Essentially, come out of Zoologischer Garten station, turn right, walk to the bottom of the hill and it’s on your left. Simples. 5 minutes. A 2nd advantage is the bottle shop next door to the station. Don’t worry if you don’t have a bottle opener on you – the shopkeeper will open it for you, if you like.

Back of the main stand.

I timed it well. After taking a few pics outside the ground, I could hear a commotion, so went to investigate. The ultras were making their entrance; the police had blocked off the road (to the obvious annoyance of other car users) and from the distance came a cacophony of noise. Maybe this is more common than I know – I saw Stuttgart do similar last year, with about 20 times the number. Still, good effort.

Lock up your daughters...here come the ultras.

A few ultras tried (vainly) to stop people taking pictures. What’s the point? They arrange a ‘spectacle’ then want to control the images taken. They seemed half-hearted tellings-off though, as if it’s part of the act. They love it really. ‘Look at us, we’re so ultra we throw a few smoke bombs and don’t do ANYTHING the police tell us to do’ (while the police facilitate the whole lot, witness blocking the road). ‘ACAB’ indeed…

Course, by being waylaid taking snaps, there were suddenly dozens of folk in the queue ahead of me. Nevermind. The queues went down quickly and for €9 I had my standing ticket; behind the goal or by the touchline? The choice was mine. I could wander about where I liked once inside.

The queues (check out the building).

Despite being in the 4th tier, everything looked so BIG. The stadium holds about 25,000 but there’s room for more. What confuses me is how their team can be so dreadful that even now they’ve just been promoted from the 5th tier. In contrast, their opponents, Viktoria Koln were parading a flag celebrating their partnership with Carshalton Athletic. Is that what level we’re punting at?

The villa behind the goal; club HQ?

WSV’s stadium used to house an athletics track, as can be seen by the curve of the main stand, as well as the space in front of the stand opposite. The curves at each end have been replaced by proper terraces, perhaps holding 6,000 or so each. The main stand looks bigger than it is, in terms of capacity, but provides the only cover, while the 4th side is reminiscent of The Valley, a terrace cut into the side of a hill. Said terrace is chopped into pens, while the front section is given over to seats.

The 'Forest Side' 

I stood behind the goal, 1st half. Not near the ultras – I wanted a view. And I must have had a better view of Viktoria’s 1st than the Wupertaler keeper, who fumbled a near post free kick, expecting a cross. Half time, beer time. But the queue was huge. Had they miscalculated how many would turn up tonite? No matter, I’d have a wander to the ‘forest’ side.

The mascot joins us...

This holiday thing is more exhausting than I thought. I had a gander, then took a seat behind the dugouts and never moved. The view was dismal, really – the dugouts covered a fair portion of the pitch, but I didn’t expect much after the 1st half.

WSV’s line was led by a guy who looked a cross between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Jay Rayner. He looked sh*t. His touch was poor and he had no pace. The programme stats told me he was the oldest player in the team, a guy with a Turkish name. Suffice to say he banged in 2, inc. a last minute equaliser, three-all.

The second half view.

The home side had equalised when a right wing cross only needed a tap-in…but the keeper got across for the save of this, or any other, season. Unfortunately, the rebound was snaffled by another ‘taler, before ‘Zlatan’ hammered one in when clean through. Suddenly the game was Wuppertaler’s.

Subs made, Viktoria were back in it. 2 attacks, 2 cut-insides, 2 great finishes. Then, just as Viktoria had my sympathy, they went all time-wastery. Ok, so they dug 2 minutes out of a corner, but if you tell the opposition you have NO INTENTION OF SCORING, you deserve everything you get, including a late, late Zlatan / Jay back post scramble.

The Main Stand.

Viktoria brought c.100 fans to the huge terrace but I was impressed with the home support. It was the first time I’d seen a 3-way call and response between home end, the forest side and the main stand. Plus a bugler amongst the forest fraternity. Well done them. Hopefully they can use the momentum, cos there;s no doubt WSV have the potential to be 1 or 2 leagues higher. Bundesliga itself? Well, they have a stadium with the capacity…

The Damage:
€9 ent
free prog
= €9

The Tunes:
So Tonight That I Might See (Mazzy Star)
Total Life Forever (Foals)

Panorama from behind the goal.

The entrance to the terraces.

Every stadium should have an arch.

The teams line up.

The Forest side; seats, standing and empty.

Giant shirt on one corner.

From behind the goal.

Main Stand roof.

The Forest side banners.

Every team has these type of 'fans' (I am one).

ROAAAAAR!

Forest side panorama

Hertha Berlin 1-0 Brondby, Thursday 28th July 2016

Hertha Berlin 1-0 Brondby, att. 18,454 (Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark) - Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round, 1st Leg

The Friedrich Ludwig and its floodlights.

Has my luck changed? After finding myself in the wrong town for one game (Gornick Leczna) or unable to buy a ticket on the day of the match on another (AS Trencin), I purchased one of the last half dozen tickets for Hertha v Brondby (or so the ticket lady told me). The reason so few left? Hertha weren’t playing at their 76,000 capacity Olympic Stadium, they’d moved the game ‘across the border’ to East Berlin and the Friedrich Jahn Ludwig Sportpark, which I’d previously been to for a Dynamo Berlin DFB Pokal game.

Steps up to the Main Stand.

At least I knew about the venue change this time and, having arrived in Berlin too early to check-in, but late enough to expect the box office to be open, I pootled to the stadium. On my previous visit, I bought a ticket at the turnstile. No sign of that this time though. I did a circumference of the stadium; no sign of a ticket booth, though evidence of a future match – TV lorries and BSC (Berliner Sport-Club) merchandise trailers (closed), as well as stewards lurking, in their bright orange bibs. So I tried the arena box office next door, a venue for concerts and volleyball amongst other things.  ‘Do you sell tickets for the football?’ ‘Yes. You are very lucky, there’s only about 6 left.’ I was in, €21. More expensive than normal, but lo! I was in the Main Stand. Maybe THAT’S why it’s a sellout, they’re only opening one side.

The wall.

I had a laidback afternoon thereafter, laundering my clothes while quaffing a few Schöfferhofers in the hostel bar (Pfefferberg) and chatting rubbish with the barman. Then it dawned on me: I was late. Time flies when you’re chatting and laundering. I walked the 15 mins back to the stadium, missing kick-off.

The match was, indeed, a sellout. I saw an office emblazoned with ‘ausverkauft’ (sold out) signs. And it wasn’t only one side, the whole place was full (save for a no-man’s land next to the Brondby fans). BSC fans had turned out in numbers for this incongruous meeting. And while using another venue might have brought out the novelty value, allegedly, Hertha had only managed 4,000 in a previous Europa fixture here.

Hertha fans looking on.

Brondby had done their bit too. Their corner of c1,000 was awash with yellow and they’d even fixed blue and yellow bunting from the front fence to the back. And later they got their flares out (as well as a bugler) in response to Hertha’s ultras.

However, that was not before BSC scored the only goal of the game, Ibisevic on 28 minutes. A cross from the right was flicked on and finished in acrobatic style from 8 yards with an overhead kick. Been a long time since I’ve seen one of THEM. That was it for the 1st half. BSC looked the better team, lots more possession, but chances were few and far between.

The Brondby corner.

Early in the 2nd half, the BSC ultras (who’d handily acquired an entire block n the far corner) unleashed their flares. Straightaway, the tannoy performed its function of telling the fans not to be so naughty, while those around me tutted their dissatisfaction with their own fans. The smoke enveloped much of the stadium.

The Hertha ultras unleash their flares.

By now I was ensconced in my seat, high up in the lower tier, near the halfway line, adjacent to the press. It wasn’t actually my seat, but so many fans were electing to stand at the back of the tier that I seized my opportunity, only rising to grab a wurst in the 2nd half (once the queues had diminished).
The flares roused Brondby. A sweet, one-touch move involving 3 or 4 players put the centre forward clean through, in the proverbial acres of space. He looked up, checked he wasn’t offside, strode toward the Hertha goal and delicately dinked the ball over the keeper…and bar. Not so delicate after all.

...which was the cue for Brondby to fire up themselves.

There was still time to see Salomon Kalou (still going!) be substituted, while Brondby fans gave their side and manager a huge ovation at the end; they’d lost, but they were still very much in it.


The Damage:
€21 ent
€2.50 wurst
= €23.50

The Tunes: 
So Tonight That I Might See (Mazzy Star)
Total Life Forever (Foals)

Friedrich Ludwig panorama.

I can still see you...

Fans stood up at the back of the lower tier.

The sun setting over East Berlin.

The view from the Hertha ultras' corner.

Looking towards the Main Stand and Brondby corner.

Every club has one.

The press.

Match action.

Brondby players coming to applaud their fans.

The tunnel.

The Main Stand at full time.

The stadium clears.

Goodbye!  Safe journey!