Bah Hamburg - Hamburg vs Hoffenheim (7)

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Match day 6- Hamburg v Hoffenheim

"Football's not a matter of life & death- it's much more important than that" - Bill Shankly

Bill Shankly was a great football manager, who had a great number of fantastic quotes attributed to him. The one I've used above baffles me. Football's a great game, & rules many a people's lives. That's why we've chosen to try to use the game that so many of us love to strike a common chord & get Oscar's story out there more.

However, I'm sorry Shanks, but that quote is ludicrous. Perhaps I've misunderstood the context, but the amount of tears I've seen throughout this, from football fans of all kinds, surely disproves this nonsense.

"Football's not a matter of life and death, it's much more important than that - Bill Shankly"

At this point, I'd like to point out that we are working hard to keep the flag from becoming affiliated to any club. It will probably be at more Everton games with me, but I will try to limit this, as it's not an Everton flag.

Due to Oscar's Celtic connection, & the colours, it may be viewed as a Celtic flag, but this is about getting football fans to unite behind one special boy's story, about raising awareness and money for him & other children battling this horrible illness.

Likewise and in the light of the past week's events in Belfast, probably more importantly, the flag has no religion. It's inspiring to see that so many Rangers fans have been in contact & shown their support for Oscar, proving that even the biggest rivalries can be overcome when a young child needs help.

I'm choosing to pre-empt this blog to make this clear, because some of the clubs we've approached about displaying it responded by saying they wanted to check the flag over because "due to the green & white colouring, it may be deemed sectarian or offensive". No-one has said no, but I've found these responses baffling. With this in mind, please enjoy our venture into a foreign ground where they didn't get the gist of the text, & coincidentally, hate anything green & white.

We landed in Eindhoven at around 9am & the place is completely white. We had booked our cheap Ryanair flight into Eindhoven because the only confirmed European fixture tonight (Friday) was Heracles v Utrecht. However, as we lost out on our Bayern Munich game, due to other fixtures being re-arranged, & Hamburg v Hoffenheim had been moved to the Friday, we sacrificed our 1st choice Dutch game to shoehorn Ajax into the trip. It turned out that this was a very lucky break for us, as due to the brutal killing of a Dutch Asst. Referee, all Dutch fixtures were called off as a mark of respect. So, our flight to Eindhoven was pointless, but at least we'd get to see Holland, eh?

Lot's of snow about in Eindhoven including at the train station

We get a bus to the train station & collect our tickets that were booked on the Milan Metro last night, & as we have a few Dutch translation cards, explaining what we're doing made up for the Ajax game, we decide to distribute them while we're here. I can only assume that Google translate has had a mare on this, because the response is almost one of anger! "What's this got to do with me?", etc. We stop there, & rein it in, jumping on our train to Hamburg.

I think it's fair to say that at this point, relations are strained between me & Dean, & meeting up with Jamie in Hamburg will be a Godsend. We're both tired, hungover, stressed & he feels I've been too demanding, barking orders at him. I may have been but its taken a lot of organization to get this far, & we've nearly blown it on more than one occasion. If we fail, it's all on me, if we succeed, it's a shared glory. Absolutely fine, but it puts a lot of pressure on your shoulders & this is a learning curve thus far.

Even though I've been to each of the cities we're visiting before, I'm no expert & the tight timeframes don't allow for any mistakes. We sit apart on the train, stealing a bit of kip wherever possible, whilst keeping one eye on where we're changing each time.

Holland is blanketed in about six inches of snow, so each stop adds about a ten minute delay to our journey. By the time we reach Hamburg, we're three & a half hours from kick off, & Jamie meets us at the station, having flown into Hamburg that morning. He takes us across to a little home made pizza place in the station & tells us we have to try one, as he's already had two.

We get checked in, drop the bags off and with our tickets already in hand, have a little bit of time on our hands before kick off, so we go through the Hamburg Christmas markets.

Hamburg Christmas markets



I was in Hamburg during the 2006 World Cup & it was here that I discovered kurrywurst. I've been banging on about it to anyone who'll listen ever since, so we make a bee-line for that stand. Kurrywurst is essentially, sausage, sliced & served in what can only be desribed as a ketchup/gravy mixture, finished with paprika. The usual reaction when you explain this to people is "that sounds vile", but when I think back to that summer six years ago, we practically lived on it, & it was great. I can only assume that we were drunk the entire time in Hamburg, in 2006, because kurrywurst is vile.

Kurrywurst after purchase

Kurrywurst being prepared.



The Baltic coast is living up to it's name, and as we make our way to the Imtech Arena, we see St.Pauli stores, St.Pauli graffiti, & St.Pauli merchandise everywhere. It may well just be the central area of Hamburg we're in, but for such a smaller club, they certainly make their presence felt in this city. Unfortunately for us, a lot of this merchandise contains copious amounts of green & white, "You'll Never Walk Alone" motifs, and some graffiti mentions,which comfirm their allegiance to Celtic.

We were familiar with the tales of Hamburg fans unfurling a full size mosaic of a Union Jack when they played Celtic in Europe, to make sure that everyone was aware of their thoughts towards Celtic, but we were hoping that was just a one-off, rather than a deep rooted hatred for them, due to their affiliation to their city rivals. None of us are actually Celtic fans, but the flag is green & white, so we're worried as to how the locals will respond to it.

We arrive at the station, & have to take a shuttle bus to the ground, set deep in some dark woods. This journey does nothing to settle our nerves, as the bus is packed & the German fans are very aggressive in their nature. It's boisterous, but a few cross the line on occasion & this is without a green & white rag to the bull. It's intimidating, to say the least. A very stereotypical port city, full of your stereotypical sea-faring men.

We reach the ground & there's barely a word said. We all know the job we've come to do. We decide to go straight to the stewards, armed with yet another Google translation. The steward looks puzzled at the sentence construction, then seems to have gleamed the necessary information from it. "What the f#*k has this got to do with me?" he asks.

Not the response I was going for, but I carry on anyway, explaining what we're trying to achieve, & communicate a little bit more about Oscar, but he's not budging. "No" is the constant reply. I leave it, & go grab Jamie to come with me to try again at another entrance & the whole scene plays out in an almost identical fashion. Literally, near word for word. It seems we're on our own as we enter this blue & white bearpit.

We head straight to the front to find a spot, but there's nowhere to hang it. There's a huge wall behind the goal, but it's completely flag-free, so that's a no-no. Our seats are at the top of the lower tier,behind the goal, so we've nowhere to hang it there,either. We hold it up on the concourse,to get a few pics against the pitch, & the reaction isn't so bad. We get a few shouts (in German), but nothing overly threatening, & we're back scouring for a place to hang it.

The flags and banners at Hamburg



By the time we reach kick-off, however, it's a different vibe. The entire back row consists of plain clothes police, all massive & all looking for a kick-off of a different kind, it seems. The three rows in front of us seem to consist solely of big, burly skinheads, who could probably be best described as modern-day pirates, due to their arrays of tattoos & beards.

The game starts and a few fans start to sing, only to be shouted down by the skinheads. They were Hamburg fans, singing Hamburg songs, but every time they start up, they're told to stop. One gets a tap on the shoulder and the back of a hand raised towards him is enough to say, "try it once more & I'm coming over there".

I was curious as to what they were singing about, as they were all clearly supporting the same club. I wonder if it was the German equivalent of "Kenwright out" heard at a few Everton games & always guaranteed to ruffle a few feathers, one way or the other.

We found out later that Bundesliga clubs were participating in the "12:12" protests, a protest against new German security measures being enforced in football grounds. This protest took the form of no singing for the first 12 minutes of the game, which made the whole atmosphere all the more surreal for us, and all the less likely to rock the boat.

We were excited by the fact that you can get a beer in your seat at Bundesliga games, but that novelty wears off, when the minus temperatures make it nigh on impossible to drink. Even the beer backpack man gives up, disappearing to re-appear with a backpack full of 'Gluehwein', or mulled wine to me & you.

Anyway, we're re-thinking our strategy in displaying the flag somehow, & as its well into the minuses inside the ground, the flag doubles up as a blanket, draped across our legs, as we sip on our mulled wine, at the football. Old age has well & truly caught up.

The game itself isn't very good. Hoffenheim are pretty awful to be fair & Hamburg are only marginally better because of the excellent Son, who showed a great bit of skill to chest a ball, swivel & volley it against the crossbar. It would've undoubtedly been the best goal we'd seen all week, but a few minutes later, their big Latvian forward, Rudnevs looped a lovely header over the keeper & puts them 1-0 up.

Half time came and went and I thought about going across to our left to try & communicate with the away fans, who were in a massive cage alongside us & had managed to get their flags on display no problems. We still had nowhere to hang it, but as quite a few of the rougher fans disappeared, we decided to just go for it & hold it up at the top of the stand for about 5 mins, in the hope that cameras picked up on it, but regardless, we got a few pictures of it amongst the Hamburg crowd, who seemed oblivious to it behind them as they watched the game going on. As close to a mission accomplished as we're getting. The game finishes with Son the best player, & Rudnevs having added a second goal to kill it off.

The Team Oscar flag displayed at half time at Hamburg's stadium

The only train journey we could afford within what little's left in our budget, that would get us to Mons in Belgium in time for our final fixture was a 4am departure.

After the game, we headed for the notorious Reeperbahn, to have a few beers & fill the gap between the game finishing & the train leaving, despite having not seen a bed since waking up in Barcelona on Thursday morning. You can't visit Hamburg & not see the Reeperbahn. It's as seedy a place as you'll ever see, but very unique. We have a few beers in an Irish bar along there (I know, I know, but I'd honestly had enough of the Germans at the football & just wanted somewhere we could talk to people about what our aim was), watched a band (excellent first set but a really dreary 2nd set let them down) & at around 2am we leave to get back to our hostel (unused bed again).

Opening the door to our dorm, a woman screams, jumps out of her bed & comes running at us, flailing her arms & getting more & more worked up as she starts hitting Dean. We get her settled down & she's a French woman, who doesn't speak much English. She's obviously had a few night terrors that got worse when us three stumbled in the door, but it didn't do anything for our hearts, & she slopes out the door, embarassed.

Jamie & Dean decide to get into bed (despite the fact that we're leaving in 15 mins) & I have the nightly ritual of recharging my phone,whilst trying to sort out the next day using the only wi-fi I can get access to.

I'm stood in the corner of a pitch dark room, facing the wall, when the French girl walks back in, & noticing me, she's off again. I suppose it must've looked like something out of the Blair Witch project, as I was stood by the plug, just the glow of my phone illuminating me, so I would've gone tearing back out screaming too.

This wakes Jamie & Dean up, despite having got their heads down about 5 mins earlier & they're not happy. Exactly the reason why any attempt at getting into bed was a recipe for disaster. We go back to the train station, where Jamie decides to have his 4th of those little pizzas, & we are in fact 30 mins early for our train, which only makes those two more annoyed about not getting any sleep. As if all the rushing about wasn't enough for them, they obviously fancied a bit more excitement. Instead, we board the train for one last game. Home straight as we keep being reminded. Surely nothing could go wrong now.....

For anyone who hasn't read this blog before, we are trying to take a flag to 7 football games in 7 days in 7 different countries, to raise awareness, & money, for the Oscar Knox Appeal. Oscar is a young boy from Northern Ireland who has severe Neuroblastoma & desperately needs money to help him, & other children with this disease. 

Please read Oscar's blog here http://oscarknox.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

This is wee Oscar himself.

You can donate to our JustGiving page here

We are funding this entire trip ourselves & 100% of what you donate will go to Oscar's Appeal. Although we were initially hesitant to be raising money whilst having a glorified holiday, so many good people have come forward to us, that it would be sinful to refuse. Help spread the word, help save a little boy's life.