football rambles

We didn't have much time for tourism in Dortmund and it seems that the football dominates the city. We went past the U Building a few times, which rates as a place of interest, but due to its proximity to the stadium it didn't really register with us. Above is another monument of interest, St. Reinold's Church. Another landmark is the Florianturm, a telecommunications tower not dissimilar to several others in Germany. It's located between the hotel where we stayed and the stadium. It is named after the patron saint of gardeners and was built for a horticultural show in 1959. Sean was most impressed by the U-Bahn though and made this video of a train at Margrafenstrasse station, which was the station round the corner from our hotel. But as the mural in departures at Dortmund airport shows, it's all about the football.

And finally the reason why we were in Dortmund... for the match between BVB and Hannover. Unfortunately, things didn't go according to plan. Dortmund dominated the game for the first hour, but the Hannover team stood resolute and looked like they would be happy to get a 0-0 draw. Aubameyang and Ramos both had several chances for the home team, but appeared wasteful in front of goal, on another day they would have been 3-0 up at half time. Reus looked dangerous going forward and hit the top of the net with a goal that looked like it was going in. Mkhitaryan and Gundogan made some good progress in midfield, but still didn't look completely match fit. But as half time approached it looked more like when Dortmund were going to score rather than when. Hannover seemed to still be determined to sit back and let Reus attack them after the break, on the odd occasion when they did break Subotic cleared the danger and Hannover didn't even get a shot in. Then the visi...

The Sud Tribune a few minutes before the game kicked off.

More of the Sud Tribune before kick off against Hannover on Saturday.

Another video of Borussia Dortmund v Hannover of the Sud Tribune leading up to kick off.

This was a long time before kick off, but the Sud Tribune were already in good voice

The Sud Tribune at Westfalen is famed for the noise and support that it gives the BVB team. They started up early and carried on until well after the match had finished despite the poor result. At the end the team looked suitably disappointed when they thanked the fans. Nobody apart from the Hannover fans probably expected 96 to win. Hopefully better times for the Sud Tribune are just around the corner.

We were among the first few people in the stadium and after we claimed our drink and hot dog we took up our seats. The Sudtribune fills up and starts creating an atmosphere a long time before kick off, which more or less tells you how early we were there!

As I said, we got to the stadium really early, we had a bit of a walk round and went to the beer garden even though it was quite cold and damp. Sean also bought a giant flag in the shop, which I am surprised got through customs on the way back. I was a bit surprised by the Polizia Merda sign so predominately displayed outside the stadium though. There was a good atmosphere outside with the fans of both clubs drinking together in the beer garden and a surprising number of away fans buying stuff in the club shop.

We went out really early to the stadium on Saturday, so on the way we checked out the Eintracht Dortmund stadium where kids train and play. The facilities showed why England is lagging behind and Germany win world cups. It looks like the type of model we should be trying to implement here.

We just went to the pub, back to the bratwurst place and bought some German Matchattax!

Next to Westfalen Stadion is Stadion Rote Erde. It's a decent size in itself with a capacity of 25,000, although it is dwarfed by the giant Westfalen Stadion being placed next to it. It was opened in 1924, but was mainly used for athletics. The first football match was in 1926 when Dortmund lost to local rivals Schalke 4-1. Dortmund made it their permanent home in 1937, as their own ground was needed by the Nazis. They remained there until 1971 when Westfalen Stadion was inaugurated. Nowadays it is used by Dortmund's second team who are in the third division. They drew with Hansa Rostock, who used to be afamous name themselves in the past on Sunday, but we were at the airport by then. I took these photos when we were looking around the ground after our museum trip on Friday.

After the museum we went to the club shop and Sean got one of the Champions League shirts, which they wore on Saturday. The reason they wore this one was that Klopp was starting to think that the home league shirt was cursed after three losses in a row. They were probably wrong though as they unfortunately lost again.

After getting on the U-Bahn we headed for the museum. It was really interesting to see all the old trophies and souvenirs from from Dortmund's history. The highlight was the Super Cup that is also kept in the museum, it's just a pity that they haven't got more trophies at the moment! The video sections and the cinema are probably a highlight to, as they bring the objects on display to life. There are even a couple of fussball tables for you to have a go on after looking around.

We got to Dortmund early and planned to head out straight for the museum, but we were that early out tickets hadn't arrived at the hotel. To pass the time we went for a Bratwurst and found the U-Bahn station, which was conveniently situated just around the corner and the stadium was only three stops away. Luckily when we got back our package was there with some soft drinks, scarves, tickets and programme for the match.

We're just back from a weekend in Dortmund where we went to see Borussia Dortmund play Hannover in the Bundesliga. Unfortunately, things didn't really go to plan with BVB going down 1-0 at home. It was a great weekend though on the Adrenalin trip where apart from the experience of going to the Westfalenstadion we also went to the museum and had the craic in general, with free food and drink, scarves and 20 Euros off in the club shop it was actually pretty good value. The picture above shows Sean early at Cambridge station on our way to Stansted.

Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896 to give them their full name will be providing the opposition when we go to Dortmund next week. Dortmund have got off to a disappointing start in the Bundesliga and despite a bright start Hannover's form has also taken a dip for the worse. Their last 3 games have ended in defeat against Stuttgart, Bayern and Moenchengladbach. But as Sepp Herberger would have said 'Der Ball ist rund', so it's going to be tough to predict what will happen next week. The Club started off in 1896 as a rugby club before changing over to football a couple of years later. They would have perhaps been more succesful in their early years if it wasn't for Eintracht Braunschweig, who regularly beat them. Their first major victory came when they were crowned champions in 1938 after causing a massive upset and beating the all conquering Shalke team in the final. The first game finished 3-3. but Hannover prevailed in the replay winning 4-3. The next major...

After the trauma of following the first team, who finally got a win yesterday when they beat Clacton 4-2 away, i thought I'd give the reserves a go. It was a first round of the William Coad Intermediate Cup and the visitors were Outwell Swifts. Ely had most of the pressure in both halves, but the game was ultimately decided by an own goal from the Ely left back in the opening minutes of the second half. Ely tried their best to get an equaliser, and the goalkeeper also went up in stoppage time, but it wasn't to be despite a good effort. Now only one week to go to the big one in Dortmund!

Ely played the only team with a worse record than them on yesterday, when they took on Diss Town. Most people were looking forward to 'the battle of the losers'. as it was seen as the chance where Ely might finally get at least a point on the board. The first half was characterised by 2 teams making errors. Diss probably had the better chances, probably because they kept it simple. Somebody ought to tell the Ely players that when you aren't good enough for the Eastern Counties, you shouldn't really be trying to play like Messi. Surprisingly Ely took the lead in the second half when Luke Fretwell scored a bullet header, but it wasn't to last. A defender whose name it's probably better not to mention upended a Diss player in the box in one of the clumsiest challenges ever seen and it was 1-1, as Diss made sure from the spot. There was still time for the circus defenders to mess it up completely and truly embarrass themselves with yet more schoolgirl defending....

Football in late 19th Century Germany was dominated by the rich teams from the South of Germany and those based in Berlin, Borussia Dortmund or Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund to give them their full name were of a different breed. Originally German teams had been founded by rich middle class fans of the sport and were part of bigger sports clubs. The letter 'T' for example in many teams stands for the German gymnastics term 'Turnen'. Borussia though were part of the industrial Rhine's working class fascination at the turn of the century, as workers flocked to the mines in the area. If we look at Borussia's full name Ballspielverein (which gives us the BV on the badge) stands for Ball sports club. The name Borussia is the neo-Latin name for Prussia. Many of the clubs in Germany have pretentious names like this, due to the rich educated men who formed them, in Dortmund's case though it was because the founders met in a pub selling Borussia bee...

I have had a couple of quiet weekends since last posting here. After Ely's abject defeat at home to Whitton United, they've continued their poor run of form away from home losing to Kirkley and Pakefield 3-0 and Felixstowe and Walton 6-0 in the league. Over the last two weekends I have had to be content with watching football on the TV. The first of those weeks Sean's team had a late kick off, which meant we couldn't really go anywhere and the trains and weather fought against us the week which followed. I was also saving some money, as later this month we have an exciting trip to Borussia Dortmund v Hannover to look forward to and. Next up it's back to the Unwin though as Ely City take on fellow strugglers Diss Town on Saturday in the battle of 'the almost practically already relegated'.