VfL Bochum v St Pauli. 19/04/13

"Bochum, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do, now you're in Bochum"

VfL Bochum 1848 3-0 St Pauli. rewirpowerSTADION
Friday 19/04/13

The wonders of German public transport mean that you can stay in one place - in this case Dusseldorf - and from there get to three different places in three days for three games of football. That was the plan for this particular April weekend as Rumble and I were to head to VfL Bochum v St Pauli on Friday, Borussia Dortmund v FSV Mainz 05 on Saturday and then over the border into the Netherlands for VVV Venlo v FC Twente on Sunday.

Schumacher Alt - a delightful beer in Dusseldorf

Dusseldorf itself was an excellent city which got even better when we realised that our double bed that had been accidentally booked was in fact two singles that could be pushed apart. No offence to Mr Rumble, but combining our night time bodily functions in one confined bed would have been like letting off a nuclear bomb. There were a huge number off beer halls in the city which we felt it only right to visit before the train to Bochum for game one, a 30 minute or so journey. The best of these was probably the Schumacher-Brau although it was unfortunately not named after either Michael or Ralf - a marketing trick missed if ever there was one.

rewirpowerSTADION

Once in Bochum, we headed straight to the rewirpowerSTADION - a fine combination of random small and upper case letters - where we found an excellent pub directly opposite the stadiums tram stop called Ritterburg with memorabilia, beer and that standard item in all good German bars, the electronic dartboard. The joy was short lived however as the dart board didn't actually work.

The fan bar - with non-working electronic dartboard

AZZURO BOCHUM!

There was a massive attendance for a 2.Bundesliga game, with nearly a capacity crowd of 30,000 packed into the stadium. It's single tiered all the way around with a home terrace behind one goal and the visiting St Pauli fans on a small piece of terracing in a corner. Despite the enclosed nature, the ground retains it's floodlight pylons and the atmosphere inside from such a compact yet large arena was excellent.

rewirpowerSTADION - excellent floodlight pylons

The visiting St Pauli support

The best thing of all however was the food selection. Germany is already renowned for it's food and beer inside it's football grounds but the selection of sausages at rewierpowerSTADION would be enough to get even Louie Spence excited. He'd also no doubt have been excited about Bochum's manager, a certain Peter Neurure who was not only sporting jeans in the technical area but a quite stunning squirrel's tail that he'd stuck on his top lip.

Little boy enjoying a pint of beer

You just couldn't turn down a nibble of sausage at those prices

It's obviously not just dressing like a 1970s porn star that Mr Neurure excels at as his side breezed past St Pauli with ease scoring three unanswered goals. Zlatko Dedic netted a first half brace including one from the penalty spot and Yusuke Tasaka was the other man on target in an extremely impressive Bochum performance.

Peter Neurure - by day Bochum manager, by night 1970s porn star

It was back into the town centre afterwards where we found a pub packed with Bochum supporters and partied the night away, including teaching them a new song in "Bochum, concrete jungle where dreams are made of" which we were promised would be used on the terraces at the next game. If it was, then we are truly sorry as in the cold light of a sober day it becomes clear that is the worst football song in history and that includes anything John Barnes-related. The combination of German beer and a wonderful clock that ran backwards led to all kinds of confusion and we only just made the last train back to Dusseldorf. Thinking that was that, we settled down for the journey only to both fall asleep and find ourselves arriving in Monchengladbach at midnight.

Backwards clock + beer + last train to catch = recipe for disaster

Bochum till we die

In England, this would have been a disaster but fear not, Borussia Monchengladbach had been at home that evening as well and that meant Football Special Trains running late into the night. What could have been a total cock up turned into no issue at all as we simply joined the Monchengladbach fans to return to Dusseldorf. God bless Deutschebahn.

rewirpowerSTADION in all her Friday night glory

You'll Never Walk Alone - Bochum style

Bochum FC provide vital life skills to kids, such as climbing

VfL Bochum: Andreas Luthe, Paul Freier, Marcel Malritz, Jonas Acquistapace, Michael Lumb, Yusuke Tasaka 1, Leon Goretzka (Christoph Dabrowski), Christoph Kramer, Marc Rzatkowski (Faton Toski), Zlatko Dedic 2, Mirkan Aydin (Michael Delura).

St Pauli: Philipp Tschauner, Jan-Philipp Kalla, Markus Thorandt, Christopher Avevor, Sebastian Schachten, Patrick Funk, Florian Kringe (Fabian Binge), Lennart Thy (Marius Ebbers), Dennis Daube, Fin Bartels, Daniel Ginczek (Akaki Gogia). 

Attendance: 26,072

St Pauli v VfL Wolfsburg. 21/11/10

"Why are Wolfsburg singing about 1945? Do you think it's to do with the end of the war?"

St Pauli 1-1 VfL Wolfsburg. Millerntor-Stadion.
Sunday 21/11/10.

Ask most people why they would go and watch St Pauli and you'll get a multitude of answers - the clubs popularity across Europe for it's unique culture. It's left wing political leanings. It's anti-establishment position. It's link to the punk scene. The brown kit. The red hot atmosphere of the Millerntor-Stadion. It's location in Hamburg's red light district. What you are unlikely to hear is Schteve McClaren's VfL Wolfsburg were in town.

But that was the reason we had. Schteve took over at Wolfsburg in the summer after becoming the first English manager in 20 years to lift a major domestic league title with FC Twente in the Netherlands. And, being the sad case that he is, Rumble had decided to arrange his stag do to Hamburg around seeing Mr McClaren lead out his side at the Millerntor.

"To Andy. Enjoy your trip to Germany 2010. Steve McClaren"

What nobody expected when that decision was made was that in writing to Schteve to tell him we were coming to support his team, he would send back a load of tickets in the away end as well as a signed shirt congratulating Andy on his engagement. Just when you thought you couldn't love the man (Schteve, not Rumble) anymore.

Hamburg - including the Town Hall - from the air

We'd spent two days in Hamburg prior to the game and if you want somewhere to go with a large group of English men who enjoy beer, meat and women then this is it. It's little wonder The Beatles loved the place so much - there were pubs galore on either side of the Reeperbahn which is were we spent most of our time drinking. Of course, St Pauli aren't the cities only football team - we also checked out the stadium of their rivals Hamburger SV. As luck would have it, we got to see the side train on pitches outside the Imetech Arena which included Ruud van Nistelrooy. Every time he netted he was greeted with a big "RUUUUUUDDDDDD" from the gathered masses which didn't go down well if the fact he scarpered as soon as the session was done is anything to go by.

Cheeky look at Hamburger SV's Imtech Arena

Meeting Brazil legend Ze Roberto after stumbling across
 Hamburger SV training

Game day arrived and it was an evening kick off at Millerntor which would make the already intense atmosphere even greater. With St Pauli being the team of the Reeperbahn area of the city, most of the bars play up their association with flags, scarves and shirts all over the place. We drank in several of these before the game, heading to the stadium quite late.

St Pauli bar

The ground isn't quite the old school wreck it used to be, with two new stands built in recent years ahead of their rise into the Bundesliga for 2010-11. One of those is behind the goal and features a terrace with seats behind it, home to the more fanatical of the St Pauli support. Thousands of fans in this stand lit sparklers and held them up when the teams entered the pitch to the pre-game song of Hells Bells by ACDC.

The teams enter to paper, streamers and from the St Pauli
end sparklers

Some nice shiny corporate boxes at St Pauli

A large seated stand now occupies one touchline with executive boxes at the back to show that no matter how left wing or anti-establishment a club you are, you still need the money to be rolling in from the big corporations. Opposite that is the famed Gegengerade - a bank of terracing with a small seated stand perched above it while we were sat amongst the Wolfsburg fans in a corner of the other goal, a small terrace at the front which had had temporary seats added behind it.

Gegengerade

The stand was split between the home and away support which was just as well as you got the feeling that if everybody jumped up at once in celebration the thing would come tumbling down. In fact, you could have built it out of Lego and it would have been more secure.

The atmosphere was sensational with the ground filled to it's 25,000 capacity. It really was non stop noise throughout from both supporters and if there is anybody in any doubt at the difference that terracing can make in terms of improving the footballing experience, then the Millerntor is the place to go. St Pauli have adopted a number of English songs for their repetoire which makes them quite unique in Germany in that respect while Wolfsburg's favourite number is about 1945 - a celebration of the year they were founded as opposed to the end of World War II we discovered.

Wolfsburg fans go wild as Edin Dzeko equalises

Both teams were poor but Wolfsburg had a true hero on the pitch in the shape of Danish defender Simon Kjaer. Long blonde hair, alice band, coloured boots - he was everything a centre back shouldn't be and he played like it as well. It was quite incredible to find out after the game then that Schteve forked out over £10m for him.

St Pauli took the lead to deafening roars in the first half through Markus Thorandt's bullet header. That was cancelled out by Edin Dzeko in the second half with a point probably being a fair result come the final whistle. At the end of the game both sides left to the Millerntor belting out You'll Never Walk Alone which was quite the sight.

The teams leave the pitch to You'll Never Walk Alone

After stumbling across a Wolfsburg merchandise van we stocked up on scarves and hats of our new German team proving that even if Schteve isn't having the desired effect on the pitch, he certainly is off it driving sales of supporters knitwear through the roof.  Such is the way modern football is going, those extra euros in the till might keep him in a job for a little longer. Happy to play our part, Schteve.

Football boring? Never mind, there was a bloody huge
funfair behind the ground.

The best was yet to come though as if the football is a letdown like this was, then the addition of a bloody huge funfair behind the Gegengerade provided an hours entertainment long after the final whistle had gone. Only at St Pauli.

St Pauli: Thomas Kessler, Carsten Rothenbach, Carlos Zambrano, Markus Thorandt 1, Bastian Oczipka, Fabian Boll, Max Kruse (Deniz Naki), Gerald Asamoah (Timo Schultz), Matthias Lehmann, Fin Bartels (Florian Bruns), Marius Ebbers.

VfL Wolfsburg: Diego Benaglio, Peter Pekarik, Simon Kjaer, Andrea Barzagli, Marcel Schafer, Mario Mandzukic, Josue (Alexander Madlung), Diego, Sascha Riether, Cicero (Makoto Hasebe), Edin Dzeko 1.

Attendance: 24,000