Hansa Rockstock.
VfL Osnabrück 1-2 Hansa Rostock
3. Bundesliga
Saturday 17th August 2013
Stadion an der Bremer Brücke, Osnabrück
Attendance: 10,056
The Stadion an der Bremer Brücke is squeezed into a residential area, where it’s been for 82 (eighty two) years. The turnstiles are non fat person compliant, built when people were less well built, and topped by barbed wire. The home terrace is fire safety certificate deifyingly narrow, the roof leaks, the terraces are packed, the terraces are covered in spilt beer and dropped Bratwurst. It smells of piss.
Shortly before this photo was taken those two old women high fived each other and then walked their separate ways.
Jeez, it's a bit tight. *puts down bratwurst, loses appetite*
The fans sung the
obligatory awful song praising the town. They all have one, German
fans love it. “Osnabrück, you cool pig, you have everything I
need, and a swimming pool too.” A swimming pool.....Wooo....Knock
it off Osnabrück hey, you'll make the rest of us feel insignificant
about where we live.
The fans sing “You’ll
Never Walk Alone”. They all do, Germans love it. W’s pronounced
like v’s and scarves aloft or, if you are your friend have both
embarrassingly forgot your purple Osnabrück scarf, simply hold up a
black hoody. No one will notice. No one will notice except the
roving, non forgiving eye of AiT that is. Fools.
Have a word with yourselves hey lads.
The Osna fans made some
noise, co-ordinated by a drum about as audible as my first drum kit,
(upturned frying pan on the kitchen floor circa 1984. Still get it
out every now and then. Terrible reverb), and a couple of
enthusiastic fellas on upturned beer crates.
Hands away.
Down the Hansa end it
was all kicking off, coordinated by a shouty man with a megaphone
dangling on a fence, it looked tremendous. I'm a bastard for a shouty
man with a megaphone. Every single fan follows the orders. Scarves
up, scarves left, scarves right, twirl scarves, shout loud, sit down,
separate into two groups and then run at each other like a moshpit.
Yep, run at each other and shove each other about. Brilliant.
FIGHT!!
Half time, (Osnabrück
were winning one nil seeing you ask) sees a fat TV producer waddle
over the touchline, risking long term spinal deforming injury, and
dumping a desk for his slick TV presenting colleague to waffle on
behind. The goalmouths were blocked up with adverts. The centre
circle covered in a huge advert. Large areas of the pesky grass area
were covered in giant advertising boards, hauled out by children
whose spines are likely still to be forming and quite frankly
shouldn’t be dragging, what I estimate, was quite a heavy piece of
xxx. As such I will now be boycotting Bauxpert Seelmeyer. Someone has to think of the
children.
Lights, camera, tinpot.
I think I just heard my spine crumble.
There was then “half
time entertainment” which falls thudding into the category marked
“so shit it’s begrudgingly good”. Two lumbering, old enough to
know better, adults were made to run across the pitch carrying an
inflatable keg (one thumb up for the word keg, one thumb down for
preceding word “inflatable”), down a pint of beer (double thumbs
up) and then back across the pitch. The winner then received 30
(thirty) litres of the local beer (double thumbs up).
Token match shot. Only shot not of Hansa fans apparently.
It was then down to the
goalmouth where the “fun” continued. An oversized coffee cup
(possibly an inflatable, possibly filled with some sort of foam –
didn’t investigate) representing the main sponsors of Osnabrück,
Coffee Perfect, was placed on the cross bar. Uncoordinated locals,
lacking in any type of football skills, were then invited to try and
kick the coffee cup off the bar using only a football in a game
called, “Kick the Latte off the cross bar”. Catchy. But wait. In
a hilarious German play on words it’s called “Schiess
die Latte von der Latte.” I’ll explain. The German for
la-di-da frothy coffee Latte is Latte. The German for crossbar is
Latte. The coffee cup, the cross bar both called Latte. What larks.
My sides. Germany. Ouch.
As this chaos ensues an
old man calmly forks divots back into the turf.
Further AiT investigations showed that
there was actually another drum in the Osnabrück end. A drum which
resembled my second drum kit (upturned wok, still duet with Old
Father Tinpot on the cheese grater and wooden spoon every now and
then) and made a noise louder than the time we got Mother Tinpot's
Soup Cauldron out for a tub-thumping. The clang of the Osnabrueck
drum was amplified under the narrow terrace, trapped in the gangway
until the soundwaves crashed into my latest beverage sending it
sloshing all down my jeans. Gah. Wouldn't happen in a nice, acoustic
damping, modern stadium.
The Hansa fans don't stop. There team
get on top and get a late winner which sees flares and smoke bombs
set off which was roundly condemned by everyone here at AiT. (chinny
reckon)
Down (up!) with this sort of thing.
There seems to be something special
about the support from east Germany, they sing louder and louder,
live each moment and have real passion for their club. (Although this
fella, of course called Knut, should be looking for a refund from
his tattooist) The Dynamo Dresden fans are still number one on
the imaginary chart of Best Fans Seen By AiT. Clearly I'm not the
man to draw some intelligent conclusions on the relationships between
football fans and there relative socio-economic situation, after all
I've just admitted to nightly kitchen based drum set solos but there
might just be something in my half baked theory.
Die Mauer muss weg.
