Rot Weiss Essen v Bayer Leverkusen II

Hazzard's ahead.

Rot Weiss Essen 2-2 Bayer Leverkusen II

Regionalliga West

Saturday 10th August 2013

Stadion Essen

Attendance: 7,300

Previously on AiT. Rot Weiss Essen v Union Berlin 2012.

Boxes holding 8 (eight) pints of the local beer, Stauder, are sloshed up the terraces. Stauder flows from the backpacks of superhuman men into supped dry pint glasses and men of legal boozing age wear scarves emblazoned with the two main loves in their lives, Stauder and Rot Weiss Essen. 

(Idea for AiT Webshop. Get Old Mother Tinpot to knit one, pearl one woolen scarves emblazoned with the words AiT and Watneys Brown Ale. Together for Ever.)

 

The most popular man in the stadium. 

This is the first time the west stand at Rot Weiss Essen has been open at a competitive match. The old ground is now a pile of rubble next to the new one, one sad lonely floodlight remains. But, this is progress and what progress! Dyson Airblades in the gents. Who doesn't love the supercharged vertical hand drying swoosh of the Dyson Airblade? I love them so much that when I see them I actually wash my hands properly, just so I can dip them into Dyson's airy crevice. Usually its a cursory wave under the taps and then a rub of the thighs and/or anus. If only more football grounds has Dyson Airblades I wouldn't need to fondle my anus so regularly. What progress! For obvious reasons there are no pictures from the Gents. Yes, my battery was flat. (Ba doom tish)

The gents also have.....yeah....I know, two paragraphs on the gents toilets is a new low.....little clay squares with fans hand prints on the wall. How quaint. How very odd. Progress.

They’re a fashionable bunch at RWE. (Not quite MSV Duisburg fashionable though) . In addition to the half and half beer scarves, there’s RWE Kutte jackets, home-made RWE berets, RWE jeans, Half RWE/Werder Bremen scarves, Half RWE/Rapid Vienna scarves and people with their own names written on their shirts. Adult people. With their own names. On a shirt. Why would you do that? Progress probably. We’ll all be doing it soon. Even the RWE team kit has “Essen” written on the front. 

Oh la la, sacre bleu, mange tout mange tout. *shrugs shoulders* How very French.

 

Double denim, Kutte jacket, beer in back pocket. How very German.

How very odd.

The RWE Ultras settled into their new surroundings, waved some flags, fired off some streamers, shouted “Tod und Hass dem S04” to their Gelsenkirchen based neighbours. Their capo jumped into his new fenced off home, threw down some scatter cushions, put some tee lights around and hung a print of the Manhattan skyline on the fence. It’s standard moving into a new home procedure and, also, not strictly true. The capo guy does however have a tattoo of Darth Vader on his neck which is.....um...nice and an actual fact.

 

Obligatory photo of man with megaphone. 

In the ultras former home, on the south stand, stands one man of pensionable age. A man who shuns the noise and hubbub/brouhaha of the standing terrace to make his own racket. He's the last man standing in an all seated area, a lone drummer co-ordinating the voices in his head and the Capo of his own internal chants. He is a hero.

I'm horny, horny, horny, horny.

Not only does he drum away for his own enjoyment he's also spent hours in a dank shed to knock up contraption that contains various different air horns that produce different sound effects. It's like he's done this for my own particular enjoyment. This is progress I salute. Megaphone sir? Shove it. I've got a plank of wood here that contains a horn that makes the noise of the horn on General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard. A doff of the AiT/Hofmeister limited edition cap to your sir. Available from the web-shop now.

Library photo: Arty.

 

The match (paragraph nine – a new record) sees RWE continue with the last 20 years of failing to live up to expectations. 2-0 down in the 46^th minute of the first home game of the season, numerous misplaced places, a flat atmosphere and a team so low on confidence that even back to back honks of an airhorn struggle to inspire them.

70 mins in and Darth Capo calls for his megaphone, he steps up to the challenge laid down by The Incredible Honk in the south stand. It's soon 2-1. Shortly after Konstantin Sawin is put through on goal, Leverkusen's keeper rushes to the edge of the penalty area to intercept him, we all know what's going to happen, the keeper dives feet first and Sawin is flipped up into the air. Penalty! Red card! “Auf Wiedersehen, Auf Wiedersehen” A celebratory toot of General Lee's horn! The penalty is saved. 

The game ends 2-2. RWE have chances but it's not in their nature to win the game. It'll no doubt be another season of underachievement on the pitch but as long as there's Stauder, air horns , thoroughly dried hands and an RWE to support these fans will keep coming back.

Wuppertal SV v FC Kray

There's no place like home

(Gotta keep on and be strong)

 

 



Wuppertal SV 2-0 FC Kray

Stadion am Zoo, Wuppertal

Oberliga Niederrhein

Sunday 4th August 2013

Attendance: 3,023

 

Previously on Adventures In Tinpot: Wuppertal Borussia v FC Kray.

The basic idea of a football league is that each team plays each other twice during a season. Once at their home ground and once at the other team's ground. It seemed to work well.

It doesn't seem to work for Wuppertal SV.

Since last season they've been relegated, entered insolvency proceedings, chopped the word "Borussia" off the club name and the authorities have decided their fans can’t be trusted to visit any town that doesn’t have a Monorail. (1)

 

The latest in the Wuppertal Fashion Disasters Collection.

Their first two away games of the season, at Germania Ratingen 04/19 and the AiTinpot baiting SV Hönnepel-Niedermörmter were postponed as the Police and the slightly sinister sounding Zentralen Informationsstelle Sporteinsätze (Central Information Agency for Sport) decided that Wuppertal has over 300 hooligans and that it was too risky for them to play away games at such tinpot grounds.

 

Of course the Wupper Smurfs.

750 season tickets had been sold prior to the game, which represented a first opportunity to show that the town is fully behind Wuppertal SV. I'd have been all over it if my suggestion to re-brand as the Wuppertal Monorailers had been taken on. Let it go Kenny, let it go. Turns out the locals are behind the club and had, via pathetically inferior transport methods (car, foot etc), turned up at the ground in their kick off delaying droves.

 

Token match shot.

A delayed kick off which nearly asphyxiated a 1,000 or so Wuppertal fans. Shortly before the scheduled kick off a huge terrace covering flag was unrolled. 20 minutes later, 32 degree, 1,000 beer fuelled blokes under a bit of plastic....it can’t have been pleasant underneath there. The flag then opened out to show past players of Wuppertal including.....whose names I needn’t mention as I’m sure we can all mention at least 17 past greats. Eh?

 

"Has someone trumped under here?"

 

The Wuppertal greats there. I decided not to zoom in, we know them all by name already.

 

Wuppertal have got a big, big problem with their supporters though. They sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" before kick off. Jeez. Have you heard a large group of Germans singing the song? Awful. Nasal. Elongated vowels. “Valk on, valk on” What? It’s a W not a V. Give it up lads. I was enraged enough to want to become the 301^st violent Wuppertal fan and knock a few of them out thanks to a swift bunch of fünfs to the chops.

 

Get close to the action! Live the game! Eat a burger! Advertising bullshit!

 

Wuppertal ultras (Idea for re-brand as Wuppertultras? Nah, scrap that) were pretty impressive. All big flags and baggy hats. Who doesn't like a baggy hat. I do. 90’s Britpop baggy hats for all I say. One ultra got to wear a special hat with a video camera taped to his noggin. 90’s Britpop baggy hats with video cameras taped to them for all I, rather oddly, say.

Wuppertal led one nil at half time and half time means, of course, cheesy birthday greetings to Wuppertal supporters sound tracked by Stevie Wonder’s version of the song. Seizing the moment Rainer from Wuppertal also took the opportunity to wish his wife a happy wedding anniversary, always the romantic that Rainer. Flowers? No. Chocolates? Not this year luv. Message on a partly defunct pixelated scoreboard at a 5th division German football match? You cad Rainer, you sly dog. You know how to treat the fillies.

 

 

 

Ultras photo. Pretty standards arms in the air shot, followed by some big flag waving. Pretty much a given around here these days.

 

Both team made subs at half time. In my head the away teams was announced like this. “Half time substitution for FC Kray. Leaving the field Felix Stahmer to be replaced by Julian Bumbullies. That’s Julian Bumbullies. Spelt B.U.M bullies. *descends into guffaws with mic still open*
 

Hi, my name’s Kenny Legg, I’m 31 years old and I admit that I find that surname funny. Send help.

 

 

Emotional fan shot! Goal! Striker!
 

Shed Seven wannabies Wuppertal Ultras keep up the fun in the second half. A banner was unfurled saying “Zentrale Informations Spinners (Central Information Weirdos). Ouch. Take that the man. In your face. POW! This is followed up with a chant of “Jetzt woll'n wir auswärts spielen” (”and now we want to play an away game”) more in hope than anticipation. Further encouragement is offered to the Wuppertal players by an old boy with a trumpet and a tambourine, both of which he plays fuelled only by a diet of chocolate milk like some sort of school music room superhero.

 

Proof I don't make this up.

 

A man who loves to blow his own trumpet.
 

The match ends, 2-0 to Wuppertal. A good start to the season for the team at the start of a long hard season ahead with many challenges on and off the field. A victory represents three points and it’s important not to get carried away is what the club should be saying. Meanwhile in the PA box the man in charge of the Wuppertal gramophone thinks nuts to that, roots through the back of his LP collection whacks on a copy of Tina Turner’s “Simply The Best” and cranks it all the way up to elf whilst getting massively overexcited. Good on him!

 

(1)       A monorail which wasn’t running today. I wouldn’t even be at this game if I knew I had to board a lousy stinking rail replacement bus service. Are there four more terrifying words in the English language than “rail replacement bus service”? Probably. But that’s irrelevant. The Wuppertal Monorail is a thing of suspended rusty beauty, what better way to arrive at a football ground than after being dangled over a river? Sod off bus.