Who are ya? Who are ya?

Well the Party Army of course:

TeBe Party Army!

The TeBe-Fan team are playing here this weekend in Hamburg for the second time under their new name of Tebe Party Army. The decision to no longer name the team after the fanzine Lila Laune is mainly due to two reasons.

The first is that the publication dates for the one time world’s best football magazines are no longer separated by merely weeks or even months, but years: Number 102, the last edition, hit the shelves way back in 2004. Age has brought the editorial team not just wisdom but also placed the responsibilities of relationships and careers into the forefront of their lives, where they have eaten into the youthful energy of the past. It’s also true that half a decade of lower league football has taken its toll on the once enthusiastic journalistic team.

The second reason is that, despite the lower league blues, the active fan scene has managed to recruit a whole new generation of young fans. The glory days of the TeBe fan scene, undoubtedly peaking with the BAFF fanzine prize-winning Lila Laune edition of 1999, are but the stuff of legends for this new wave of supporters. For them these stories of old are on a par with the myths of the Loch Ness Monster or the Golem of Prague, tales of the past told by old men in smoky bars.

These glory days were nonetheless decisive in determining the direction in which the fan scene developed. Take a quick look back to the year 1996 and the Regional Division North East era: The frequent anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophobic attitudes that confronted us back then, sometimes also leading to actual physical attacks against TeBe fans in the “wild east”, raised awareness and opposition among the fan scene towards violence and racism in and around football stadiums. Tennis Borussia fans were to a certain degree politicised by their negative experiences with fans from Köpenick (FC Union Berlin), Dresden and Erfurt to name a few examples, and it was during this phase, with edition 9 to be exact, that the Fan-club magazine “Adler-Report” changed its name to “Lila Laune”. The Fan club newspaper had become more than just that - it had developed into a fanzine and the contents had changed too with articles clearly rejecting racism and violence in our beautiful game. Lila Laune became the mouthpiece of the then younger fan scene at TeBe, promoted by word of mouth and self-advertising, the supporters club that was opened up as an initiative by the active core of the fan scene in 1997 playing a crucial role. Although the supporters club currently lacks a suitable location, the last venue having sadly been shut down a few years back, it brought many new fans into the active scene, fans who are mostly still today active in the mission of continuing to build up our colourful and cosmopolitan scene, as well as representing the interests of the fans in the club and getting involved in the running and regulating of the internal affairs at Tennis Borussia. This movement has had the effect of opening up diverse potential in the scene that act alongside the Lila Laune fanzine. These include numerous flyers and posters to various themes, the establishment of an independent self-run fan organisation FKB (Football Culture in Berlin) that has organised a wide range of cultural events on and around the theme of football and more recently the active involvement in club affairs.

Lila Laune the team, a.k.a. Tebe Party Army, doesn’t have a set squad and their varied line up makes them a wild card at any tournament. This explains their unpredictable run of colourful wins and dismal defeats at diverse tournaments over the past years, including Rostock, Leipzig, Babelsberg, Montecchio and of course here in Hamburg.

The TeBe Party Army is pleased to be invited here to Hamburg again for the third time, and not just for the football. The event is an important and exclusive chance for us to network and share the weekend once again with anti-racist fans from all over Europe, fans that we would not have had the pleasure to meet without the opportunity that this great tournament provides. On this note our special regards go to our friends from the Vienna “Friedhofstribüne” and to the “Filmstadtinferno” from Babelsberg.

So our motto this weekend is: PURPLE-WHITE, ANTI-RACIST IDEALISM – nothing more and nothing less!

LILA LAUNE / BAFF-Ost
Postfach 35 08 54
10217 Berlin
redaktion@lilalaune-online.de

www.lilalaune-online.de
www.tebe-fanladen.de
http://www.myspace.com/tennisborussiaberlin
http://tebepartyarmy.blogspot.com/ (in english)

TeBe Party Army
TEBE BERLIN

This is for the Sankt Pauli fan tournament - weekend 15-17th June this year in Hamburg and will be part of a little series on articles on the only team in Hamburg that we will bring out over the next few weeks. The TeBe Party Army is off to Magdeburg to see them play against Magdeburg and most likely get promoted, then there is the tournament itself - perhaps with some live blogging if we get that sorted - and i will hold my promise to Bungle to write down my thoughts on the club as a whole .