That unique aromatic cocktail of beer, grilled meat and cigarette smoke
I was one of 4,221 fans at a football match over the weekend.
If you’re here, you’ll probably know this newsletter is going to focus on football in Germany. But I really don’t want it to be about Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. They’ll be the focus at times, obviously, but so will a bunch of other players, clubs, matches from Germany. Unfortunately, I’ve launched this just a couple of days before the two teams, both under new management, play each other for the first time this season.
There will be a piece about that on Tuesday morning but I didn’t want to kick off with that fixture, which is already incredibly widely covered in the English speaking world, where the rest of the German game garners little attention. That’s why I was keen to kick off with a piece about something else. Start as you mean to go on and all that. It’s also a bit more personal than these will hopefully be going forward but at least it isn’t about Bayern and Dortmund. Yet.
I went to watch Viktoria Berlin v 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the German third tier on Sunday. For those who don’t know, Viktoria Berlin were the product of merger between two Berlin clubs (one actually fairly successful way back in the 1900s) in 2013. And last season saw them surprisingly promoted. Viktoria are in the third tier for the first time in their short history and not allowed to use their own stadium, which doesn’t meet the requirements for the 3. Liga. Kaiserslautern are true fallen giants, in the Bundesliga as recently as 2012 and German champions as recently as 1998, they fell to the third division for the first time in 2018 and have been stuck in mid-table ever since.
Viktoria, pretty predictably, won. And won easily. After scoring the opener, they played some pretty basic stuff on the break and Lautern, looking for an equaliser and later a route back into the game, were wide open.
The game, which ended 4-0, was nothing special. The presence of a number of innocuous things I used to take for granted absolutely was. So here are a few of them.
Laughing at a one-liner perfectly delivered by a stranger two seats away
Like me, had no idea what a few drunken Kaiserslautern fans were trying to chant and made a quip about their slurring. Unlike me he was a native German speaker. The number of small bonds you form in a football stadium over 90 minutes really is lovely.
Queueing for so long for a drink that I missed a goal
There had to be something annoying about the experience and this was it. And it was great to complain about the logistics at a public event again. I was actually in the queue for two goals (one either side of half time) but it was so long that I was far enough back to still see the pitch and catch the goal scored before the break.
Desperate fans finding off-field sources of entertainment
It’s never easy to watch your team lose. But it must be really hard when you grew up watching them play in Europe and challenging for trophies and now they only get your pulse racing with third tier relegation battles. On Sunday, the Kaiserslautern fans’ favourite source of joy came from the stewards in front of them. More specifically, it was every time a steward had to kick a ball back over the running track and towards the pitch. They followed their cheers up by serenading the stewards, even throwing one a Kaiserslautern scarf to wear at full-time … before whistling their players as they approached the away end. Not all heroes wear capes but some do have to dress in fluorescent vests.
That unique aromatic cocktail of beer, grilled meat and cigarette smoke
I didn’t eat anything and I don’t smoke. I can’t stand the smell of the latter. But that unique cocktail of aromas is always present in German football and it was a very welcome assault on the senses after such a long time. Unlike in the UK, you can both drink and smoke in your seat in Germany. The combination of all three, that is the unmistakeable smell of German football. We were just missing a flare.
Bierduschen. Beer showers.
That tradition of forgetting you’re holding a beer and losing it all as you celebrate a goal. We aren’t talking contrived groupthink with expensive Boxpark beers, either. There actually wasn’t a celebratory beer shower on Sunday, but one Lautern fan in front of me did manage to cover himself in his own beer as he angrily tried to throw it at the pitch (a good 10 rows and a running track away) after seeing his side concede for the fourth time.
Glorious.
Being back in a football stadium was brilliant and I’m really glad my return to live sport came in Germany. I’m not sure how much I’ll remember of the game, most of the details are already a bit hazy, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Right, that’s it for now. Back in a bit for something on the DFL-Supercup, previewed through the lens of the career of Nico Schulz.