Thursday 14 February 2013

Arminia Bielefeld v Rot Weiss Erfurt

Ohh Arminia, you're breaking my heart


Arminia Bielefeld 2-0 Rot Weiss Erfurt
Alm Stadium, Bielefeld
3. Bundesliga
Saturday 9th February 2013
Attendance: 7,211
 
This man, Stefan Krämer, is DSC Arminia Bielefeld manager. He looks like:
·         A young Stan Boardman *cap doff to @hartch and @wilgy*
·         A grown up Rod and Todd Flanders.
·         A permed Pete Winkleman *cap doff to @That_Bald_Owl*
·         An adult Chucki from the Rugrats with a wine gums addiction.
·         Comedy footballer Jimmy Bullard
·         The lead singer from Hot Hot Heat
·         A deflated Russell Grant *cap doff to @hartch*
·         The terrifying love child of Roy Chubby Brown and Keith Miller from Eastenders. *cap doff to @applebamos*
 
Stefan Krämer, who spent his childhood ransacking children’s lunchboxes for their crusts, is the man trapped in the face of a child charged with leading Arminia towards the top two divisions, two divisions which Arminia spent most of the 90’s and 00’s yo-yoing between. As a result of the on-off relationship with the Bundesliga they have a huge fancy ground, the 27,300 capacity Bielefeld Alm, and huge debts.
The PA plays I'm Gonna Be(500_Miles) by The Proclaimers with its well known catchy refrain, which translates into German as “I would walk ze funf hundred miles ja....but of course we have ze kilometres in Germany so zis song we find very funny ja, ah you English nah. This should be I wood walk ze 804.67km you know.” Shut it Franz.  
 

 
Matching hats with little football players on, coats and scarves combo. Timeless.
 
 
Travelling around 315km or 195.731926 miles to be here are the fans of Rot Weiss Erfurt. It’s just a shame they can’t decide if they’re hanging around. They’re in early, they spend ages putting all their flags up and then, just before kick off they take all the flags down. Seems like huge waste of time and erfurt to me.....heh, effort...erfurt...ahh, forget it. They then light a couple of flares which doesn’t exactly cause an excited response from the emergency services that some sections of the German press would have you believe as one policeman strolled out to have a look at the crowd while chowing down on a huge pile of mustard hiding a bratwurst whilst he is followed by a couple of firemen carrying a bucket half filled with sand. As the flare goes out so does a large section of the Erfurt following, who leave the block en masse whilst the Bielefeld fans wish them a cheery “Auf Wiedersehen”.   
Flares never go out of fashion.
The Bielefeld fans have a range of chants, most of which seem to be separated around the various bits of the club name. There’s one that goes “Deutsche Sport Club, Deutsche Sport Club” over and over, one that goes “Arminia, Arminia” over and over and one yeah....you got it...the Bielefeld bit on repeat.  Now, if you were to tell me you know where the Arminia bit in the club name comes from you are either Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger  or a liar. *shamelessly copies and pastes Wikipedia* Arminia's name derives from the Cheruscian chieftain Arminius, who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Of course Teutoberg Forest went on to merge with Nottingham Wanderers to become Teutoberg Wanderers and now play in the Roman Empire Division 4 sponsored by Long Straight Roads and Viaducts.[citation needed]
 
At this point the Arminia fans were flagging a bit.
The Bielefeld fans are pretty impressive and are led by the Lokal Krew Ultras, whose slogan sadly isn’t “local ultras for local people”. When not shouting elements of the clubs name in unison they also go in for some relentless flag waving and, tremendously, someone’s knocked up a home made version of an old club logo on a long stick. Not a thing with two poles, nope, just a stick (singular) and some sticky back plastic. More of this please.
Old club logo on a stick. Tick
The fans have just finished their version of the German terrace classic “schiess ein Tor für uns” (score a goal for us) and are breaking into a song that goes “Arminia, wie schön sind ihre Tore” (Arminia, how beautiful your goals are) when Sebastian Hille makes it one nil after 23 minutes.  All the flags get a good waving while an old club logo bobs up and down a bit and occasionally bends from side to side. Tremendous.
Token match shot.
Picture of people with flags. Not shown: old club logo on a stick.
 
At half time the Erfurt fans reappear and set about hanging their flags up. Again. Wasted erf....forget it. They decide to make the most of their short time in the stadium and go through the entire range of scarf waving based chants and generally make a racket for the 45 minutes whilst their team offer little and concede a second from Tom Schütz on 72 minutes.
Well, at least theyre in the stadium. Other way lads!
Well done, well done.
 
So that's that, flags are taken down of fences (Again) , flags are furled (is that a word) and a club logo on a pole is....ehh...held some more. For the Erfurt fans its time to complete the 630km or 391. 463952 mile round trip after watching 45 minutes of football. There’s only one place to make sure they fill up the tanks for the journey and that is Arminia’s very own petrol station. Of course their very own petrol station, the 12th Man Petrol Station. Why doesn’t even club have one. Discounts for members and a fan shop inside apparently. A petrol station and a young Stan Boardman in charge? What a magnificent club Deutsche Sport Club Arminia Bielefeld is.  
I am taking submissions for further lookalikes; please leave your suggestions in the comments box as it gets passed around.

 

Friday 8 February 2013

Leyton Orient v Southend United

A Taste of The Orient.

Leyton Orient 0-1 Southend United
Matchroom Stadium, Brisbane Road, Leyton.
Johnston's Paint Trophy Southern Area Final First Leg
Tuesday 5th February 2013
Attendance:5,359

Groups of almost respectable oiks in suits that suggest day jobs in a suburban branch of a Carphone Warehouse flex their lungs "We hate Orient, we hate Orient. A bunch of Essex wideboys in Stone Island, via TopMan, gear bellow, "we hate Orient, we hate Orient". Everyone hates Orient. These two groups of Southend fans are gathered The Coach and Horses, the only pub amongst the numerous kebab takeaways that form Leyton High Road for the match against, that's right, Leyton Orient in the *cough* prestigious Johnston's Paint Trophy Southern Area Final First Leg a Twitter word count troubling tie (85 characters renaming) that offers the victors a day out at that Wembley against some 'orrible nawthan monkeys. Or something like that.

Leyton Orient F.C. our only hope for survival.

You've made it here. Well done. You're safe from the future now. Grab a Twix.

The pub's packed with fans from both sides. The pub's a relic and only a couple of flat screen TV's give an indication of which decade this is. There's no hint of trouble but there is more than a wiff of stealthy guffed kebab in the air.
 The Orient gnome. Not a big seller.

 
Against modern football events.

Orient's ground is a magical combination of rickety old stand, modern flats and a doctors surgery. The match kicks off with Southend fans packing the old East Stand, various cheapskates watching from their balconies overlooking the ground and Mrs. Majorie Elderflower of Waltham Forest being prescribed some heavy medication for her ongoing problems with gout. Meanwhile in the west stand one loon tries to get the Orient fans going with a brief thwacking of a drum. Well done sir. 

*sniggers and guffaws*

 Orient are the better side, Southend have the louder fans. They continue with "we hate Orient", Orient respond with "stand up if you hate Southend". It goes on like that. For ages. It's more repetitive than a Steve Lamacq radio phone in. Southend sing, "shall we sing a song for you?" As that song is highly likely to be one of furious disdain for Leyton Orient football club the O's fan don't take them up on the offer. Why so much hate people. Can't we all just hug this out?

All fans adhered to Orient's strict "hats only" policy, only some were more stylish that others.

Drummer man takes a break from his thwacking to sell fanzines and he does a roaring trade; roaring as in he'll be heaving a huge pile of these unsold fanzines atop a towering bonfirey inferno as people who read words on that computer internet show no interest in his paper based wares. Which is a shame. Curse you bloggers with your fancy electronic typewriters. First you want to ruin Alan Shearers punditry career, now you're wordpressing a death notice for the ribbon and ink fanzine. Whatever next horse meat in my Bovril? Bloggers. Pah. 

 Token match shot.

To be fair fanzine man did have tough competition for peoples attention. I don't know a football fan who doesn't like cheerleaders.*punches air* Woooh, cheerleaders.

The Orient cheerleaders are called, brilliantly, the Cheery O's which is clearly a marvellous double pun referencing the popular breakfast cereal of a similar name, Weetabix, and Orient's nickname, The Bees. All the Cheery O's have their own member name, like The Ramones and The Outhere Brothers (Dave Outhere & Geoff Outhere). Doing the splits and some pompom related guff tonight for no one's interest are Jo O, Kay O, Eve O, Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O, Picasso and Ricky Otto

Sarfend inn'it mate. Or something similar.

The post cheerleader entertainment is two groups of eleven men kicking a modern twist on the Mitre delta around. This seems to be more popular with the 5,359 in the ground, a seasons best fact fans. Hah, facts. Southend get the only goal of the game through Ryan Leonard, they're on their way to Wembley. I, for one, wish this premonition is correct as the sight of roly poly Southend manager Paul Sturrock leading a team out at Wembley wearing the same waistcoat that he is pictured in in the match programme, presumably from the John Virgo meets the Crankies collection - available now at Matalan, would be too much for my eyes to take, a coach and horses couldn't drag me away from my illegally streamed feed of the game. And with that crowbared link back to the first paragraph another fanzine dies. 

Paul Sturrock. Now so big that even cut and paste had trouble shifting this photo.

All the best to both teams for the return leg and for Mrs. Elderflower in her ongoing battle with her port addiction.