A weekend taking in the Hamburg Derby followed by games at Werder Bremen and Feyenoord “didn’t look great on paper” according to one of my oldest friends. When that comes out of the mouth of a man that watches Manchester City, a club funded by a sovereign wealth fund with over 100 financial charges hanging over them, and Crewe Alexandra, a club with a history of child abuse that they still haven’t acknowledged or apologised to the families for, you know you’re on the right side of football culture.
Having never been to Hamburg, it was a city that reminded me on arrival of Liverpool on a larger scale, maybe that’s why it appealed to The Beatles and Kevin Keegan. It’s the second largest city in Germany behind Berlin and the eighth largest in the EU with the third largest port.
The city’s two football teams represent vastly different histories and ideologies. Hamburger SV have spent most of their history in the top flight of German football and were crowned champions of Europe in 1983. FC St Pauli on the other hand have spent most their existence in the lower leagues and in 1983 when their more illustrious neighbors were strutting around with the European Cup, St Pauli were averaging crowds of under 2,000.
Today it’s very different. HSV have been in the second division since 2018 and St Pauli now fill their 30,000 Millerntor stadium that sits behind the city’s famous Reeperbahn, and this season were on the verge of being promoted to the top flight. St Pauli fans are known for being passionately anti-facist and generally vocally left wing, displaying huge shows of support for LGBTQ, immigration and women’s rights to name a few.
I had arranged this derby many months ago through my old friends at Homefans and despite a few hiccups with hotels and tickets, the day of the game was another opportunity to mix with likeminded football culture seekers, which ultimately is the best part of booking through a tour company.
As it turned out my group was a bit of a League One banter group with myself representing the recently promoted Stockport County, two lads from Barnsley (although one was a Man City fan) and one from Bristol (Rovers fan).
After a long walk from a tram station and enjoying the thousands of people standing around drinking beer in the middle of a Friday afternoon, we met close to the ground at a bar in a very scenic wooded area and got to know each other.
We entered the impressive Volksparkstadion around an hour before kick off and the place was absolutely jumping. Friday night under the lights, 57,000 Hamburgers and a few idiots from England. HSV sat fourth in the table and desperately needed a win to be in with a shout of a play off, which in Germany is a two legged match up between the third place team and third bottom in the Bundesliga. St Pauli came into the game in first place and three points would have sealed promotion on the night with two games to go. That scenario seemed unthinkable on enemy turf but their fans were in great voice with the usual German pyro on display.
The game wasn’t of the highest quality, I think the top end of the English Championship is probably slightly better but the atmosphere throughout was electric.
HSV had most of the chances while the visitors seemed happy to just not lose and to gain a point closer to promotion. Our seats were in the corner next to the HSV ultras giving us a great view of the pyro, smoke bombs and impressive choreography of human bouncing.
After a couple of disallowed goals and a missed penalty, HSV finally broke through in the 85th minute with a goal from their talismanic striker Robert Glatzel and the game ended 1-0. St Pauli would have to wait one more week for promotion.
As I write this two weeks later, they did just that while HSV missed out to Dusseldorf for the play off place. As I had a great night at Dusseldorf earlier this season, good luck to them!
Final verdict of the Hamburg derby? Absolutely electric. It shows the depth of culture in European football that a second division game can produce that number of people in attendance as well as the predictable levels of noise, colour and passion. I highly recommend it although they might not play each other again for a while - who would have thought the minnows of St Pauli would be the ones looking down on their rivals.
The next day I took a train to Bremen, a place I knew nothing about and which took just over an hour to get to.
The centre of town was charming with nice architecture, bustling cafes and instagramable side streets.
After a bite of lunch I followed hordes of fans on a thirtyish minute walk down the banks of the river Weser. What an eye opening experience that was.
During that thirty minutes I saw the usual German scene of men walking while drinking bottles of beer, something that would seem overly volatile in a lot of places. I saw couples frolicking in the daisy strewn banks. I saw the biggest collection of large inflatable bouncy things that children play on. I saw people playing beach volleyball on a small stretch of sand on the other side of the river. I saw a street seller blasting “The Wild Rover” (in German) from a stereo and I saw multiple men of an advanced aged urinating into the river with very little discretion. All of these things didn’t seem like they would mix on a sunny Saturday spring day but it worked and was an experience that raised a smile.
SV Werder Bremen are one of the mainstays of top flight German football, third only to Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in historic performance. They have a European trophy to their name and a lovely modern looking stadium, the Weserstadion that holds 42,000, is full every game and sits on the banks of the river.
My seat for this one against Borussia Monchengladbach was great, on the lower tier of the main side next to the Bremen ultras who kept up an impressive display of flags and general noise and bouncing all game.
It was an entertaining game that ended 2-2 and the quality was noticeably higher than the night before but understandable for the top flight.
I tucked into a delicious Bratwurst on the walk back into town and after a close call with some Gladbach ultras who spotted my new Bremen scarf on the train platform, I managed to make it back to Hamburg alive.
On to Rotterdam the next day, a story in pictures so good that it deserves its own blog.
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