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(from "Elfmeter" issue 35)
They say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Well, I don't know how many of you have actually received a gift horse recently, but if someone offered you a fortnight's all-expenses-paid trip to Hamburg, you wouldn't look it in the mouth, would you? Oh sure, I'd have to attend a few boring lectures and things, but it was a free chance to see some decent football (I've been watching Scarborough all season), so of course I accepted.
With a bit of careful planning, and by making a tiny detour en route, I was even able to call in at Meppen for their Zweite Liga fixture with Wolfsburg, the "biggest game in Meppen's history" according to the president's programme notes. I'd written to the club in advance, and they'd kindly agreed to reserve a ticket for me. At first I was slightly peeved that they'd given me such an expensive one (DM30), but just after I arrived at the ground at 2:30 p.m. the heavens opened and I was very glad to have a se at in the grandstand. Most of the crowd seemed to arrive by bike and were extremely wet, believe me!
Meppen's ground was previously a typical athletics bowl called the Hindenburg Stadium, but they've now ditched the running track, moved the pitch nearer the Haupttribune and built a big new "Gegentribune." This new stand has a very steep angle and offers a superb view, but has only bench seats. The home fans' terracing has been rebuilt right next to the pitch, but away supporters still have the old-style "Kurve."
VfL Wolfsburg, fresh from their heroic victory over 1.FC Koln in the Cup semi-final in mid-week, received a generous round of applause from the Meppen fans. And Wolfsburg received a generous early gift from Meppen goalkeeper Stefan Brasas, who despite his six-foot-seven-inch frame wasn't tall enough to cut out a centre and tipped it invitingly to Siggi Reich to open the scoring after eight minutes. Wolfsburg then became totally unadventurous, and at one point must have strung together 40 passes--all sideway s and all within their own half--with Meppen, wary of a quick break, content to let them do it.
I had spent the first 25 minutes wondering how someone as ungainly and uncoordinated as Jan Sievers came to be selected for the Meppen team when--wallop--he cracked in the equaliser from a goalmouth scramble. And after 56 minutes he mis-kicked so dreadfully that he was able to latch onto his own inadvertent pass and score again. Meppen's leading marksman Rainer Rauffmann then came on as substitute and scored with a marvellous header in the last minute to send the crowd pedalling home in ecstasy.
Meppen had treated the game like a cup-tie and had won deservedly. Little Marko Myyry was an inspiration, and I was impressed by sweeper Thomas Bottche and midfielder Zbigniew Szewczyk (known to one and all for obvious reasons simply as "Speedy"). Wolfsburg's game, however, revolved entirely around Claus-Dieter ("Pele") Wollitz--and I couldn't make up my mind whether this was a good thing. He certainly played some magnificent passes with his cultured left foot, but he is definitely short of pace. Kind of li ke Bernd Schuster, but younger, slimmer, and with shorter and darker hair. And possibly even slower. In fact nothing like Bernd Schuster at all, come to think of it.
That was my first experience of Meppen. It's a very friendly town, very pretty too, but with the slowest-changing traffic-lights I have ever encountered (you've not been to Wolverhampton, then--ed.). I guess the pace of life is a lot slower in the Emsland than elsewhere.
My arrival in Hamburg on Easter Monday coincided with the final day of the Fruhlingsdom funfair, and as I arrived at the Heiligengeistfeld I wondered whether to spend my money on football or to have a go on the rollercoaster. I stuck to my original plan and entered the Millerntor arena to watch St. Pauli's amateur team take on TSB Flensburg, one of the two Oberliga teams from that most northerly of German towns. For DM8 I could sit or stand anywhere, so I opted for the "Gegentribune," a curious semi-permane nt structure which looks as if it was erected overnight by a cowboy scaffolding firm. With the lady from the beer-stall bringing her wares round at regular intervals and a decent match on the pitch in front of me, this was not short of my conception of paradise.
The home side's number nine, Maik Gobel, scored twice to confirm his place as "Torschutzenkonig" of the Oberliga Hamburg/ Schleswig-Holstein, and Thorsten Wickart looked a classy player. At the end, the Pauli faithful in a crowd of around 700 celebrated the 4-0 win by chanting "Nie mehr Oberliga."
I now had to survive four whole days without seeing a game, but I did take the opportunity to call in for a brief look at the Stadion-am-Rothenbaum, where HSV used to play and where their amateur team still plays its Oberliga matches. There was also time for a quick browse through the HSV Club Shop, but I wasn't tempted to actually buy anything. Then, with week one of the seminar safely negotiated (and having fallen asleep only once during a lecture), Friday evening meant a trip into the unknown to watch SC Concordia Hamburg play Luneburg SK in the Regionalliga Nord.
"Cordi's" stadium is in Marienthal, in the east of the city, and it's a bloody long walk from the nearest S-bahn or U-bahn station. So guess who missed the first five minutes of the match? Not that we missed much action, though--the game was a rather dull 0-0 draw. "We?" Yes, amazingly, there were a couple of other footy fans attending the same boring seminar. As one of them remarked, most of the crowd seemed to have come to the ground simply for a beer and a sausage and a chat, just occasionally casting a glance at the on-field activities.
Our own chat consisted of gibberish like "I think Luneburg are the spielbestimmende team with lots of technisch begabte players", and degenerated rapidly into our own unique language like "Was ein schlechtes Fraulein das war" (what a bad Miss that was). Perhaps the beer was having an effect.Another, more definite, effect of the beer was the necessity to find the toilets. Astonishingly, these are situated in the players' changing rooms. You don't believe me? A quote from the programme: "Wichtiger Hinweis! Unsere Toiletten befinden sich im Umkleidehaus. Bitte nutzen Sie die sanitaren Einrichtungen!" In other words, don't pee in the bushes at the back of the terracing!
The Marienthal-Stadion is a bit run-down but can apparently hold 6,000--though I wouldn't like to be there in such a big crowd. I mean, what if they all wanted to go to the toilet at once? The game we saw--and yes, Cordi do actually have floodlights--was watched by 730. Luneburg's number nine was quite impressive wide on the left, but I can't tell you his name as we'd missed the team announcements. It cost DM10 to get in, and my lasting impression will be the shirts Cordi were wearing, sponsored by Rowntree Mackintosh to resemble oversized Kit-Kat wrappers.
When Saturday came, it was an early train to Bremen and an immediate dash to the Weserstadion, to queue outside the ticket-office when it opened at 10:00 a.m., in the hope of getting in to the game with Kaiserslautern which was already nearly "ausverkauft." And, having been warned about the lousy view from the bottom of the Westkurve, I had no option but to fork out DM45 for a seat in the middle of the Nordtribune, but then with a ticket safely tucked away in my wallet I returned to the town centre to act t he tourist for a few hours.
What a marvellous game it turned out to be. A long-range effort from Andy Brehme and a solo from Olaf Marschall put the Red Devils 2-0 ahead after twenty minutes. Werder couldn't really get going, and poor Oliver Reck had reverted to the old Pannen-Olli with concrete in his boots and butter on his gloves. The home fans around me were expecting a real drubbing like the 5-1 by MSV Duisburg (yes, MSV Duisburg) last season, but Werder managed to avoid further disaster up to half-time.
Well, "Fussball ist ein komisches altes Spiel," as Jimmy Greaves' interpreter would no doubt say, and the second half belonged entirely to Bremen. The admirable Marco Bode was a two-goal hero as Werder levelled the game and could easily have won. But a draw seemed fair, and fans of both sides mingled happily after the final whistle.
The next day, I headed out past Hamburg's Volksparkstadion and into the leafy suburb of Lurup to find the Jonny-Arfert-Stadion and a game which had been built up in the local press as the unofficial championship of Hamburg amateur football. In other words, the Regionalliga Nord contest between SV Lurup and VfL 93 Hamburg. The stadium "Tribune" consists of four benches along one side; on the opposite side is a fair amount of covered terracing, but the Kurven at both ends have no terracing at all. But what th e heck, as long as there's a beer stall and a Bratwurst stall...and of course there was.
Lurup's main sponsor is a scaffolding firm, and I couldn't help wondering if they were responsible for that "Gegentribune" at the Millerntor. Goalkeeper Jan Wessel pulled off some super saves, and I was also impressed by sweeper Thomas Gansauge, whilst VfL 93's spindly black midfielder Otto Addo also caught the eye. It was a smashing game, well worth DM10 of anybody's money, with Lurup coming out on top 3-0. And no, I don't know who Jonny Arfert is.
The following Tuesday meant another visit to the Millerntor to see St. Pauli's Amateurs despatch the mighty Barsbuttel SV 3-1 and thus extend their lead at the top of the Oberliga table after a thoroughly enjoyable match. And yes, that lady was bringing trays of beer round again. In fact, she'd also been at Concordia and at Lurup. What a woman!
On the final Friday, four of us risked the wrath of the course organisers by skipping the farewell party (yawn, yawn) in favour of watching HSV play Duisburg (er...yawn, yawn again, as it turned out). With the Volksparkstadion now a beer-free zone, it was amusing to see the fans trying to get as much alcohol down their necks as possible between the S-bahn station and the "Pendelbus" to the ground.
Programme collectors should be made aware of HSV's unique new marketing strategy of not actually selling programmes at the stadium. Apparently you can buy them at Hamburg newsagents a day or so before each match, but I walked all round the "Westkurve"--outside and in, up and down each set of steps from Block A to Block F--and I didn't see a single person with a one. I cheered myself up by remembering it had only cost DM10 for a "Stehplatz" for the game.
In the first half, Hamburg were crap. I mean really, totally crap. And Duisburg were much, much worse. Not that it was easy to see the game, being permanently dazzled by the floodlights reflecting off Yordan Letchkov's head (Er, this is only a joke, isn't it?--ed.). The best moment of the first half was a scorcher from Frank Ordenewitz, brilliantly saved by Richard Golz. Yes, I know they're on the same side, but that's what happened.
In the second half, Hamburg were better. And Duisburg, impossible though it had seemed, were even worse. Young Andre Breitenreiter opened the scoring, and then, finally, at last, after a barren spell of 358 days, Valdas Ivanauskas actually scored a goal for HSV. And not only that, he made it 3-0 in the final minute--which I'm afraid we missed, as I'd suggested making an early getaway. It was time to drop in on the scintillating farewell party, the inevitable singalong, and the acute embarrassment of not act ually knowing all the words to "Scarborough Fair."
Author: DEREK MEGGINSON
