FC Zurich 2-1 St. Gallen, Wednesday 14th August 2019

FC Zurich 2-1 St. Gallen, Swiss Super League, att. 9,112 (Stadion Letzigrund)

Welcome to ....

What a place Zurich is.  Walking from the railway station, down bahnstrasse, towards the lake, it just reeked of money.  No wonder they hold Diamond athletics meetings here.  I’d come again, if only I could afford it.  As it is, I’d timed it so’s I could hit Zurich early afternoon, have a nose around, go see a match (KO 7pm) and be on an overnite train to Vienna at 21:40.  Everything went swimmingly.

Pre-match entertainment on Lake Zurich

After the peruse (I didn’t buy nuffink) I walked up to the stadium, which is maybe 20-30 minutes the other side of the railway station.  Just follow the train tracks (ish).  Alternatively, get a train one stop to Zurich Hardbrucke, but it’s still a fair walk.  Tram 2 from the centre of town also went there, but nothing beats a walk in the Swiss alps.  (Zurich is very tenuously in the Swiss Alps.)

Maybe you'll see the preferred carrier of Swiss police.

I arrived to find a decent-sized queue.  But this was not why I missed kick-off: the lady in the ticket office pointed me in the right direction for the entrance, but I missed it and ended up doing a lap of the stadium.  How was I to know ‘D’ was next to ‘A’?  I saw ‘A’…marched on…and the next I saw was ‘C’.  Thinking I was nearly at ‘D’ I carried on, only to find ‘B’, by which time I figured I was halfway around the stadium and might as well continue.  What I didn’t realise was there were carparks and football pitches ahead, meaning an even longer walk.  Oh well, no harm done and great view of the stadium.  The Letzigrund is a beautiful (athletics) stadium.  Outside, the surround has oxidised, giving it a classy finish in keeping with the area.

The ticket queue.

I missed the first 10 minutes, though I had managed to secure a beer.  Both sides had connived to be scoreless when I waltzed in.  Although I was meant to be in row 8, I ventured further up the stand, affording a better view from the ‘sud kurve’.  Further around this curve were Zurich’s ultras and, fair play, around 2,000 of them never sat down the whole game and made noise throughout.  In fact, in a crowd of just over 9,000, I’d say more than half were at this end, perhaps reflecting the cheaper price.

The sud kurve.

Behind the other goal were the away fans.  Who were Zurich playing?  I had no idea.  I didn’t recognise the badge on the screen or the colours either.  ‘SG’?  Whothehell are ‘SG’?  St. Gallen.  Of course.  And for them, coming from the far east (of Switzerland) it was as close to a derby as they get, about 50 miles away.  I was impressed with their fans’ pre-match orchestration.  They’d squeezed their lot together and flanked each side with green and white ribbon.  Now, if only their flares were green rather than red.  I don’t think they’d thought that one through.

St. Gallen fans

Zurich went one up before the break, a sweet volley in off the bar from about 10 yards.  Now Zurich’s flares were out (in their blue).  Gone was the whistling at St. Gallen’s flares, while there was no stadium announcement regards Zurich’s pyrotechnics, as there was for the visitors.  Funny that.

But while Zurich partied, St. Gallen had a free kick, 25 yards out, a little wide of the goal.  Still probably too far out to score but I wasn’t banking on the poor position of the goalkeeper who had little chance of making the save, even though he got a hand to it.  One of those ‘this is in’ before it even hits the net.

Green power!

Half-time, I grabbed another beer and a ‘Letziburger’ (see what they did there?)  Problies average, but I liked that you could help yourself to tomatoes, onion, gherkins and coleslaw.  The beer, however, had shrunk in size – shoulda got it from the other stand, as I did earlier.

Second half, I moved a little more towards the corner, front row above a gangway.  Still well populated, though a bit more laidback, if the bloke smoking a joint two seats along was anything to go by.  The match progressed in its earlier vein; misplaced pass after misplaced pass.  It looked like a lower division English game, which it probably would be.  A St. Gallen midfielder was given his marching orders for a second yellow, a foul preventing the break.  Easy life for Zurich, you’d think.

The ref gets his red card out (for the player in black on the left).

St. Gallen sacrifice a forward, throw on the sub…and a minute later Zurich have a man sent off for virtually the same offence.  10 v 10, now we’d see a battle.  Zurich threw on the proverbial ‘big man up front’ and won it when a convoluted one-two ended up sidefooted in from 10 yards.  Thereafter, the visitors threw everything at Zurich and could have scored 3 or 4, but for great goalkeeping, poor finishing and bad luck (one shot deflected narrowly wide with the keeper stranded).  The spoils were Zurich’s.

And that was it.  The end of another summer groundhop/interrail trip.  I jumped on a tram and was back at the station half an hour before my train, en route to meet the other half in Krakow.  I love it when a plan comes together!

Zurich fans celebrate the winner.

The Damage:
CHF 25 ent
CHF 7 beer (Carlsberg, 500ml)
CHF 6 beer (Carlsberg, 400ml)
CHF 8.5 ‘Letziburger’
= CHF 46.50 (£40)

The Tunes:
Hi Scores (Boards of Canada)
Geogaddi (Boards of Canada)
BBC Sessions (Cocteau Twins)

Stayed at:
overnight train to Vienna

Letzigrund panorama

This year’s groundhop in full:
Fri 26^th July: Rot-Weiss Essen
27 Holstein Kiel

28 Anderlecht and KAS Eupen

29 Kickers Offenbach

30 Kaiserslautern

31 Chemnitzer

Thurs 1^st August: Jablonec

2 Zaglebie Lubin

3 failed: Bohemians

4 FSV Zwickau

5 Waldof Mannheim

6 day off!

7 Slovan Bratislava

8 FK Austria Wien

9 Zbrojovka Brno

10 Pribram

11 Viktoria Zizkov

12 Karlsruher SC

13 FC Giessen

14 FC Zurich

Countries 7:  (Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland)
Matches: 19

Welcome to ...(II)

Beautiful.

The visitors letting off flares.

The visitors' end.

The view of the pitch.

The home straight.

The Zurich ultras.

Flares after the 1st goal.

Everything in proportion.

The exec side.

Zurich tower blocks.

The sun setting over Letzigrund.

The back of the stand.

Full-time.  No more football on holiday.

Young Boys 1-3 Monaco, Tuesday 28th July 2015

Young Boys 1-3 Monaco, att. 16,079

Welcome to ....

It should be every puerile English football fan's dream to see young boys at the wankdorf. Why the powers that be have chosen to rebrand it (since Euro 08) to the 'Stade du Suisse' I have no idea. It's now some hybrid shopping centre / footy stadium a la Basel. The same architects? Either way, the Wankdorf Center's outer skin has the soulless image of a large factory or multi-storey car park. It's simply a black box, with barely any insignia to show it is the home of one of Switzerland's most famous sides.

Dull dull dull

Inside, it slightly improves, in the home end, with a liberal sprinkling of yellow banners in the concourse courtesy of the Young Boys' ultras. The stadium is Picture Perfect, a slightly more upmarket version of Stadium:MK. It's a 2 tier fully encircling stadium with extra executive facilities on one side. Of course, this means it's all a bit characterless, despite rousing support from the ultras in the lower tier of the Ostkurve.

At least the souvenir van is a bit snazzy.

I bought my match ticket at the Young Boys' club shop in the Wankdorf centre. I had a couple of hours to spare before check-in and I decided to scoot to the stadium. Easy as pie; one stop by rail from the main station. (Also easily accessible by tram number 9 from the city centre, 16 minutes.) I bought the cheapest available ticket (36 francs) which was a not particularly cheap £24. This entitled me to be in with the ultras. However, I pulled a cheeky one, saw one of the upper tier staircases wasn't guarded and went upstairs instead. An absolutely superb view, even considering the floor to roof netting behind the goal.

Space-age (but not in a good way).

There was decent backing from the ultras, but not much elsewhere, save for a couple of call and responses (calls and response? calls and responses?) Where else would you get one lot chanting 'Young' and the rest chanting 'Boys!', save for public school. Still, as I say, it amused me. Pure puerile.

The other thing which threw me were the souvenir scarf sellers outside. You know the scarves: Half one team (the yellow and black of Young Boys), half the other (the red and white of Monaco). The sellers were all English scallies 'get yer souvenir scarves 10 Francs'. Was this a busman's holiday?Weren't they normally outside Man U / Chelsea / Liverpool etc etc Do they pick their games in Europe carefully? (ie, not Midtjlland v Apoel Nicosia tonite). Will they be at Red Bull Salzburg v Malmo FF tomorrow night?

Opening time at the Wankdorf

Monaco sauntered to an easy win here, 1-3. Men v young boys? Young Boys missed a howler (a header right in front of goal) as well as the keeper making a double save from a break and a shot cannoning off a post. A minute or two later and Monaco went ahead (64th minute). A belter too. A right wing cross evaded everyone and the left back / left winger sized it up before hitting it on the volley with his left peg into the bottom left. 200 Monaco fans went mad, 150 of them stood behind their ultras banner. Who'd have thunk Monaco had ultras? I wondered about the economic make-up of the average Monaco ultra: are they the served or the serving class in the principality?

The teams are coming, the flags are waving.

Carrillo then came on as a sub for Monaco and did more in a minute then any other forward on the pitch all game, flicking home a header from one in swinging free kick down the middle. Slack. The home fans understandably deflated, quietened. So without much home noise, the home side pulled one back 2 minutes later,  The right back muscled his way through to the byline and pulled it back for Nuzzolo to tap home. Who says crowd support makes any difference?

The 'Exec' side.  (Works out Geography...South Stand?)

To prove the point, with the Young Boys in full voice, sensing hope, Monaco simply run down the other end, a midfielder cuts inside onto his left and rifles the ball into the roof of the net from the edge of the box. From where I was it looked like Young Boys were determined NOT to get in the way of it. From a game that was scoreless after an hour it was a golf fest but Young Boys will be kicking themselves they missed easier chances than Monaco scored.

Proof

Crowd: 16,079

The Damage:
36 CHF (entry)
5 CHF (badge)
=41 CHF (£28)

The Tunes:
Songs in A&E - Spiritualized
Lazer Guided Melodies - Spiritualized

What's the time, Mr Wolf?

Young Boys' ultras and their flags

The home end (Ostkurve)

The teams come out

Monaco ultras

The Exec Side.

Match action.

Full time.

Sion 3-1 FC Zurich, Thursday 13th August 2015

Sion 3-1 FC Zurich (att. 9,700)

Welcome to ...

Sion’s stadium is easy to get to, signposted from the railway station. It’s also a pleasant walk, crossing the river before ambling along the ‘Promenade du Canal’ (does what it says on the tin) which leads straight to the stadium, 20 minutes totes. And all the while you can admire the Alps which overlook this small city in the south west of Switzerland, not far from both the French and Italian borders.

Match action in front of them big hills.

It’s a very traditional stadium too, 4 separate stands, 3 of which follow the same design, with wooden beams and joists to the fore, a delicious Alpine twist. Then there’s the roofs, containing lots of little arches and a terraced home end, perfect for atmosphere, holding c.5,000. A trip to the Stade de Tourbillon is far more enjoyable than Berne, or even Basel (though the latter has its idiosyncracies). FC Zurich were the opposition tonight and I thought they brought a decent turnout (350) for a midweeker. Even more impressive was their orchestrated unfurling of their banner and subsequent pyrotechnics.

Zurich's pyrotechnic crew

I was on the home terrace, directly opposite the away fans. I’d arrived at the stadium on one corner and the ticket office I came across only sold tickets for Block B – the terrace. Perfect. So I paid my money and went in (I’d not had much time to spare). The first thing I noticed was the smell of dope (same in Berne…the chilled neutrality of the Swiss?). In fact, the imbibing of Mary Jane was more open than I’ve seen at any stadium, with at least 2 groups skinning up at the back. Rascals.

A Swiss 'casual'.

Another quirky aspect to my visit was the beer ordering. With glasses of 250ml, naturally you need more than one. So, for those getting a round in, the refreshment stand had piles of SHOEBOXES to put them in. Where did they get them all from? Anyway, always good to see some recycling. It’s also the first football ground I’ve seen where you can buy a bottle of wine. So, beer comes in 250ml portions, yet you can buy a 700ml bottle of plonk!

Full time on the terrace.

I presume the match was on TV. There was the presenter and the lights by the side of the pitch. Sion (‘See-on’; I’ve been pronouncing it as ‘Shun’ all these years – I think they played Aberdeen once, back in the day) looked the part. In a fast flowing first half they took the lead when the centre forward broke clear to finish. But while the Sion ultras (who stood directly behind the goal, replete with usual banners and a cheerleader – a man with loudhailer) were still celebrating, Zurich hit back, a right wing cross met with a left peg at the back post.

There was still time in the first half for the pick of the herd, Carlitos curling a beauty of a free kick into the top corner, off the underneath of the bar. If Swiss headline writers don’t bill this ‘Carlitos Way’ I am sorely disappointed.

The kids get the best view.

In the second period, Sion refused to leave their own half. Given their attacking potency in the 1st, this surprised me. Or had Zurich upped their game THAT much? Of course, sod’s law dictated that it was Sion who grabbed a 3rd, 10 mins from time. A Zurich shot was charged down on the edge of the box and Sion broke up field. A neat bit of skill from the outside left bamboozled his man and gave the winger time to pull the ball back. His teammate made a hash of the attempted shot but the ball went across goal to be stabbed in at close range. Sion had made the game safe!

Alpine charm...the home end roof supports.

Afterwards, I walked around the stadium. Fans were encouraged to stay on with beer tents galore. One could wander in and out of the stands without any stewards chasing you out. Sion is a very pleasant evening out indeed. (Note: the city centre is the opposite side of the railway from the stadium and you’re not missing much by not going there.)

The Damage:
CHF 25 ent
CHF 4 beer (x2)
CHF 6 hotdog
= CHF 35 (£23)

1st view of the stadium.

One side stand.

The Main Stand side.

Never forget where you are.

Ultras' flags top left.

Mr TV readying himself.

The floodlights.

Someone's made an effort.

Away banner, start of 2nd half.