1.FC Heidenheim 1-0 Munich 1860, Sunday 26th July 2015

1.FC Heidenheim 1-0 Munich 1860 (Bundesliga 2)

Welcome to ....

I'm not sure what to make of 1.FCH. Going there seems to be a cross between VfR Aalen and Doncaster Rovers - simple enough route to the stadium but a hell of a hill (Aalen) and at the end of it some small featureless stadium dressed in red (Donny). Though that would do injustice to an oddity within the stand to the left of the home end - a 'shelf' not seen in soccer since the demise of Tottenham's. Yet in keeping with the rest of the stadium there was no sense of 'being', a perfectly designed fence made for flags and banners lacking any, very rare for Germany. This looks like a team still looking for a branding; was it red white or blue? This year they're going white with one blue and one red narrow stripe down the middle. Very smart, very French, but previous shirts were red - though many fans wore blue (a previous away kit?).

Up that hill.  Keep going.

I'd ordered my ticket in advance. Heidenheim, although extending their stadium, often come close to selling out and I didn't want to take the risk. Ordered online - print@home. Simples. Though I miss my good old match ticket.

I stood to the left of the main fankurve. I was trying to avoid the net behind the goal, though I could still see the cheerleader on his fence rousing the hardcore to chant. (The hardcore at Heidenheim appeared to be a couple of hundred directly behind the goal). In fact, most folk at the Voith Arena appeared to be tourists just like me, who've never even heard, let alone join in the club anthem pre-match.

Munich 1860 banners

I remember a poll on the 3.liga website a couple of years ago on who would be promoted. 1,FCH got the most votes yet I never did find out why. Come into some money maybe? Huge fanatical support? Definitely not that. Well run? Surely not a football club tipped for promotion cos it's well run? Who knows, but they did win promotion, so the pollsters were right.

The home end.  Love the red roof!

They've also redeveloped bits of the stadium. I like how they have made the stands the same height yet, as I say, it comes over as all a bit Keepmoat. The standing behind the goal curves around to the 'shelf' where there's seats. At the far end there's away standing on the left with seats (and overspill) taking behind the goal, before more home seats. It being a 'big' away team, their terrace was full and a decent following in the seats. Crowd? 13500. Capacity? Dunno, but there were seats to spare on the 'executive side'.

The Heidenheim 'shelf'.

The match? Very even, both sides happy with a point, then Heidenheim rudely snatched it with a flicked header from a corner. Great finish/ poor defending. Delete as applicable.

PS, finding the ground was easy, if a walk. The main thing I remember was it was up a massive hill, which relatively few folk walked up (cars jammed their way up). Mind, it's much easier on the way back...

The damage

€13.50 entry

€3 wurst

€3 bier (400ml, x2)

€12 t-shirt

€1.50 badge

= €36 (£25)

The Tunes:
Writer's Block - Peter, Bjorn and John
Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys

We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings

The Shelf Side.

Looking across to the 'Exec Side'.

The teams come out...

Doesn't that look like the coolest place to watch? (see kid in foreground)

The camera gantry.  An afterthought?

Flag-waving 1860 style.

The Heidenheim bear (I guess).

Friendly looking fence...

Some of the few empty seats in the stadium

Full time.  Minnows one, giants nil.

Does that floodlight go THROUGH the stand? I think it does!

Purveyors of fine (lower league) football stadia!

St. Pauli 0-0 Arminia Bielefeld, Saturday 25th July 2015

St. Pauli 0-0 Arminia Bielefeld (Bundesliga 2, att. 29,546)

Welcome back!

I set off for this game with more trepidation than usual. Last season I fell asleep as my train came in to Hamburg and I ended up 1 and a half hours the other side of the city, not getting to the Millerntor till half-time. see: http://geordiealsgroundhopperscrapbook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/St.%20Pauli

My train today was due in at 12:30 and I had to pick up my ticket at the office by 1:30 pm but my train was late by 15 minutes or so and the locker situation in Hamburg Hbf took time. Then how to get there. Walk? Could do - .once I know which street is which. Too hard to figure, let's jump on the u-bahn. Went back on myself to Berliner Tor to catch a U3 to St Pauli. U3 not in action. Replacement bus service! Try not to panic...

Interesting that they didn't fill the corner in...

Thankfully, there were a few St Pauli fans to follow. I settled in my seat...daydreaming...then noticed at the rathaus, as the bus doubled back on itself, all the St Pauli fans had already got off. So I jumped off at the next stop and walked. By now I knew the way.

I reached the fanladen at 2pm. Luckily, they'd not sold my ticket yet (they do if you don't arrive in time). For a second game in a row, the standing areas had sold out. Fans mulled around with 'stehplatz suche' scribbled across scraps of paper but there were still a few seats left. In fact, I was a bit surprised to hear the attendance was so high.

The crowd

Now, every time I come to see St. Pauli, something amazes me. This time it was all four sides of the stadium unveiling giant banners. Of course, I'd not have seen this were I not stood on a small corner of the Nord Kurve not covered in flag. Wouldn't happen in England. I saw 30 odd volunteers in the west stand wrapping it up and trotting off to put it in storage while the game had already kicked off.

The match finished 0-0, my 3rd opening day St Pauli goalless fest in 5 or 6 years. However, unlike the other two this wasn't a little stroll in the park under 90 degree heat, this was cool enough for proper football and against newly promoted Arminia Bielefeld, St Pauli probably fancied themselves. For much of the first half they looked one pass or flick away from a chance but it never came. The second half saw Arminia being the more dangerous on the break and, indeed, with them on the attack late on, it was the home fans whistling for the final whistle.

It absolutely bucketed it down pre-match

Later, I caught an overnight train to Karlsruhe, which was not without incident as the train was massively oversubscribed (good job I had a reservation) and full of people in a temper, enough for police to be called to one disagreement. Another late train, though spare a thought for the Arminia fans on the 'football special' (these things still exist in Germany). It was due to set off 2 hours late, hence dozens of wide-eyed Bielefeld fans staggering around Hamburg railway station.

The Damage:
€12.50 ent
€3.50 ? beer (x3)
€4.50 plastic beer glasses
€3 wurst
€20 t-shirt
= €51.50
The Tunes:
La Revancha Del Tango - Gotan Project
Ma At Mama - Ursula Rucker
Psyence Fiction - Unkle
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Lady's Bridge - Richard Hawley

Skinheads were 'ere.

Giving the kids the office shreddings to chuck in the air

...like this!

Match action (yes, I'd changed sides)

I spot a bus...a St. Pauli bus!

Back of Gegengerade after the match

and another...loading the Arminia coach.

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

Guest Report - Norwich City 2 - 0 Middlesbrough - Play Off Final - Monday 25th May 2015

My third outing to see Norwich this season following a trip to Fulham with my Dad and his friends in tow, and a mid-week hop to nearby Charlton. This was obviously the best of the three! My Dad managed to time his holiday to clash with the release of tickets but roped in one of his mates to log on and sit in a virtual queue for several hours to get us tickets. His mate was on holiday (in Southwold!) so I got his ticket.

On our trip from home to Wembley the first Canaries I saw were about 2 stops into our bus journey. We saw a few more on the tube but didn't see any red shirts until we hit Baker Street. We arrived at Wembley at about 1pm and it was already much busier than I expected. Wembley way looked great with the two distinctive colours.

Wembley Way

The arch

One proud Canary

Some fans looked like they'd raided all their Canary accessories and had brought them out all at once, Others went for the minimal look like this one ...

Even I dug out my canary and blew him up whilst drinking an overpriced pint of generic lager pre-match.

A well travelled canary - he's been to Sri Lanka and Wembley

We had great seats, right near the halfway line, so close to the Boro fans we were within range of projectiles so I wasn't keen when some Canary fans around us started baiting them, but they didn't bite.

So close, yet so far

I knew we were going to win because we'd brought two mascots along to Boro's one.

Captain Canary and Sport-o-saurus

Once the teams had warmed up they let each of the teams tannoy announcers loose, shouting so loud in regional accents you couldn't actually hear the team news.

Literally rolling out the red carpet for the teams

Almost full stadium

The match got off to an exciting start, we hit the bar then Boro charged up the other end and did the same but 10 minutes in our supremacy showed and we went one up, and a few minutes later it was two! Unbelievable! We dominated the first half despite what the stats may say, although there were a couple of wobbly moments with Ruddy not quite taking the ball as cleanly as you'd hope for a former England number 3.

First half action

My half time entertainment was seeing how many different shirts I could spot - this was my favourite ... shiny and the club badge woven into the fabric - it just screams 20th Century!

The second half was mostly taken up with wondering when we'd throw it all away - maybe I've spent too much time watching Barnsley this season - but we didn't.  We held on to our advantage despite the scrappier play.

Second half action

The excitement started to grow in the last 10 minutes when we realised that as they hadn't really had a good chance since they hit the bar we might actually do it.

Almost there, don't get excited quite yet

Wave your blow up canary like you just don't care!

The final whistle!

We were in the tier above the dug outs and royal box so had to watch the medal giving on the big screen.

Celebrity directors

But we got a great view of the celebration (great if you have a posh camera like me).

Someone's got to clear up all that mess afterwards

The newest Premier League Scottish manager

We stayed until the end of the presentation and photocalls, unlike some people ... but fair enough they had just lost their 5th match at Wembley in a row.

Where have they all gone, there's a trophy presentation going on!

YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS! YELLOWS!