FCUM A.D.

FC St Pauli 0 – 0 Energie Cottbus

This match’s journey started in Osnabruck. A few drinks with Sektion Spekulatius and the Russian in Grand Hotel in Osnabruck were had on the Saturday evening, and this was perhaps unwisely combined with a 6am start the following morning. Still jetlagged from the week and then coupled with little sleep, I was incapable of speech until about Bremen, where we changed trains and some coffee and a baguette saved the day. The advantage of the early slow train, was not just the cost, but that we got to travel up with the rest of the lads and lasses from Niedersachsen. We turned out to be quite the large group.

I had to put up with a fair amount of abuse for my jumper being Hansa Rostock colours. Everytime the place went quiet, I would hear an “Ahuuu!” and see T5 clapping his hands above his head or pointing his two index fingers together. Naturally, we opted for the good old bike compartment in the train. It always offers ample seating, no irritating people with “Bahncomfort” VIP tickets or reserved seats and, critically, generally has no bicycles in it. The rest of the journey was made up of nattering and struggling to get the electronic door to close on the bog.

After an hour or so enjoying the sunshine, we headed into the ground. This week’s choreo consisted of a large copy of the front cover of the latest Übersteiger. The cover is to do with the protest against the police potentially getting a special room in the soon to be built new Gegengerade stand. Even worse, the room would be positioned right next to the fans’ room, making fan work almost impossible without risk of being monitored by those nosey-parkers, the police, next door. That the local police force now have two attacks (that on the Jolly Roger pub, and more recently that at the recent Schweinske Indoor Tournament), which they have as yet still not offered an explanation or apology for, only begins to scrape the surface of why the idea of them getting a room (ooh er!) in the ground is so unpopular. The choreo will hopefully draw further attention to the issue, and mobilise fans against the move.

In the Cottbus end, there were no flags, due to a ban following their use of pyro, the last time they played at the Millerntor (a day on which, I was busy moving to Germany). Instead they held up bits of banner spelling out “Ein Sieg heilt unsere Wunden”. This would at first sight, seem fairly innocent. It translates as “A victory heals our wounds”. However as Magischerfc points out, it would appear that the choosing of a phrase with “Sieg” and “Heil” in it, may not have just been an innocent mistake. What is definite though, is that if Cottbus’ fanscene is dominated by nazis, they are the most dull, incompetent nazis encountered. The controversial Nazi march footage filmed by Leni Riefenstahl during the time of the Third Reich is rumoured to perhaps have even influenced films such as the Star Wars Trilogy. Cottbus’ hanging up of their banners though only had an air of cluelessness similar to that of a first year student struggling to hang up his or her washing to dry, after cleaning the bedsheets for the first time. Even for a club who Ive never seen a decent display off, this was particularly shabby.

Back on the field, we had a freshly laid pitch and the football for about 20 minutes matched that freshness. Nice passing, end to end stuff, little tricks and turns. With all of this, the atmosphere also began well, with plenty of loud singing and chanting.

As time wore on though, a goal looked less and less likely. The atmosphere went into autopilot, with far too many people breaking out their smartphones or rolling cigarettes. By the 85^th minute, the Cottbus coach was busy doing Tim Henman style fist celebrations to mark the likely point won. We only had ourselves to blame though. We came close a few times, but at the moment we just dont have enough people in the team willing to have a go on goal.

Niemand schießt am Millerntor