Farewell Andreas - R.I.P.

With the season over and with my birthday a few weeks ago, I havent been checking the Lila Kanal or reading my mails recently. So when i finally did I got a terrible shock to find that one of our fans has sadly died after a battle with illness: Andreas Plumhof, also known as Andi. With my relatively short career as a TeBe Fan I really cannot do the man justice in describing the work he did for the club. He was really involved at the club at many levels, even more than i ever knew. I guess that says a lot about what a modest down to earth person he was.



Giving out the programmes on the steps with Felix he was of course one of the first fans I got to know and remained one of the best. Our only common interest was probably Tennis Borussia and what a source of information he was and what a passionate fan. He always made a point of greeting everyone, asking how they were doing and saying hello. Never too much trouble to explain to newer fans about the players, filling in those holes in our knowledge with his vast database of infos - in fact i think he loved it. His involvement in the club and his down to earth nature didnt stop him voicing his opinion and his criticism, far from it he was really the stereotype of the dedicated follower. Always there in Block E, supporting the team, scorning any sign of a lack of commitment from the players and flipping out with the rest of us when the goals went in. Whenever we are excited and write on this blog, whenever we are too pissed off to post anything, these emotions are just a fraction of the feeling that you get in Block E behind the fence all together and Hancot and myself experienced almost all these feelings with him there.

As Jim wrote on Lila Kanal, Andi was one of those who symbolised the club and its fans: Dedicated and passionate, open, friendly and tolerant. He will be sorely missed by us all.

This morning was the funeral and here are a few pictures taken by Bungle.





Depite playing poker and drinking a few beers in to the early and then later hours of the morning, I got up this morning at 7 to get ready for the funeral. An early start for the funeral service was to start at 9, an early kick off as it were. It was only when I was deciding what to wear that i started feeling reluctant about the whole thing. Should I wear my suit? It is a formal occasion with family and friends after all. But then Andi knew me from TeBe and so perhaps I should wear something that suited that?

And then I realised that I didnt want to go to the funeral. I hope that nobody takes this as an insult, it certainly isnt meant that way. I just felt that I would prefer to remember him in my own way and how i remember him - This for me has to be at TeBe. Thats where i knew him and thats what I associate him with. So I will remember him at the next home match that I am here for at the end of August. I hope that people gave Andi a good send off at the funeral but its a personal thing and this I think is the most fitting way for me to pay my respects.

TeBe Party Army On Tour: Antira Football Tournament, Hamburg, June 2007

The Party Army was back in action after a successful outing (hehe) at the Respect Gaymes last weekend (Hancot was in Spain, hence no match report). This time, we took part again in the Antira St. Pauli Tournament. I was really looking forward to this, as I really enjoyed my first one, 2 years ago at the Antira St. Pauli 2005 (link to my report of that tournament).

We set off mid-Friday afternoon, with two Israelis, Eyal and Oded in tow, who would prove to be among the stars of the tournament, playing it in the true spirit (but with maybe a bit too much skill for the normal participant ;) ), I lost count of the number of teams they played for, and the number of goals they scored (and the number of chances Oded missed :D ) The journey was relaxed as we had to wait for another Israeli, Bilouh the tent-killer, in Hamburg, and we got stuck into the beers and exchanged gestures on the Autobahn with our Babelszwerge friends; the heavy rain en route however was a portent of what was to come...

We got there fairly late, at around 9, to find the party already in full swing and the grounds (St. Pauli's training ground) already well-filled with tents, many more than 2 years ago. As it was still light and not raining too much, we pitched our tents (hehe) and I suddenly realised that the kiddy tent my parents had got me 16 years ago wasn't going to cut the mustard. At all. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was the smallest and most rubbish tent in the whole place.

Off we headed to the clubhouse to meet old friends, make new ones (a big hello to Sheff U Gareth and the 2 crazy girls from Finland who hitchhiked the whole way 'just for the fun'!) and get drunk on Astra. Some cheesy music was supplied, but I was there for the beer. Then the rain REALLY started coming down. Torrentially, I kid you not. We headed to bed at around 2.30am (I think), Bilouh sleeping chez moi as he'd nowhere else to go, and even in the dark it was clear that pools of water had gathered. He managed to stick it out for 3 hours despite having no sleeping bag and lying on a small stream, then he disappeared. I was soaked and shivered until about 7am, a mop-up with my t-shirt hardly doing any good, then I decided that the clubhouse was a better idea. This guy had the best bed in the house though, on the counter of the outdoor beer stand!



Breakfast of rolls was already being prepared, a few coffees warmed me and woke me up a bit, then i had the misfortune to run into the Sportklub Friedhofstribuene crew (just kidding). Cue rounds of beer and Sekt, and stupid me tried to keep up the drinking pace with Peezn, Wolfi and co, something I'd soon regret...

So, onto the action, to be honest I didn't keep a note of the scores as I usually do, and strangely enough, given my alcohol consumption, I can't even remember a lot of the games, so a big thanks to Endi for providing me with scores:

Saturday:

Group matches:

TeBe Party Army - Herri Norte Taldea / Athletic Bilbao 3:1




Some silky skills on display...


And some poor misses ;)

An astonishing start for the Party Army, a convincing win, something unheard of, good football, ditto, thanks to Matze, Oded, Eyal et moi, although the Bilbaoers were somewhat 'pedestrian'. Z.toni moaned about the substitutions being somewhat chaotic, but he's never happy. We had something like 13 players and at least 4 fans, so I only played for a bit.


TeBe Party Army - VIF Kladen / Valerenga Oslo 2:3

Typical TeBe scene, a mad goalmouth scramble

So we succumbed to the big (drinking) Norwegians, who were weaker than 2 years ago and we could have got a draw if someone had been a bit more clinical (*cough* *Oded*) Their late winning goal had a hint of controversy about it, but as a spectator I saw it going through a hole in the net. Had a good chat with these boys, though one of them later in the Jolly Roger REALLY didn't need to tell me that he'd shit himself during one of the games on the pitch... Oh, and I didn't play this one, wanted some others to play.


TeBe Party Army - Antifa Bergamo / Atalanta Bergamo 2:2

The beautiful slide

The not-so-beautiful slide

We really should have won this, sloppiness causing us to twice throw away a lead. I scored one of the goals of the tournament, if I do say so myself. I ran the length of the pitch down the middle, screaming for Eyal, who had broken through down the right, to knock it into the middle. Cue a cracking cross, a slide from me and a wonderful goal. Cue me being knackered for the rest of the game and substituting myself.


Play-Off:
TeBe Party Army - Schwarze Geier / Eintracht Frankfurt 2:0 ? 3:1?



Don't remember too much about this game, we cruised it, Matze mopped everything up in defence and sent balls to all corners of the grounds, and Bart got a bad injury after a clumsy high tackle, the Nike imprint being left in his thigh.

I also played a few times for the Friedhofstribuene, one of these games unfortunately being a heavy defeat to eventual runners-up, St. Pauli Skinheads.

The rest of the games that day, that were due to take place after a break, were called off due to another torrential downpour, so the drinking began in earnest once more. We wanted to go to a talk by an English antifascist about England during and after WW2, but it was packed out, good to see. It was at this stage that my tent finally died a death, Bilouh managing to rip an unfixable hole in it. I was actually relieved, as we'd found a disused house with veranda just behind us, which was a) dry and, err, b) dry.

Dead tent, even more dead next day when scavengers tore it apart for the groundsheet!


The wonderful dry house

We finally got our act together at about 8ish, and after I'd had a bottle of wine, all headed into the centre (well St. Pauli anyway) for some musical entertainment. Imagine our surprise when our train wouldn't move for 20 minutes, and when we got there, lines of riot police had blocked us going anywhere except through an isolated industrial estate. Apparently there was ademo going on nearby at the same time against a Moevenpick restaurant being built in the nearby Schanzenpark, and the police didn't want us joining in.

Welcome to Hamburg

Fine by us, we just wanted a few beers and to play some table football, so we managed to sneak off and eventually find the Jolly Roger, an FC St. Pauli pub, where the Norwegians kept me entertained. We then took an extended dander round the area, including the Reeperbahn, despite the reluctance of nikita and G. who had been there before and weren't impressed, before we finally got to the Rote Flora, where the 'official' party was taking place. Not my cup of tea when it comes to politics in there, but there were 3 floors, a chilled atmosphere without and within, and some cool drum n bass.



I think we got home at about 6ish/6.30am, it was certainly bright and the sun was shining, but I was well gone by this stage, 36 hours of solid drinking having taken its toll. So it probably wasn't a wise idea to sit down with the Bordeaux boys for a bit of a chat in French, while drinking pastis at the same time. Goodness knows when I went to bed. It must have been around 7.30/8am. Not a good idea when I was supposed to be in the kitchen helping out at 10am. In fact, I finally woke up/was woken up at 12.30pm, having missed much of my kitchen duty (for which I rightly got an earful from z.toni and Endi later) and 2 TeBe matches. I eventually did go in and offer my services, but most stuff was already done, so all I did was help wash up for a bit and chat with the others. Sorry to the Fanladen for being so drunken and crap. As the not-so-good book says, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

Thus I walked around like a zombie for much of the day, only drinking a beer with Ibrox out of duty, it was no pleasure whatsoever. Conversely, I seemed to play better when in a state of delayed drunkenness... Here's the Sunday round-up, of what I can remember and was told, which ain't much:

Sunday:

2nd Round:

TeBe Party Army - Ultra St.Pauli 3:1

I was in the land of nod, so no report and no photos

Quarter-Final:

TeBe Party Army - Republica Internationale / Leeds 0:2

Land of nod. I dreamt a good game. According to Endi "disastrous performance, especially from me"

Playing For Places (where apparently, we were put in the wrong pot)

TeBe Party Army - Verrückte Köpfe / Wacker Innsbruck 3:0? 4:0?



Hancot was finally aboard again, if only for the last few minutes, and managed to score a goal! Much to the chagrin of big Ibrox, who thought I was going to pass wide when through, only to send the ball trickling past him in the space he'd left anticipating my pass, the eejit. Another convincing performance.


TeBe Party Army - Friedhofstribüne 2:0



Yeah! My favourite game of the tournament, we fixed it so we could play against each other. I'd already played for both, as had Felix, so we decided we'd wear both teams' shirts and swap with one another half way through the game. I started with FHT, and pretty much played the whole match, the organisers blowing the final whistle early even though they'd promised us longer. Eyal scored a good individual goal, I remember, and Endi finished off a lovely team move. As for me, I missed a great chance, putting a 'powerful' header over the bar after a cracking cross from the right. I wasn't happy. But it was great fun.


Match for 5th Place:

...was supposed to be against the Goettinger, but we decided not to play against each other, so we both shared 5th place!

So I wandered off to help the Viennese Friedhofstribuene; and played my best game. I even scored the winning goal! A lucky one, I was dribbling nowhere, when suddenly a small gap in the middle appeared, off I went, and slotted it home at the near post. G. said it was a nice goal anyway, and was peeved off that I scored, so that was praise enough for me!

As for the Party Army goalscorers overall, this is as good as Endi could remember, Eyal and Oded can hopefully help, but they really scored too many to remember:

Eyal und Odet mehrere....
Endi 2 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marc 2
Tobi 1 oder 2
Matze?
Benni 1



And then all that was left was for the group photo, and prizegiving. The prizegiving is normally an amusing affair, with each team bringing their own prizes to give and each team choosing what they want. This time, for such a high placing, we got a cool glass trophy, donated by Ultras Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Our injured star, hospitalised for much of the day, went up on crutches to get our cup from Pauli's president, Littmann:





We slowly packed up, hung around for a while, said our goodbyes, then hit the road. 2 minutes later and we were in Maccy Ds stuffing our faces. Our Israeli friends were delighted by their Happy Meal prizes and now have an impressive list of German phrases, including

"Ich habs" and

"Ich bin ein Ogre" :D

The journey home was quiet, all the lightweights nodding off in the back; I chatted away with the driver to keep her company, poor German schlager our only other company.

All in all, I thought it was a great tournament: it's certainly the friendliest of any I play, there's a great atmosphere, and the rain didn't stop anyone enjoying themselves. I've one or 2 small criticisms, but now's not the time.

And if you made it this far, well done! Feel free to correct me with regard to any of the scorers, and if you want any photos removed. A massive Thank You to all the people from St. Pauli who worked so hard behind the scenes to make everything such a success, from the organisation, to the food and drink, it really was appreciated. A BIG Thank You to all the Party Army who took part and supported, including the young fraction, you know who you are, hope you enjoyed it! And to the Friedhofstribuene boys and girls, you really are a bad influence on me, but I had a ball!

"Sportklub Here!TeBe There! We Are Drinking Everywhere!"

See you next year!

Another Tournament report on Lila Laune.

TeBe Party Army

For those of you who maybe didn't get a chance to see it in Hamburg, here's the cool video some Party Army fans produced to show our fan scene:

TeBe Party Army

Zu meinem Profil hinzufügen | Mehr Videos

TeBe Party Army On Tour - Magdeburg June 2007

FC Magdeburg 1:1 FC St. Pauli, 2nd June 2007

With the Oberliga season over, it was time for another Party Army excursion, this time organised and led by some of the older, lapsed members. As many of our number support/ have sympathy with St. Pauli and many of their fans, we decided to make a trip to Magdeburg to watch first versus second, in what we hoped would be a promotion cracker. (Un)fortunately, St. Pauli secured promotion last weekend, but FC Magdeburg needed to win to clinch the second promotion spot, and so Pauli could spoil the party. A tense game, and capacity crowd, was guaranteed.

We took the Regional train to Magdeburg, and I got on at Alex with several others. Our number was swelled with each station, making 15 of us in all. The crew was very mixed in terms of drinkers/ non-drinkers, but the atmosphere was good, this being the first time all of us had got togther in a wee while. The mood was helped by a certain magazine worker's 'party bag' full of little mini spirit bottles, which were passed around freely all trip! Some were the worse for wear due to late-night partying, eg Def Jux, but he was the exception...

Most of us were dressed 'casually', ie no colours, which proved to be a good thing once we got near Magdeburg (MD), when the FCM fans started to get on, some dodgy-looking (right-wing) fans among them. The somewhat negative impression that some of had about elements of FCM's support, despite us having a fan in our midst, was not dispelled on our walk to the stadium. Everything remained peaceful, the city was awash with Blue and White, singing, chanting fans everywhere, but I still sensed an uneasy atmosphere. Thor Steinar clothing was in evidence everywhere, including this delightful hoodie:



At least 2 FCM security guards/ stewards had Thor Steinar clothes on too.

We got to the ground though without a problem. Tbh, it looks very lego-like and a bit ugly from the outside, and is very typical of modern stadia inside (see Graz, see Derby, see Stoke etc) and the pillars are unfortunate, but I have to say, it generated a good atmosphere, and it was nice to finally be in a proper stadium full of fans (Linfield excepted).





Endi went to get our tickets, we waited around, chatted with a few old familiar faces (inc. Babelszwergen) and then went to take our place in the terracing in one corner of the stadium for away fans. St. Pauli fans make some noise, 90 minutes long, respect.



FCM fans, imo, were very quiet, in the first half at least, they really made some noise when they were pushing in the second half, but only now and again. I guess that's the nature of being an away fan, you always sing more and louder when you're away, part of the minority siege mentality. FCM fans did have a class choreo before kick-off, though.



Onto the game itself. It was a very open affair, and I enjoyed it, lots of goalscoring opportunities for both sides, althought the finishing left a lot to be desired, and ultimately cost Magdeburg promotion. There were lots of misplaced passes and scrappy fouls, tiredness I guess onthe part of St. Pauli, nerves on the part of FCM. Pauli took the lead in the 2nd half with a lovely-worked goal, a header from a cross from 6 yards finishing off a slick passing move.



This jerked FCM and their fans into life, and they equalised with a header from a corner 10 minutes later. Then they pushed and pushed for a winner, leaving gaps at the back with Pauli could and should have exploited. The FCM fans were noticably quiet for the last 10 minutes or so, which I put down to nerves, knowing they needed a goal to guarantee promotion, they came very close on a number of occasions, a few shots flashing wide, and Pauli's keeper making an excellent save, the game finished 1-1, and Osnabruck's win flashed up on the scoreboard shortly after, confirming that FCM hadn't made it. Cue my 'song of the day', much to the chagrin of the more extreme FCM fans:

"Schade, Magdeburger Jungs
Schade, Magdeburger Jungs
Schade, Magdeburger Jungs
Aufstieg nur fuer uns!" [shame, magdeburg boys, promotion only for us!]

A huge line of riot police, dressed 'raggedly' and looking much older and more out of condition than normal riot cops (presumably the 'normalos' had been called to Schwerin and Rostock for the G8, and had taken all the good uniforms, leaving the rest of the old men to take what was left, making them look like a rag-tag bunch) formed a chain across our goalmouth, blocking the dodgy wannabe hooligans from having a go at the 'crusty scum'. It was an impressive sight, and tbh, I'm glad they were there.




I was even more glad after the game that the police had got their as in gear. Magdeburg not going up was the result that we wanted but secretly dreaded, as we knew the scum element of their fans would be out for blood; we at first thought we could hitch a ride with a Leipzig bus to a safer train station before continuing our journey home, but there weren't enough spaces, so that left us being part of a police 'Kessel', the police surrounding all the Pauli fans travelling by train and escorting us to an isolated station. It was all very surreal, we set off about 50 minutes after the game ended, once the FCM fans had dispersed. We were then led across a deserted industrial/ run-down residential landscape, far out of reach of any hooligans, who the police had cordoned off far far away, all we heard was occasional chanting and the odd firework being let off. On the other hand, there were sporadic groups of genuine FCM fans, who sportingly applauded us on our journey home, and the compliment was returned.

We arrived at a tram stop; the only problem was, there were maybe 800 fans and only 3 trams. Some of our crew managed to get on the first trams, and we had to wait. Panic set in, as we realised we only had 15 more minutes to get our connecting train, otherwise we would have had to wait in an isolated one-horse town in the arse end of nowhere for 2 hours. We thought about phoning a taxi, but we'd no chance, all the roads to us were blocked off, and we were unreachable.

Fortunately, more trams arrived just in time, and a quick sprint up the hill to the station platform saw us make our connecting train in time. We arrived in Burg, where we had to change, and, straving and thirsty after 4+ hours without anything to eat, and a bit of time on our hands, the Berlin/Potsdam crew (the Babelszwerge travelled back with us) descended en masse to the local Rewe to get beer/ munchies, Endi stuffing himself with Bouletten! We got back to the platform, where we were warned by the police that a 'storm' of FCM fans were going to get off our train, so we made our way to the front carriage. A storm it certainly wasn't, but 1 brave policeman managed to hold off a couple of lippy and drunk FCM fans looking for trouble, respect!



We got on and our mood was much better, we'd survived, no more stress, heading back home, and with plenty of supplies and above all, drink, we could let our hair down! The toilet beside us was broken and Joerg decided the sign would be nice for his home, so no-one was aware that it was simply closed and not merely occupied, leaving z.Toni to act as DB official, telling everyone of the toilet problem, as well as having to inform the same people that the automatic door was broken as well. Joerg was accosted by some remaining FCM fans in another carraige on account of his blue and white tracksuit top; and many jokes and stories were told and shared, and we got back to Berlin safe and sound. The only slight spoiler was a typically German drunk Magdeburg fan who got off with us at Alex and wanted to fight with one of our number, before racially abusing one of our number; he was lucky he didn't get his head kicked in, his mate screaming at him to wise the f*ck up.

All in all, it was a great trip, probably my favourite Party Army away trip of the season, and it was great to see a lot of the Old Guard all back together again.