Please share:In this guest post, reader Andrew Williams describes the fan culture at Jurgen Klopp’s former club, Mainz, as Bundesliga football, beer and Bratwurst take centre stage in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate. In Mainz, on the brisk walk from the bus stop to the Opel Arena, the home supporter I was next to in the crowd was […]
Category Archives: Germany
Football Travel: 1. FC Magdeburg
Please share:In a recent podcast, we discussed the England-Germany football rivalry with historian Dr. Christoph Wagner from the German football website, 120 Minuten. In this post, Wagner returns to give us his tips on visiting 1. FC Magdeburg in Germany. Magdeburg: the city won’t tell travellers anything apart from history. It was in 1945 when British […]
Podcast: The History of England v Germany
Please share: We discuss the fascinating historical rivalry of two of football’s historical powerhouses, one-time world champion and codifier of the association rules game, England, and four-time Weltmeister Germany. Our guest is Dr. Christoph Wagner, football historian and blogger for 120 Minuten. He takes us through the roots of football in Germany and we discuss […]
Podcast: Groundhopping in North-Rhine Westphalia
Please share: We’re joined by serial groundhopper Matt Rayns for a tour around Germany’s most populous region, Nordrhein-Westfalen – North-Rhine Westphalia – which is home to 18 million people and a whole host of football clubs. We discuss the big names – Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayer Leverkusen and FC Schalke 04 – and also […]
Football Travel: Berlin City Guide
Please share: Berlin. The very name conjures images from history. It’s also home to a number of football clubs, including Hertha BSC at the historic Olympiastadion, the eclectic 1.FC Union Berlin, former Stasi club BFC Dynamo and even Germany’s oldest club, BFC Germania. Here’s our football city guide to the lively German capital. Germany’s football […]
Football Travel: BFC Dynamo
Please share: Tucked behind the eclectic Mauerpark is a very attractive sports complex. In it plays something of a fallen giant. We visit BFC Dynamo. Nearly five decades of Soviet influence in East Berlin led to a shake up in the way football in the city was structured. While West Berlin’s Hertha BSC played in […]
Football Travel Podcast: FC St.Pauli and Portugal
Please share: In this month’s Football Travel Podcast we speak to one of Germany’s most famous clubs – FC St Pauli of Hamburg – and get an introduction to the domestic scene in Portugal from a local football writer: FC St Pauli, with Martin Drust (00.59): FC St Pauli’s Millerntor Stadium is a stone’s […]
Football Travel Podcast: Bundesliga and Argentina
Please share: We travel to Berlin and Buenos Aires in this episode of the Football Travel podcast: Talking Bundeliga: We catch up with the guys behind the Berlin-based From Boothferry to Germany blog to understand why the Bundesliga is so popular around the world. We also get the editor’s tip on the best place to […]
Football Travel: 1.FC Union Berlin
Please share:In the leafy suburbs of East Berlin you’ll find the ‘Stadium at the Old Forester’s House’ and the electrifying atmosphere of the ‘Iron Union’. We visit 1.FC Union Berlin. Rather like a Brothers Grimm story, I always seem to find myself walking through forests to get to football grounds in Germany. It’s the […]
Football Travel: Hertha Berlin
Please share:The Olympiastadion in Berlin is where sporting history is made. It’s where Jesse Owens incensed Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics, and where Zinedine Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi 70 years later in the World Cup final. It’s also been the home to Hertha Berlin since the foundation of the Bundesliga in 1963. There’s […]
Football Travel: Borussia Mönchengladbach
Please share: Berti Vogts, Günter Netzer, Jupp Heynckes, Rainer Bonhof– all legends in Germany – helped make Borussia Mönchengladbach the only serious opposition to Bayern Munich for much of the seventies. Due to their youthfulness the team was known as Die Fohlenelf – the eleven foals – and in the 1970s they won the […]
Football Travel: Hamburger SV
Please share: Here’s a bit of football trivia for you. Hamburger Sport-Verein – otherwise known as HSV – whose famous Rothosen (Red Shorts) have been donned by the likes of Uwe Seeler and Kevin Keegan – were the last of the founding Bundesliga clubs to be relegated. The club’s heyday was in the early ‘80s […]
Football Travel: Fortuna Düsseldorf
Please share: “You came all the way from London to watch Fortuna?” jokes the lady in the tourist office as I picked up my match ticket. Partly I had, as Düsseldorf – in the heart of Rhineland football – is a brilliant base for a Bundesliga weekend. Within an hour’s train ride you can reach […]