Ruhr Valley Hop 12-13 May

It was a very early start on the morning of May 12th (up at 2.15am!) as we made our way to Stansted airport for the flight to Dusseldorf-Weeze. Unsurprisingly, we were all a bit bleary eyed.

We got into Weeze on time and then made our way onto Bochum, where our first game was. On the way, we passed some rather strange sites, any guesses as to what the pencil shaped thing is?

At Duisburg, we met up with John who had come down from Amsterdam. Now there were six of us. After a brief stop to drop our bags at our hotel in Essen, we made our way onto Bochum. The big event of the day was the Ruhr derby between Dortmund and Schalke and everywhere was flooded with people in yellow and blue. If results went their way, Schalke could have been Champions.

In Bochum, we met up with Christoph and Alex from the Azzurro Bochum fanclub. They had visited Underhill earlier in the season to see our game against Macclesfield.

At the ground, we checked out the fan vans. As expected, John bought 36,245 scarves and others got badges and shirts.

This is our impression of the Germans. All the money people saved on the tickets goes on merchandising; it is almost obligitory to have a scarf hanging off each arm.

Officially Bochum play at the Rewirpowerstadion, but this is not very popular with the fans, who still call it by its traditional name.

The Ruhrstadion is quite a small ground, which is fully enclosed. We stood on the Ostkurve, which is the home end of the ground. There are two small terraces at the opposite end, and these were taken by the Stuttgart fans. They had travelled in their thousands, hoping to see their team win and leapfrog Schalke at the top. The atmosphere built up nicely before the game.

The game was superb. Bochum took an early lead, which was equalised by Thomas Hitzelsperger (remember him?). By half-time though, Bochum had regained the initiative and went in 2-1 up. Everyone got the beers in at half-time, while a giant ball was rolled onto the pitch and pushed into the net by a giant coke bottle. Riiiight.

Unfortunately Stuttgart came back to win 3-2. However, no-one seemed to mind as news came through the Dortmund had beaten their nearest rivals. Schaden Schalke, sie werde nichts Deutscher Meister. As it was their final home game, all the fans clapped the players off.

Ridiculous UEFA rules mean that the Germans can't keep their terraces for European games. Bochum get around this by removing the seats once they're over. You can see here where the seats are clipped on.
Afterwards all beer was reduced to Eur 1. Who were we to argue?

The next day, we made our way to the Georg-Melches Stadion for the Bundesliga 2 game between Rot Weiss Essen and Wacker Burghausen. Essen were out of the relegation zone on goal difference only, while Burghausen were all but down. It promised to be a tense affair.

Inside, we took our places on the Osttribune. Here is the Osttribune from the Nordtribune:


And here is the Nordtribune from the Osttribune. This also housed the small contingent of away supporters.


Alex and Christoph had joined us for the game:

We stood close to the Essen Ultras, who had a superb array of flags. The Nordtribune weren't too bad either. Chants of ROT WEISS ESSEN reverberated around the ground, with each stand taking one word.

Burghausen scored a stoppage time equaliser, much to the dismay of the locals. After waving farewell to our German friends, we headed back to Weeze for the plane home. Over the weekend, the station had been trashed.

It had been an exhilirating weekend, but when we got back to the airport, we all felt like this. Fear not. Deutschland, wir sind zuruckkommen!