Autumn Eurocrankhop - Day 3

Augsburg II v 1860 Munchen II - Deutschland Regionalliga Bayern

Back to Offenbach Hbf…

…for some ex-DR (East German Railways) haulage in the shape of a class 114 into Nurnberg.

From Nuremberg Hbf it was another Basel bound ICE, to Mannheim for one bound for Munich.

Football grounds visible from the train, the Neckarstadion (previously the Adolf Hitler Kampfbahn).  This would have been a better picture if I hadn't have just had the strange request from Dai, of whether I had brought a stapler with me, as he had brought all 80 pages of his travel insurance with him, which was spreading across his not unsubstantial case.

Into Ulm, a station I'd been to numerous times as it is where you change to do pairs of class 218 'rabbits' down to Oberhausen.  

However, I'd never been out of the station so it was a pleasant surprise to find quite a quaint, part medieval city.  

Ulm was founded on its location on the Danube, and became an important trading point.  Because of this, the French and Italians kept on invading it, so the Germans built massive city walls.  

During WW2, Ulm was where the Nazi political opponents were locked up.  This meant the allies held off bombing it as they needed some succession government should they win.  The Nazis got wise to this so located a load of factories here.  Eventually the RAF had a go at it, flattening a lot of the place in a single night in December 1944.  This meant that one half of the city is of new build.

Ulm can't compete with Snap! in the famous people stakes, only offering Albert Einstein as being from here.  Though it Is home to the national museum of bread.  It did have a statue of pig breeding pretzel addicts, giving each other some skin.

One place that was left alone by the RAF was Ulm minster, which has the tallest church spire in the world.  Like most of them in Germany, it is used to lean scaffolding against.

After dropping our stuff off in the hotel, we had the pick of the city’s historic architecture and museums to visit.  So ten minutes later we arrived at the football ground.

SSV Ulm 1846, were nominally formed in 1846 as a general sports club.  They split away from the sports club in the 1920s and have gone through nine different mergers to get where they are now.  The most critical of these was in 1970, when a merger with SSV Ulm saw a rise through the divisions up to Bundesliga 2.  After wavering a bit in the nineties, they somehow got promoted to the Bundesliga, which lasted a season before crashing down through the divisions.  This also saw them get caught up in the 2009 European betting scandals.  Unlike in Britain where it is mostly multi-millionaire national team managers who get caught up in corruption, on the continent it is mostly lower league players.  Ulm had a number from the Balkans who got caught up in the scandal.  This affected the club and resulted them going bust and reforming in 2011, and just for good measure, repeating the process in 2014.  They currently play in the Regionalliga Bavaria.

The ground is part of a sports complex with a large club house...

....gym...

....open air lido...

...and a number of floodlit reserve pitches.

The actual ground is a large athletics bowl....

.....with a covered stand on one side.

However, this wasn't my venue for today, so it was back on the tram to the station, for a Munich bound train.


Football grounds visible from the railway - SV Freilhaden.

At Dinkelscherben, was this rather obscure graffiti.  Is this really the key issue for the local youth?  What is scooter tuning? Who is suggesting it is a crime? Why daub your protestation in English?  Is this the new 'migrants welcome'?  So many questions, so little inclination to google the answers.

We were off at Augsburg.
  

Augsburg is a historic city, being set up by the Romans, and then grew with its Free Imperial City status in the Roman Empire.  It's proximity to Italy meant it grew as a trading centre, primarily textiles.  Moving on a bit, the strategic location of the city meant it was heavily bombed during WW2, even more so as it was the centre for Messerschmidt production.  It was from Augsburg that Rudolph Hess took off from on his Highland sightseeing trip in the midst of the war.  Latterly, the city has become a centre for the technology industry.  Famous offspring include Bernhardt Langer and Bernt Schuster.

Heading to the centre for a bite to eat, I stumbled across the indoor cheese market.  For once, there was too much choice, and I ended up getting nothing.

Back to the centre and right in the heart of the city is a huge tram interchange, which has various lines branching off a central triangle.

I took the tram out to the nearest stop to the stadium.

I'd often wondered how German football supporters suddenly decide a cut off denim jacket with badges, and a scarf tied around the wrist, is the way forward.  It turns out that the parents get them young.

Over some allotments, the ground was spied.

Augsburg II 1 v 1860 Munchen II 0, Deutschland Regionalliga Bayern.

Augsburg were formed in 1969 when the two city teams, BC Augsburg from the working class north, and Schwaben from the more affluent south, merged.  They had both had relative success in their time, but were now languishing in the third division.  Originally, the merger was not a success, but the return of Helmut Halley to the club in the mid seventies, saw promotion to Bundesliga 2.  However, success was short lived and for the next thirty years, saw financial woes and spells at step three, four and five.  However, the last ten years has seen financial stability, a new stadium and promotion up to the Bundesliga.  

What to say about Turn- und Sportverein München von 1860?  Well, they were part of a gymnastics club that was formed in 1860, but didn't start football until 1899.  They were reasonably successful in the regional leagues that proceeded any national competition.  When the Bundesliga was started in the 1960s, it was 1860 who were elected to it as Munchen's, representative, as they had finished higher than Bayern.  The 1960s was the golden decade for 1860, as they continued in the Bundesliga, winning it once, as well as the German cup, though a cup winners cup final defeat to West Ham must have brought some shame.  However, the seventies and eighties saw decline, as they dropped to the third tier, with a couple of seasons at the top.  Things picked up in the 1990s with a ten year stint in the Bundesliga, including a champions league appearance.  However, since 2004, the club has been back in the second division, and plagued by financial issues.  A lot of these have been centred on the much hared move to the Allianz arena.  They have had to sell their share of it to Bayern, but the rent is crippling to the extent that they have had to borrow money off their now land lords to pay it, this being in Bayern's interest as otherwise 1860 would go bust and have no obligation for the remaining 25 million euro rental obligation.  So not happy times at present.

The Rosenaustadion was opened in 1951, resourcefully being built using debris from wartime bombing to create an earthwork bowl.  Augsburg played here until 2004 when they moved to the Impuls Arena, the stadium now being used for athletics and second team games.

The main feature is the covered stand down one side, which is prettier from the outside......

......than within.

The rest of the ground is concrete terracing, with a couple of blocks of open seating on the far side.

The existence of the running track meant the dugouts were located somewhere back near the Swiss border, so there was the presence of some chairs pitchside.  Very Clough and Taylor Cologne 79.

For a reserve team game, be it at Regionalliga level, there were a fair few home supporters.

With 1860 also bringing a fair few.

There is a rivalry between the two teams, so there was quite a large police presence.  The crowd consisting solely of middle aged men and families, meant the police spent the whole time just watching the game.

The stadium has a record attendance of 75,000, though anyone watching from behind the goal has to watch through a hammer cage....

....or a pole vaulting bar.

Neither team looked much like scoring.

With trains only every hour back to Ulm, I therefore decided to head off ten minutes before the end.  Predictably, as soon as I reached the exit, I heard a cheer and the home side had scored the only goal of the game.

I walked back into town, for the least enticing station entrance....

....and a Weisbaden bound ICE service.

Back in Ulm, and a chance to see the minster at night....

...and also the Danube.

Things that make you say Ulm Times

Autumn Eurocrankhop - Day 2

Kickers Offenbach v TSV Steinbach, Deutschland Regionalliga Südwest.

Back to the very picturesque Charleroi Sud at twilight.

Inside, the station is less picturesque, being located under a motorway flyover.  Needless to say, our train rolled in 15 minutes late, with no explanation why.

Getting across to Frankfurt, the fastest route was via Luxembourg but I'd chosen to go via Liege and Köln as Dai loves to follow a river on the train, and this route took us by the Meuse and the Rhein.  Needless to say, two minutes after departure, Dai was fast asleep.

We lost further time along the route, meaning a +24 at Liege became a -6, but predictably, the onward train was late so we made it onto Waenkraft.

This took us for the pile of crap that SNCB put on for the short journey over the border to Aachen. 

They have built a high speed line from Liege with Thalys and ICE services.  To make sure everyone travels on these expensive services, the Oostende-Koln IC services have been cut back to Eupen, and the worst trains possible put on for the two hourly connection over the border.  Here the two car SNCB festers at Aachen, next to German, eight carriage, double decker stock, that took us on to Koln.

At Koln, the train down the Rhein Valley was an undetermined amount of time late, so we hopped on a Basel bound ICE direct to Frankfurt.  Dai was awake by now and I'd persuaded him, when he was buying 8 cans of Tuborg at the station, to instead go for some Kolsch.  Here he tucks into his second can as we depart the station, over the Rhein.

In order to get to Offenbach it was a change at Frankfurt Flughafen.  The Leipzig bound ICE was thankfully a cross platform change as the station is split by the airport so some platforms are half a mile away.

Football grounds visible from the railway, the Commerzbank Arena.

After another change at Frankfurt Sud, with some heritage class 111 haulage...

....we were into Offenbach.

As far as I can work out, Offenbach is the shit part of Frankfurt.  It's modern history is based on the leather industry and also typesetting.  The allies bombed the shit out of it during the war, and whilst it has attracted the far eastern car manufacturers (being the European headquarters for Honda, Kia and Hyundai), the leather industry has disappeared, full leather coats for some reason not being as popular as they were in the 1930s.  Despite all that research, the only thing you will remember is when I tell you, as serious as cancer, that Snap! were from Offenbach.

The afternoons entertainment was none other than the German National Ledermuseum. 

We learned about 18th century Iranian shoes...

....the story of 1990s pointless novelty Puma disks.....

....how most cricket pads were made in Offenbach.....

....and the development of the 12 black pentagon/26 white hexagon football.

However, the evolution of the leather military uniform had the 1930s exhibit removed, due to 'pressure from social media'.

Unfortunately, there was no S&M section, so here is the falconry glove exhibit.

Our extended stay at the leather museum, meant disappointingly, we didn't have time for the European Calligraphy Museum.  The Leather museum is so important, it even has its own station, which we used to head into Frankfurt.

Here we visited a required blockhouse, cleared with the obligatory 1.1lb T-bone.

It was then back on the S-Bahn to Bieberbeliever, a village just outside Offenbach, and the nearest station to the ground.

A short walk through an estate, tools us to the woodland where the Spandau Ballet Stadium is located.

Kickers Offenbach 1 v TSV Steinbach 1, Regionalliga Südwest.

Kickers Offenbach were formed in 1901 with the merger of local teams Melitia, Teutonia, Viktoria, Germania and Neptun, a bit like Mole Valley Predators.  They played in regional leagues until reaching the Bundesliga  in 1968, and winning the German cup in 1970.  However, things started to go downhill from then on, as they were the ones who did the initial grassing, when it was found that everyone involved in German football in the 1970s was on the take.  They were relegated, and if things couldn't get any worse, they introduced Rudi Völler to the football world.  They have had a couple of spells back in the Bundesliga, the last in 1984, but since then, have skipped around Bundesliga 2, ligament 3, and the Regionalliga, currently in the South West division of the latter.

If Offenbach are currently on their arses, TSV Steinbach are living the dream.  In 2009 they were at step 10 in the Kreislega B.  Since then they have risen up through the Oberliga, Gruppenliga, Verbandsliga, and Hessenlig to step 4 in the Regionalliga.  Steinbach is located just on the Hesse border, east of Koln/north of Frankfurt.

Offenbach have played on this site since 1926.  Originally it was known as the Bieberer Berg stadion after the suburb it is located in.  However, it was heavily rebuilt in 2012 and was re-christened the Sparda Bank Hessen Stadion. 

On Imp's advice, we had chosen the side terrace.  It is split into three, we located ourselves in the more sedate end.

Behind one goal was a huge seated stand, with huge concrete pillars aka Sheffield United and Brentford.  For some reason, despite it being almost empty, some people chose to sit behind these pillars?

The other end housed the away supporters, with a respectable amount for such a small team for a mid-week fixture some distance from home.  A hardy four had chosen to stand.

The pre-match music was an odd assortment.  We arrived 30 minutes before kick off and were able to enjoy:-

• Cliff Richard - Congratulations,
• A speed garage version of Fast Car
• The most appaling version of Angels ever, sung by the announcer.
• The New Order song that is in Pretty in Pink.
• A club song in German that basically went 'OFC' over and over again.
• You'll never walk alone, in English.
• Then the teams came out to Metallica, Enter Sandman

The away side took the lead half way through the first half.

What then followed was a reassuring display of the worldwide brotherhood of football supporters.  Since Barcelona had their success with tippy-tippy-twatty football under Guardiola, other teams have been trying to replicate it.  This has now sunk down to the low level echelons of football, where instead of intricate passing, rapidly transferring it up the field, instead there are just cumbersome defenders, kicking it to each other sideways.  Any sign of pressure from an opponent and the ball goes backwards, which means it eventually goes back to the keeper, who slices it into touch.

I am increasingly seeing this in the games I go to, but fortunately, this dullness is not acceptable to the supporters, who after about ten minutes of having 90% possession but not leaving their own half, demand it is hoofed forward.

Offenbach were real exponents of this wankness, and after Steinbach scored, the crowd went nuts at them, and demanded in no uncertain terms, to go forward.  My faith in humanity restored.

The team responded, and with the crowd now behind them, a quick ball down the wing, and an early cross, saw a back post header go in for the equaliser.

As followers of @keepers_towels will know, both teams had them.

I was stood next to a bloke who spent the whole game either smoking or spitting.  By the end of the game, he had amassed a veritable puddle of phlegm.

It was reassuring to see the first cut off denim jacket of the trip.

Going into the game, Steinbach were 6th and Offenbach 3rd from bottom.  But in the second half, it was all the home team, but they couldn't convert a number of chances and it finished 1-1, though a very good game for the four thousand odd crowd.

We headed off for the 50 minute walk back into Offenbach.

Leder Learning Times