Bundesliga review

[Ruhr]

They ha d played a top team: BATE Borrysov and lost

 

[Ruhr]

As the Bundesliga is kind of boring so far, the more interesting stuff is happening outside the grounds.

A commission with experts of the Bundesliga and the Football Association DFB made a large list of proposals for more stadium security and tougher control of fans. It followed demands from the german Minister of the Interior to take action against fan violence, otherwise politics will intervene.

The club management of Union Berlin was the first to reject the proposals. In a 9 pages long statement the club accused the Bundesliga officials of a blind admiration of the Taylor report and the economical success of the Premier League and not regarding the social responsibility football clubs have for mass and youth culture in germany.

Other clubs like Fortuna Düsseldorf, FC Augsburg and Hertha BSC also rejected the proposals, mainly because they are afraid of a major break up between fans and clubs, if fan representatives and their interests are not involved in the discussion. (St Pauli voted also against it, which was kind of funny, because their security chief was one of the six club members in the commission.)

Bundesliga is now desperately seeking a compromise which could be presented to the politicians.

In another story Borussia Dortmund banned 8 neonazis from watching their games after some incidents with right extremist banners during their matches. The club announced further action against the far right. A police report had recently mentioned the names of 16 clubs, where right extremists groups are trying to infiltrate Ultras or openly attack them to establish their own groups. The Ultras of Alemannia Aachen had been attacked several times by right wing Alemannia hooligans in the last months.

 

[Dzeko's Right Boot]

I see you mentioned Alemannia Aachen at the end, they're a very interesting club at the moment for the reasons mentioned. Here's an article I read a while back, makes me kind of glad that in England, football and politics are (almost) completely and utterly isolated from each other. We don't have any clubs representing policies, or political views which seems cliquey to say the least.

I think it's fair to say that in Germany football teams represent more than football.

Alemannia Aachen – a fan scene in crisis
There are some pretty awful things in life – poverty, corruption, Margaret Thatcher, Stoke City – but until these things have some kind of direct, personal effect on you, it’s sometimes hard to perceive their true magnitude. It’s possible to structure your life so that you never have to get to grips with issues that make humans real shits. Of course, others choose to take a stand and hope to achieve some kind of change to whatever circumstance is particularly shitty. The easy option though is to continue living your life in ignorance of these things but in accordance with your own moral standards, safe in the knowledge that at least you have been true to yourself and your beliefs.

The problem is, when you are confronted with something that doesn’t fit with your ideals and provides clear proof that some people are in fact proper shits, it hits you all the more harder. I guess this happened to me in a way a couple of weeks ago. While browsing Ian Stenhouse’s excellent photo galleries for No Dice Magazine, I stumbled across an album from a match between Tennis Borussia Berlin and TuS Makkabi in the Berliner Liga. In one picture, TeBe fans are holding up a Spruchband which reads “Komplett BescheUrt – Nazis raus aus dem Tivoli” (Totally idiotic – Nazis out of the Tivoli) referring to the worrying developments in the Aachen fan scene over the past year.

[bigimg]https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/582784_430033223705812_737644379_n.jpg[/bigimg]
TeBe fans show solidarity with Aachen Ultras

The second comment simply reads “Spastis”, the German equivalent of using spastic as a swear word. Then comes a series of questionable comments with clear right-wing tones – “Do you have any flags that have anything to do with football?”, “What a bunch of wankers” along with various statements along the lines of “football is football, politics is politics” (as in, they have nothing to do with each other).

As I mentioned, the Aachen active fan scene has been anything but harmonious over the past 2 years or so. In 2010, a group of fans split away from the main ultra group known as Aachen Ultras (ACU), calling themselves the Karlsbande Ultras (KBU). They cited “differences of opinion [...] in many aspects of ultra culture, from the style of the support through to the ultra mentality as a whole [...]” as the reason for the move. As a result, there were now two sets of active fans trying to create an atmosphere in the stadium – something that wasn’t particularly beneficial to either set of ultras or the team. At the start of the 2011/12 season, the Aachen Ultras decided to move from their traditional position behind the goal to block S6 in the corner of the stand behind the goal. KBU set up shop at the top of block S5. Although not explicitly mentioned, the fact that the ACU have an anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-discriminatory stance doesn’t make it that difficult to guess that the “differences in opinion” were. Especially after the incidents over the next few months…

During Alemannia Aachen’s home match in the 2. Bundesliga against FC Erzgebirge Aue in December 2011, members of the Alemannia Supporters fan group entered ACU’s block, firstly to try and steal their banners and then to exercise violence. A handful of group members and one steward were injured. This was accompanied by shouts of “Kick the shit out of them”, “S6 homos” and “Fuck off you Jewish pricks, you don’t belong here” (“Jewish” or “Jew” is used as a pejorative noun by neo-Nazis and bears no relation to them thinking that the target of the insult is of Jewish faith or not) from Karlsbande Ultras members who had come to the plexiglass partition between blocks S5 and S6 and had attempted to scale it. According to the ACU, insults such as these from the Karlsbande and from other Aachen fans were nothing out of the ordinary.

[bigimg]http://www.mayener-alemannen.de/archiv/saison1112/braunschweig_12_11/03.jpg[/bigimg]
Aachen Ultras and Karlsbande Ultras split up in Braunschweig (source: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.mayener-alemannen.de" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mayener-alemannen.de</a>)

The club pledged to identify the 20 or 30(!) members of Alemannia Supporters who were involved and hand out stadium bans. Alemannia Supporters issued an apology to all fans, but denied there was any political motivation behind the attack from so-called “loose cannons” within the group. Despite the promise from the club, the problems continued to spring up over the next few months. A few months later at an away match in Braunschweig, members of the ACU were refused entry to the away terrace by travelling Aachen stewards and the police for their own safety. They were instead led to the neighbouring seated stand and surrounded by police. After Aachen’s away match in Saarbrücken in early August 2012, members of Aachen Ultras were again brutally attacked by members of the Karlsbande Ultras and a fan liaison officer had to step in to protect a helpless victim who was being beaten on the floor. The stewards and police in Saarbrücken were hopelessly unprepared.

Both the Karlsbande Ultras and Alemannia Supporters denied that there was any political motivation and both distanced themselves from right-wing activities. Despite the fact that physical attacks were increasing and that fans of Alemannia Aachen were being attacked and intimidated, both in the stadium and at home, the club itself held a clear stance. “Provocation is coming from both sides. Both groups are at each other’s throats. This is a social problem which the club cannot resolve on its own.” Statements from the police in Aachen that the violence was “solely originating from Karlsbande”, that the group was “in the process of being infected with far-right extremists” and that “their target are the Aachen Ultras” seemed to fall on deaf ears. Karlsbande Ultras officially declare themselves as “non-political” – but the fact that several leading right-wing figures from the Aachen area such as NPD member Sascha Wagner were known to be members is pretty clear evidence contrary to this.

[bigimg]http://www.mayener-alemannen.de/archiv/saison1112/cottbus_08_11/11.jpg[/bigimg]
Aachen Ultras’ new home in Block S6

Some ultra groups showed solidarity with the Aachen Ultras – including those at Tennis Borussia Berlin of which images appeared on the No Dice Facebook page. Comments such as “ScheiSS ACU” (yes, the capitalisation of SS is deliberate) and another that was signed off “Sieg Heil” (which was deleted by the page admins, but not before charges were filed. CORRECTION: The comment was deleted by the user him/herself, but the site admins screenshotted and reported it before its deletion) make it pretty unequivocal that this is a political issue. The hypocrisy of these fans lambasting Aachen Ultras from their anti-fascist views by saying that politics has no place in stadia, only for them to then attack and insult them and almost drive them out of the stadium is quite incredible. The use of No Dice’s Facebook platform to spread these vicious views was shocking, a real smash in the face. I hope that the charges that were filed come to a satisfying conclusion.

There followed much debate between No Dice readers and fans as to whether comments such as these should be deleted and ignored, or whether they should be left there for all to see. On the one hand, you don’t want to give these people a platform, but, on the other hand, ignorance is almost acceptance and the problem needs to be drawn attention to. I applaud the editors’ decision to leave them there for all to see and commend their courage to pursue legal avenues. Aachen Ultras continue to follow the club from Block S6 but, until something is done about the right-wing virus ravaging the rest of the active fan scene, they will continue to do so in fear of their own personal safety.

In diesem Sinne: Nazis raus aus dem Tivoli.

<a class="postlink" href="http://ostklassiker.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/alemannia-aachen-a-fan-scene-in-crisis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://ostklassiker.wordpress.com/2012/ ... in-crisis/</a>

 

[ICT-Tam]

Brings a tear to my eye watching german games. I spent many a saturday in Saturn last year watching all the games! I look out for Kaiserslautern results from time to time. Fantastic country!

Wasn´t it you living in the Saarland for some time?
Kaiserslautern currently 3rd in Bundesliga 2. Maybe on their way back to the Bundesliga

Yeh i was there for 7 months, loved every second. Moved back for a girl (biggest mistake i've ever made). I went to game against Leverkusen, really good atmosphere. Although the tickets were pretty expensive!

Brings a tear to my eye watching german games. I spent many a saturday in Saturn last year watching all the games! I look out for Kaiserslautern results from time to time. Fantastic country!

"Wir scheißen auf Saarbrücken, wir pissen in die Saar, Scheiß Kaiserslautern, Tod und Hass dem FCK!"


May the farmer boys rot in the lowest depths of the 2nd division until the end of time. ;)

Haha which team hates kaiserslautern so much? Eintracht or Mainz?

 

[Bembeltown]

Frankfurt it is....

Mainz....pfff...its like me asking you if you are a rag! ;)

 

[ICT-Tam]

Frankfurt it is....

Mainz....pfff...its like me asking you if you are a rag! ;)

Everyone hates each other! I went to Frankfurt for the buchmesse, es war nicht spass.

 

[blink922]

Fuck Bayern


that is all.

 

[Bembeltown]

Frankfurt it is....

Mainz....pfff...its like me asking you if you are a rag! ;)

Everyone hates each other! I went to Frankfurt for the buchmesse, es war nicht spass.

Not sure if hate describes my feelings for Mainz the best way...they are not even worth to be hated. I just pity them for following this shower of shit and for considering themself proper fans.

Kaiserslautern on the other hand I hate...but at the same time I respect them for going through sick and thin with their team. Well...as much respect as you can show for the big inbreed family that their fanscene is. ;)

 

[DD]

I see you mentioned Alemannia Aachen at the end, they're a very interesting club at the moment for the reasons mentioned. Here's an article I read a while back, makes me kind of glad that in England, football and politics are (almost) completely and utterly isolated from each other. We don't have any clubs representing policies, or political views which seems cliquey to say the least.

I think it's fair to say that in Germany football teams represent more than football.

Alemannia Aachen – a fan scene in crisis
There are some pretty awful things in life – poverty, corruption, Margaret Thatcher, Stoke City – but until these things have some kind of direct, personal effect on you, it’s sometimes hard to perceive their true magnitude. It’s possible to structure your life so that you never have to get to grips with issues that make humans real shits. Of course, others choose to take a stand and hope to achieve some kind of change to whatever circumstance is particularly shitty. The easy option though is to continue living your life in ignorance of these things but in accordance with your own moral standards, safe in the knowledge that at least you have been true to yourself and your beliefs.

The problem is, when you are confronted with something that doesn’t fit with your ideals and provides clear proof that some people are in fact proper shits, it hits you all the more harder. I guess this happened to me in a way a couple of weeks ago. While browsing Ian Stenhouse’s excellent photo galleries for No Dice Magazine, I stumbled across an album from a match between Tennis Borussia Berlin and TuS Makkabi in the Berliner Liga. In one picture, TeBe fans are holding up a Spruchband which reads “Komplett BescheUrt – Nazis raus aus dem Tivoli” (Totally idiotic – Nazis out of the Tivoli) referring to the worrying developments in the Aachen fan scene over the past year.

[bigimg]https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/582784_430033223705812_737644379_n.jpg[/bigimg]
TeBe fans show solidarity with Aachen Ultras

The second comment simply reads “Spastis”, the German equivalent of using spastic as a swear word. Then comes a series of questionable comments with clear right-wing tones – “Do you have any flags that have anything to do with football?”, “What a bunch of wankers” along with various statements along the lines of “football is football, politics is politics” (as in, they have nothing to do with each other).

As I mentioned, the Aachen active fan scene has been anything but harmonious over the past 2 years or so. In 2010, a group of fans split away from the main ultra group known as Aachen Ultras (ACU), calling themselves the Karlsbande Ultras (KBU). They cited “differences of opinion [...] in many aspects of ultra culture, from the style of the support through to the ultra mentality as a whole [...]” as the reason for the move. As a result, there were now two sets of active fans trying to create an atmosphere in the stadium – something that wasn’t particularly beneficial to either set of ultras or the team. At the start of the 2011/12 season, the Aachen Ultras decided to move from their traditional position behind the goal to block S6 in the corner of the stand behind the goal. KBU set up shop at the top of block S5. Although not explicitly mentioned, the fact that the ACU have an anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-discriminatory stance doesn’t make it that difficult to guess that the “differences in opinion” were. Especially after the incidents over the next few months…

During Alemannia Aachen’s home match in the 2. Bundesliga against FC Erzgebirge Aue in December 2011, members of the Alemannia Supporters fan group entered ACU’s block, firstly to try and steal their banners and then to exercise violence. A handful of group members and one steward were injured. This was accompanied by shouts of “Kick the shit out of them”, “S6 homos” and “Fuck off you Jewish pricks, you don’t belong here” (“Jewish” or “Jew” is used as a pejorative noun by neo-Nazis and bears no relation to them thinking that the target of the insult is of Jewish faith or not) from Karlsbande Ultras members who had come to the plexiglass partition between blocks S5 and S6 and had attempted to scale it. According to the ACU, insults such as these from the Karlsbande and from other Aachen fans were nothing out of the ordinary.

[bigimg]http://www.mayener-alemannen.de/archiv/saison1112/braunschweig_12_11/03.jpg[/bigimg]
Aachen Ultras and Karlsbande Ultras split up in Braunschweig (source: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.mayener-alemannen.de" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mayener-alemannen.de</a>)

The club pledged to identify the 20 or 30(!) members of Alemannia Supporters who were involved and hand out stadium bans. Alemannia Supporters issued an apology to all fans, but denied there was any political motivation behind the attack from so-called “loose cannons” within the group. Despite the promise from the club, the problems continued to spring up over the next few months. A few months later at an away match in Braunschweig, members of the ACU were refused entry to the away terrace by travelling Aachen stewards and the police for their own safety. They were instead led to the neighbouring seated stand and surrounded by police. After Aachen’s away match in Saarbrücken in early August 2012, members of Aachen Ultras were again brutally attacked by members of the Karlsbande Ultras and a fan liaison officer had to step in to protect a helpless victim who was being beaten on the floor. The stewards and police in Saarbrücken were hopelessly unprepared.

Both the Karlsbande Ultras and Alemannia Supporters denied that there was any political motivation and both distanced themselves from right-wing activities. Despite the fact that physical attacks were increasing and that fans of Alemannia Aachen were being attacked and intimidated, both in the stadium and at home, the club itself held a clear stance. “Provocation is coming from both sides. Both groups are at each other’s throats. This is a social problem which the club cannot resolve on its own.” Statements from the police in Aachen that the violence was “solely originating from Karlsbande”, that the group was “in the process of being infected with far-right extremists” and that “their target are the Aachen Ultras” seemed to fall on deaf ears. Karlsbande Ultras officially declare themselves as “non-political” – but the fact that several leading right-wing figures from the Aachen area such as NPD member Sascha Wagner were known to be members is pretty clear evidence contrary to this.

[bigimg]http://www.mayener-alemannen.de/archiv/saison1112/cottbus_08_11/11.jpg[/bigimg]
Aachen Ultras’ new home in Block S6

Some ultra groups showed solidarity with the Aachen Ultras – including those at Tennis Borussia Berlin of which images appeared on the No Dice Facebook page. Comments such as “ScheiSS ACU” (yes, the capitalisation of SS is deliberate) and another that was signed off “Sieg Heil” (which was deleted by the page admins, but not before charges were filed. CORRECTION: The comment was deleted by the user him/herself, but the site admins screenshotted and reported it before its deletion) make it pretty unequivocal that this is a political issue. The hypocrisy of these fans lambasting Aachen Ultras from their anti-fascist views by saying that politics has no place in stadia, only for them to then attack and insult them and almost drive them out of the stadium is quite incredible. The use of No Dice’s Facebook platform to spread these vicious views was shocking, a real smash in the face. I hope that the charges that were filed come to a satisfying conclusion.

There followed much debate between No Dice readers and fans as to whether comments such as these should be deleted and ignored, or whether they should be left there for all to see. On the one hand, you don’t want to give these people a platform, but, on the other hand, ignorance is almost acceptance and the problem needs to be drawn attention to. I applaud the editors’ decision to leave them there for all to see and commend their courage to pursue legal avenues. Aachen Ultras continue to follow the club from Block S6 but, until something is done about the right-wing virus ravaging the rest of the active fan scene, they will continue to do so in fear of their own personal safety.

In diesem Sinne: Nazis raus aus dem Tivoli.

<a class="postlink" href="http://ostklassiker.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/alemannia-aachen-a-fan-scene-in-crisis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://ostklassiker.wordpress.com/2012/ ... in-crisis/</a>

I'm actually an Alemannia fan and have many friends who support them.

The reality of the situation is that there is very seldom any problems at all watching them. However, the events in Saarbrücken and at home to Aue last year were pretty shocking.

My friends actually stand with the KBU in Block S3. It is largely uncontroversial. The problem is that 30 or 40 fans with Neo-Nazi tendencies seem to have aligned themselves with the KBU rather than the Aachen Ultras. The majority of those have been banned from the Neu Tivoli since the Aue game. Many of those blamed Aachen Ultras for it (or maybe it was an excuse because they hated their left wing views) and they decided to take retribution earlier this season.

To say that the right wing element is 'ravaging' the rest of the fans scene is a total falsification of the truth. It's almost Daily Mail in it's over-reaction. Yes, it was all a shocking business, but the Neo-Nazi element at Aachen is very small and is hopefully being dealt with.

The general atmosphere in the ground is very friendly and a far cry from the atmosphere in some of the East German grounds where far-right sympathies are far more prevalent.

 

[DD]

The issue will no longer be a problem soon, it would appear. Reports from Germany suggest that Alemannia Aachen will cease to exist very shortly with insolvency appearing inevitable.:(