It was with a banging head and tired limbs that I awoke from my slumber on this cold Sunday morning. Luckily the hotel I was staying in was only 10 minutes walk from the Millerntor Stadion, home of FC Sankt Pauli. Today The Buccaneers of the League were taking on Energie Cottbus in a Bundesliga 2 clash.
A chance to visit both Hamburg clubs in one weekend was the prime reason for choosing this weekend, but a visit to St Pauli has been long anticipated.
It's very hard to summarise what has been said about St Pauli a thousand times before but the club is famous for it's unique culture, it's stance against fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia is well renowned and has many left-leaning fans attracted to it's values.
It's very hard to summarise what has been said about St Pauli a thousand times before but the club is famous for it's unique culture, it's stance against fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia is well renowned and has many left-leaning fans attracted to it's values.
Formed in 1910, the club led an undistinguished existence, though they were founder members of the Bundesliga 2 in 1974, until the mid 1980's when their transition began. The ground is in the shadow of the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's notorious red-light district, and also the centre of the city's nightlife (hence my head this morning) and a fan scene built around this. Unfortunately I never got a chance to have a drink in the Jolly Roger.
With it's "cult" status the club began to rise up the leagues and spent the next decade or so flitting between the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. The club were virtually bankrupt around the turn of the millennium though and ended up back in the Regionalliga. However, after fund raising efforts they rose again and returned to the Bundesliga for season 2010/11, though went straight back down. They are now currently mid-table in Bundesliga 2.
The Millerntor ground has been the home of St Pauli since 1961 and has been more or less re-built in recent years as redevelopment has taken place. Any character the ground had once upon a time has certainly disappeared these days. The latest stand to be redeveloped was actually fully open for the first time at today's game, the new die Gegengerade, which has now brought capacity up to around 29,000.
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| The new die Gegengerade, open fully for the first time today |
One thing the re-building has not done though has affected any of the atmosphere as the noise was superb today. From the teams walking out to the chimes of AC/DC's Hell's Bell's to the final whistle the crowd got behind their side.This was despite the fact the game was a pretty grim spectacle, as after a decent opening when both sides looked like they were going to score, the game petered out into a drab affair which ended goalless. A bit of anti-climax in all honesty.
Nonetheless, another fantastic weekend in Germany and roll on March when I will be doing it once again!
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