City v Schalke - football tour guide of Manchester - German magazine

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11freunde/11friends

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31 Jul 2012
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Hello everyone,

my name is Ron Ulrich and I work for the German football magazine 11Freunde. In 2012, I turned to this forum after having watched the famous Youtube Video "Look what It's done to me" () in search for the City fan at the end (Cyril Mintz) who summed up what it meant to the supporters so perfectly. A lot of the members here thankfully helped me find Cyril so I met him in Manchester for an interview.

https://www.11freunde.de/artikel/ein-leben-lang-manchester-city-fan

Now we plan another piece because of the Champions League game vs Schalke. For our next issue we would like to portray the three cities the German teams will visit in the next Champions League round. So it is supposed to be a football culture tourguide (with a map) for fans created by people who know the city and its (football) history very well. It would be great if we could give some hints to places/ pubs/ fields/ houses which have a special meaning and are not so commonly known as f.e. the stadium or the Football museum.

Could you help me with some recommendations or contacts?

To give you an impression what we look for, this is what I would recommend seeing when going to Gelsenkirchen (Schalke)

1 - The bar Bosch (opposite the old stadium) - there is a special plaque at the seat where one of the greatest players of the club Ernst Kuzorra used to sit and smoke his cigars while telling stories from the 30s
https://www.google.com/search?q=bos...AUIECgD&biw=1353&bih=674#imgrc=tMxWJ3qUEYCI_M:

2 - The Little Museum - it is a museum within a coal mine not far away from the stadium showing old football jerseys and memorabilia of the Mining era (it is run by former coal miners and Schalke supporters)
https://www.facebook.com/ZecheHugo/

3 - The Initiative’s room - this is where the Schalker Fan Initiative has its rooms, one of the first football initiatives in Germany against racism and discrimination. Here lay the roots for one of the biggest fanzines in Germany named „Schalke Unser“ (Schalke of ours)
www.fan-ini.de/

4 - The parking space next to the club offices - here is where fans came when the team won sth. The long-serving Schalke team carer celebrated with the fans when Schalke got promoted in the 80s. He proclaimed: „In a few years we will play Rome, Napoli and Madrid.“ Only that Schalke got relegated to Second division the following year

Here they also cured themselves from the pain of the „four-minutes-title“ when Bayern Munich snitched away the German championship in the very last minute four minutes after the game in Gelsenkirchen was already over.

5 - Pizzeria La Scala - very good food where all of the Schalke stars went together in the prospering years. Even nowadays a lot of players and managers go there regularly. Some old players even celebrated their goals with greetings to the italian owner on their shirts.
https://www.hotel-lascala.de/restaurant.html

If you need additional help or explanations, please let me know
Kind regards

Ron
ron.ulrich@11freunde.de
 
Hello Ron, welcome to the forum...

A few suggestions from me:

The National Football Museum is in Manchester:
https://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/

A plaque to commemorate that the English Football League was founded in Manchester:
http://www.blueplaqueplaces.co.uk/the-football-league-red-plaque-in-manchester-806#.XDJS8aSnyaM

Unfortunately you’ve just missed this:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/lovi...o-classic-football-shirts-manchester-shop/amp
Classic Football Shirts had a pop-up shop open for a few months last year, the best collection of old football kits in the world, would have been ideal to visit.

They still have their warehouse in Manchester, might be worth contacting them:
https://www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk/

I recommend this book:


Pub:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attra...ar-Manchester_Greater_Manchester_England.html

Would be good for you to speak to people who went to either of our 1970 ECWC semifinal games:


I’m 36 though so I’m not your man, haha. But we won the ECWC that year so anyone who went to those games or the final would be good to speak to, they might have programmes or ticket stubs from the games. I’m sure you’ll get a few from this forum.

Not football related, as such, but old tennis player Fred Perry was from Stockport and has a plaque to mark where he was born:
http://www.blueplaqueplaces.co.uk/fred-perry-blue-plaque-in-stockport-3308#.XDJWpqSnyaM
With his later clothing brand becoming a staple of football fans all over Europe, might be a good place to add to the map.

The Lowry Art Gallery night have some prints of some of Lowry’s football paintings:
https://thelowry.com/
Don’t know how famous Lowry is in Germany, if at all? But he did some famous football paintings in this country:
“The Football Match”
LS-Lowrys-The-Football-Match-Painting-1.jpg


“The Football Match II”
si-422520.jpg_maxdim-1000_resize-yes.jpg


“Going To The Match”
si-418624.jpg_maxdim-1000_resize-yes.jpg

(This is Bolton’s old ground, Burnden Park)
 
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Thank you so much. I will search for it. Could you post the name of the book again for it hasn't been shown on my computer? Here in Germany, the game of 1970s is also known very well: Reinhard "Stan" (because of his dribbling skills named after Stanley Matthews) Libuda was advised by his coach to learn some English. He taught him to say: I am the right wing. But Libuda nervously only repeated "I am the white ring"

I could send you a copy once the map was published (if you like to, you can give me your address details via mail ron.ulrich@11freunde.de)
 
Hi Mate

I’m currently aiming to see a fixture at every Bundesliga venue, with just Leipzig and Freiburg remaining. I’ve also seen games at 12 other German venues from Magdeburg to Union Berlin, with the relatively unknown Bochum proving to be the most enjoyable.

Although, most German fans appear to have adopted Liverpool and You'll Never Walk Alone, as some kind of spiritual home of football, they seem totally perplexed when I dare to suggest that for the first 100 years of professional football, Manchester City actually won the same amount of trophies, and also beat them to their first European trophy.
 
Hi,
that's interesting. I always recommend my colleagues from abroad to visit a game in Bochum. It is a smaller and old fashioned stadium with good views from all places, good atmosphere and also only 10 min walk to the city and bars. Union Berlin has also a very strong support. What were the worst grounds you visited?

I think, most of the Germans have sympathies for Liverpool in these days because of Jürgen Klopp who is a popular and charismatic figure here till date.
 
You could visit Maine Road, where we used to play (and where we played Schalke in the 70s). Its now a housing development but we still have fond memories of the place.

One of the streets on the new estate is called Trautmann Close, named after a famous German - Bert Trautmann. He was a Prisoner of War turned goalkeeper, and was said to have learned to dive as a goalkeeper as a result of his training as a paratrooper. Obviously it must have been difficult to be German at that time, but he won the City supporters over, culminating in him playing for us in 1956 FA Cup Final. He broke his neck during the game but played on and we won.

We've had several German players in our history, but aside from Leroy of the current crop, Uwe Rösler is arguably the most popular from recent times (1990's). He has quite an interesting story too growing up in Eastern Germany, then playing for the likes of Nürnberg and Kaiserslautern (in the 1/4 Finals of the Champions League), before surviving Cancer. He has managed several teams in England (including beating City with Wigan), but is still very fondly remembered by City fans (that are old enough to remember him). He fell in love with the club and named his sons Colin and Tony after former city players Colin Bell and Tony Book. As far as I know both play for City's academy and Colin has played for the EDS in the Youth Champions League this season.

If you're after a decent pint whilst you're over, I'd suggest the Albert Schloss. You'll get your Weiß biers, Schweinshaxe and Schnitzels etc.

Once you're done, please can you find a way to post a link on here so we can see the finished piece (even if its in German)? Thanks
 
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Scaring Europe to Death said:
Hi Mate

I’m currently aiming to see a fixture at every Bundesliga venue, with just Leipzig and Freiburg remaining. I’ve also seen games at 12 other German venues from Magdeburg to Union Berlin, with the relatively unknown Bochum proving to be the most enjoyable.

Although, most German fans appear to have adopted Liverpool and You'll Never Walk Alone, as some kind of spiritual home of football, they seem totally perplexed when I dare to suggest that for the first 100 years of professional football, Manchester City actually won the same amount of trophies, and also beat them to their first European trophy.
Click to expand...
Get your arse into gear mate for Freiburg before they move to the new stadium
And I recommend visiting early or late season when the weathers's better so you can appreciate the spectacular Black Forest scenery
 
11freunde/11friends said:
Hi,
that's interesting. I always recommend my colleagues from abroad to visit a game in Bochum. It is a smaller and old fashioned stadium with good views from all places, good atmosphere and also only 10 min walk to the city and bars. Union Berlin has also a very strong support. What were the worst grounds you visited?
Click to expand...
Myself and @Scaring Europe to Death had a bit of a race - which I won :), to get to all the Bundesliga grounds. I think he has me beat on Buli 2 grounds at the minute and I know he has been to most grounds more than once unlike me.

In my opinion, the worst German grounds are the modern ones, as they're all just a repeat of each other, eg Augsburg, Hoffenheim, Aachen with different colour seats. We have the same over here though with the likes of Derby, Middlesbrough, Leicester, Southampton etc. No real character to them (or soul).

I find it difficult to choose between Bremen or Kaiserslautern as my favourite German stadium (to date). Köln, Frankfurt and Hertha Berlin are up there too.
 
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