August 25-27: Back to Tivoli

With the season only a couple of weeks old it was time for a trip back to the Aachener Tivoli. It had only been a few months since I was last there but I was badly missing the place.

First up though was the small matter of the London derby between Brentford and Barnet. Griffin Park is a great old ground, famous for having a pub on each corner.

After a couple of pints in the summer sun, we took up our places on the away terrace. Our tickets were more than three times the price of the Alemannia ones, even though it was a lower level of football.


Never mind, the away end was great and had brilliant acoustics which kept the noise in. Alas the roof also kept the sweat in and we suffered our way to a 2-1 defeat.




Back on the train it was time for part two of our trip. We headed to the Wetherspoons in Victoria station for some dinner. The station was swarming with Arsenal fans, Chelsea fans, one or two from West Ham and Wigan. And us.

Onto the bus we sat next to a Dutchman, from Leeds, who lived in Germany. He supported Leeds and Gladbach. Poor man. We passed through through John's native South London en route to Dover. I didn't quite get the tour this time though he did point out one of the shopkeepers he knew as we were sat in a traffic jam in Camberwell.

That traffic jam meant we missed our boat in Dover and had to wait two hours for the next one. Disaster! It did give us a chance to check out the docks and discover that others had come this way before.

On the boat we made ourselves at home.

Onto the continent, we made up a bit of time by skipping Antwerp and reached Heerlen only forty minutes late. Euroland was shut, unfortunately, though John made a friend and converted him into an Alemannia fan.

From here, it was a short ride over the border into Germany.


Now people say the Germans lack a sense of humour, but I disagree. They were obviously having a laugh when they made their trains. On the left side is first class, on the right is second. 8p if you can spot the difference.

Aachen, a city of kings. As before, we went to Konig City in the town square for a pre-match pint. At Konig City they serve Koing's Pilsner. In fact it's just about the only beer you can find in Aachen.

Cool buses!




Back again.

John resisted the urge of this fan shop and bought nothing, even though the scarves were only Euro 5. He managed to twist my arm though and we got tickets for the forthcoming derby in Gladbach. The slight flaw in this plan was that we didn't know when the game was or whether we could go.

I got a few more badges from the Ultra stall; they were mighty impressed that we'd travelled all night to see the game, although they couldn't understand why. They weren't the only ones.


Just in case you got lost there was a bright yellow map to guide you. We had tickets in the Aachener Wall block X, next to the away fans. We took up our places at the back, just infront of the scoreboard.

The ground started to fill. The beer people, serving KP of course, walked the terraces and kept everyone refreshed. Mine came in a Jan Schlaudraff glass. When I'd bought an Aachen shirt at the end of the season I'd got Schlaudraff on the back. By the time it arrived, he'd left for Bayern Munich.

The best thing about the Aachener Wall is that the Wurselener makes a great backdrop. The bad thing was the rather high fence.

The playing of You'll Never Walk Alone was well observed as usual. We also sang along to You'll Never Walk Allein, the words of which I had taught John on the way.

The away supporters were surprisingly quiet, probably because they hadn't bought their Capo along. The Aachen capo was working overtime and his troops were well drilled in the stretching routines. Who needs the Gym?

Aachen were much the better side in the first half but were unable to break through. The game seemed to be petering out into a 0-0 before the visitors had a man sent off. Kolev put Aachen ahead with 13 minutes to play and Kickers collapsed. Aachen ran out winners four goals to nil.

By the end I was really into the swing of it:

Tannoy man: 'Alemannia'

Crowd: 'VIER'

Tannoy Man: 'Kickers'

Crowd: 'NULL'

Tannoy Man: 'Danke Danke'

Crowd: 'BITTE BITTE'

'Die Ganze stadion hupft ole ole' we sang. And indeed the whole stadium jumped. It was pure magic.

Further celerations came when the league table showed up. Alemannia were second!

Gladbach somewhat lower!

After the game we hung around for a few more pictures of the emptying terraces:

There were even a few seats.

Back to the station, you couldn't get away from the football club.

Here's my shirt.

And here's Jan. I could have got a Euro for returning the glass. It was hardly worthwhile.

And so we returned to the Netherlands to catch our bus back home. The handsome waitress offered an exotic sounding pint which turned out to to be Grimbergen. At least it wasn't

Konig's again.

John had a toastie with curry. Only in Holland.

Heerlen found a rather uncomfortable bench, where we sat and watched the balloons go by.

Then it was back on the bus to England. It is always sad to leave but then again in just a few weeks we'll be in Germany once more. Borussia Park awaits.