MSV Duisburg 0-2 St. Pauli, Sunday 28th February 2016

MSV Duisburg 0-2 St. Pauli, Bundesliga 2 (att. 20,790)

Welcome to ....

Having a weekend away for some Bundesliga action (Werder Bremen yesterday) I thought 'why not pop in and see St. Pauli?'  After all, Dusseldorf Airport is closeby Duisburg, allowing for a quick and easy exit back to Londontown.  Yes, it meant an earlyish start...the train was about 9ish...but as I was staying near the railway station in Bremen, it was easy enough.  I'd also contacted St. Pauli's fanladen for a ticket in the away end, so had to make sure I was at the stadium early to pick up my ticket.  

Will they do the reverse for the journey back to 3.liga?

I already knew where the MSV Arena was, due to previous visits.  If you come out of the correct side of the station, go straight ahead where buses will take you directly there.  (Stand H1?)  It's easy to spot...if you're playing St. Pauli, cos there's big away support and you can't miss them.  As you leave the station, there's even a little bottle shop where everyone tops up their account.  (Don't worry, the shopkeeper has a bottle opener on hand. Drinking in the street is to be encouraged in Duisburg.)

Erdinger...the amber cloudyish nectar!

Arriving at the ground, there were quite a few St. Pauli milling around, having a drink.  One enterprising soul even had Jagermeister on his drinks' stall.  Not your normal pre-match tipple but it was chilly and perhaps folk could do with a warmer-upper.  It looked like all the St. Pauli buses had arrived, including a 'femalebus'.  I asked if anyone knew where the fanladen guys were and I was directed in no time to Sven, who was handling multiple tickets along with a Dutch bloke.  I didn't expect a Dutchman to be involved with the fanladen, but I guess it shows their appeal.  After a little chat, I headed in.

Very slick...personalised for the trip to MSV.

I was in the seats this time, right behind the goal.  My seat was in row 7, lower than I'd like, but it didn't matter; everyone was standing anyway.  I headed further back.  And what a festival of football it was.  Actually, best not to mention the football, it was terrible.  A heading-for-relegation MSV looked it and St. P comfortably won 2-0, a low shot from the edge of the box being matched in injury time with a second.  MSV were hit on the break and as the forward rounded the keeper he hit a shot that I swear was missing the net, but it hit a defender and went in.  All in keeping with the standard of the match.  Despite the result, on this evidence, St. Pauli will struggle to gain the top 3 berth needed for a crack at promotion.

The teams come out.

I also snuck upstairs for the 2nd half; cracking view, though largely empty.  So, after a toilet trip, I went back downstairs to be surrounded by a CROWD.  Warmest I'd been all day.  Then it was back on the (free) bus to the station and a 20 minute journey to the airport.  Job's a good un.

The Damage:
€22 ent

€3.50 beer (x2)

€2.20 bratwurst (x2)

€19 train from Bremen (advance fare)

€5.70 train to Dusseldorf airport

= €58.10

...plus the flight back (£31)

The Tunes:
Plumb (Field Music)

Screamadelica (Primal Scream)

'ello 'ello, what 'ave we got 'ere then?

Are you a 'zebrafreunde'?

Supporters club hut.  Beer in sale here.

Mobile cub shop.  Still no badges (3rd time trying).

The drummers arrive.

Outside the home end.

I've located where all the badges are.

MSV Arena

I love the angles.

stadium plan

Beer seller in ground.

Cushiest jobs in the world #346: policing MSV (see right).

Match action.

We heart St. Pauli!

Full time, 0-2.

The entrance to the home end.

Ticket office after the match.

Duisburg-St. Pauli panorama

MSV Duisburg 1-3 Kaiserslautern, Friday 24th July 2015

MSV Duisburg 1-3 Kaiserslautern (Bundesliga 2)

How do they make these things?

Thirty minutes in and your season is over, 0-3 at home to Kaiserslautern. There seems no hiding from the future seasonal paths these two will take - ‘lautern are (again) one of the pre-season faves while MSV, despite previous Bundesliga heritage and a healthy crowd today of 23,500 (double the last time I came), are expected to be mid table at best.  Still, for 12 minutes (!) MSV matched them as both sides tippy tappied it around to no avail. Then lautern just took off.

0-1 Fast move on the break, cross from right banged home on the run.
0-2  Comedy.  The MSV right winger passes back to the right back but he's not there.  Lautern clean through but he stumbles and takes it too far past keeper.  As defenders recover he hammers in a shot which hits a defender and goes in.
0-3  Through ball and centre forward lashes in a belter from 20 yards
1-3 A corner (?) late on is curled in and a defender heads home.

MSV idea to keep the score down

As I said, it was my second time here, more by luck than crook - it was the only Bundesliga 2 game on.  Also, it was a relatively short journey from Amsterdam, where I’d been based.  I was even so confident of finding the ground I didn't even bring a map; just turn right and follow the railway tracks. Only I followed some home fans and must have zigzagged even more than last time.

I got to the stadium in good time, about 2 hours before kick off.  Yet the home fankurve had already sold out. Dammit.  I had a feeling this might happen so I went to the away end on the off chance. Also sold out.  The cheapest seats were €20.  Well, I rather fancied being in the home end, so went back to the ticket office where I was bemusedly offered a ticket by someone needing rid of one (turns out it was his son’s, who was in the executive boxes today; for some reason the office was loathe to refund him and he gave the €27 ticket to me for €20). With €1.4:£1 at the moment this still represented excellent value.

Roll up, roll up, get your zebras here

So, in I went. I coulda had a beer outside from one of the pop-up vendors with their boxes of beer in ice/water. But I badly needed the toilet and settled on beer and wurst in the stadium.

Support for both sides was initially excellent.  The enclosed nature of the Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena means little escape for the noise and I was surprised at quite how loud the home end was. Unfortunately, the noise abated slightly as their heroes slumped to 3 goals down but they roused themselves, especially in the second half.  They weren't going to let the side down even if the side did

The mascot watches the game

One chant received support and rounds of applause from both sets of fans, as ‘Scheiss Red Bull’ rang out; everyone's least favourite side given a reminder of their place.  Maybe it was sung with such lustre because the game was on telly?  But I wonder, did telly turn down the volume?

Afterwards,  I didn't hang about, catching one of the (free) buses back to the station for a train to Dortmund where I was staying that night.  Must be up and ready for St. Pauli tomorrow! Attendance: 23,686 The Damage:
€20 ent
€2.20 wurst
€3.50 beer (x2)
€2 brezel
= €31.20 (£22)
The Tunes:
Drone Logic - Daniel Avery
Platipus Records Volume III - Various
The 3 EPs - The Beta Band

Things you can't do in England #1.

The stroll through the park towards the stadium.

MSV's odd turnstyle structures

Come On You Zebras!

The home end

I spot a team bus!

The away end

The stadium clears at full time.

After match interviews for the cameras

MSV Duisburg 2-1 SV Sandhausen, Sunday 7th April 2013

Scarves for sale on the walk to the stadium

Another team on its last legs is Sandhausen, seemingly on a return trip to 3.liga. In Duisburg, they huffed and puffed but they never looked likely to have enough, even if the game was a tale of two penalties – one given, one not. After a smooth ride from Cologne, I alighted at Duisburg Hbf having already seen the MSV Arena from the train. A long walk, but I had an hour and a half, so off I went. With a plan to stick roughly to the train line, I strolled in and out of housing estates, while the stadium buses (#945?) kept passing. The timetable suggested about 20 buses in the hour before kick off, so plenty to choose from.

Sandhausen fans arrive, beers and all.

As it was, I was there in 30 mins, suggesting it can’t be more than a couple of miles or so. With an hour to the main event, I had a saunter around the stadium’s circumference. Down one side, I found a lake with a restaurant (the ‘Seehaus’) and further on, a water skiing lake, including jumps. I don’t remember ever seeing one of these next to an English ground. There was still room to pass an athletics stadium before circling round to MSV’s main stand.

Every stadium should have a water ski park.

Where to watch the match, then? Being a supporter of the underdog, and imagining there’d be plenty of space on the away terrace (I was right there!) I plumped for the away end (€11). With experience, I can compare the two ends thus:

Home end: sunshine, warmth, beer
Away end: chilly in the shade, alkohol-frei beer

It was still an entertaining arrangement though as the Sandhausen hordes (!?) came with a plethora of flags and banners and all stood, in black and white, behind one barrier. A colony of penguins, if you like. As the match went on, 9 or 10 splintered off, I think at the constant bullying of the cheerleader to get behind the team. Certainly, with so few there he could personally eyeball you while pressing you to sing your heart out for the lads. I gazed at the pitch. Hope he didn’t take it personally.

The Zebras' mobile club shop.  (I thought zebras were black and white?)

For the most part, I had a willing accomplice. A Sandhausian, who now lived in Cologne, got chatting to me. He’d come by bike, chained up right outside the away end. I explained that nobody, but nobody, cycles to a game in England. (I once cycled to Crystal Palace from my Camberwell hutch. Never again – the maps don’t show them goddamn hills!) Standing away from the ‘mass’, I think we were the only ones not in black and white.

Entry to the away end.  It's like Hillsborough never happened.

Duisburg went ahead with either a well worked corner routine (their version of events) or appalling defending. Sandhausen gave away a cheap corner, a lame tackle from the left back which should have been won cleanly. The ball was played along the floor to the edge of the box for an onrushing Duisburger to hit home 1st time. As I read that, it sounds better than it was. Still, he kept it down well. Meantime, a pile of Sandhausians stood in the 6 yard box waiting for the inswinger.

Sandhausen ultras

The equaliser came via a smart looping header (though I half expected an offside flag) before the game was decided in the space of a minute. Sandhausen missed a good chance to go ahead and
Duisburg ran to the other end to see the forward round the keeper and get taken out. Blatant pen though surprisingly no sending off. The spot kick was despatched, low to the keeper’s right as he dived left. Then the game petered out, MSV missing a few half chances before Sandhausen had a blatant penalty turned down. What with the offence taking place in a corner of the stadium with about 150 fans (120 of them Sandhausen) you even heard the sound of boot on shin. Still, it’s the ref’s job to get things wrong…right?

I'm loving this design (boring inside though).

At the end, I snuck round to the home end to have it confirmed their beer wasn’t ‘alkohol-frei’ (it wasn’t). Still, this cost Duisburg €5 of my hard-earned, since I wasn’t buying a wurst without a beer. They mustn’t need the money**. I was further disappointed to find the club shop(s) had no badges to sell before I jumped on the 945 back. The journey to the station was quickened by heading down the autobahn for a junction or 2. Dull, but efficient. Luckily, I scraped into a station shop just before they closed and grabbed a couple of beers for the journey. Clever thinking – the train was delayed 20 minutes!

The basics:
€11 entry
€0 everything else.  No badges, no alcohol in the away end.

Actually, I think I bought a programme. I'll have to dig it out.  €2?

Attendance: 11,354

** At the end of the season, Duisburg were relegated for financial irregularities, despite finishing 11th.  Sandhausen was the side reprieved.  What a delicious irony.

The (old?) stadium plan

Welcome to the...Schauinsland Reisen Arena (catchy).

One turnstile entrance

Perpendicular roof, rounded corners...love it!

Standing tickets for sale here

Those Sandhausen ultras again

Getting ready for the teams coming out

The teams line up

Towards the home end

back of home end terrace