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 dipping his hand into a paper bag full of chewy red sweets. Just like the bag, each sweet was branded with the 1. FSV Mainz 05 logo.
He heard my accent as I spoke to my friend. He asked where I was from. “Manchester,” I said. “United or City” he asked. “United”, I answered, a little shadily, due to the club’s recent bad form.
It was cold. Conversation moved quickly onto matters at hand. Dressed head to foot in Mainz merchandise, including a club hat from which his grey hair poked out from underneath, he outlined who to look out for on the pitch during the match ahead. His club’s Ivorian central midfielder Jean-Philippe Gbamin and French central defender Abdou Diallo were the star players, he said, as his breath rose visibly in the bleak November air.
His grandson, who walked alongside him, was a fan of the Premier League and struck up conversation about England’s top division. He spoke with enthusiasm about one team in particular: Manchester City.
Typical.
Moving the conversation on again, the old man questioned why I was in Mainz in the middle of winter.
It was a valid point. Why was I – plus four of my friends – freezing to death, about to watch two out-of-form Bundesliga teams? Well, £20 return flights to Cologne from Manchester, plus a cheap train ride along the Rhine to Mainz itself, was all the encouragement required.
Hence our imminent arrival at the 34,000-capacity stadium on a bitter winter Saturday afternoon. Opened in July 2011, the Opel Arena, which sits in a field of wheat beyond the houses on the edge of town, wouldn’t look out of place wedged between a Halfords or TK Maxx in a depressing British retail park.
The matchday experience at 1. FSV Mainz 05
As we were about to head our separate gates, he added that he and his grandson both chew the sweets for good luck when their team, ‘the O5ers’, are on the attack. He passed me a few and told me to do the same. We said goodbye and parted ways. I turned to my four friends who were walking beside us and behind. We wandered to find the ticket office and pick up our tickets. Then we entered the ground through a gate behind a goal at the opposite end of the pitch to the where the visiting fans from Cologne were making plenty of noise.
The game was about to kick off. I was already chewing on the sweet, so I guiltily washed it down with a cold can of Kölsch and watched the two teams, 1. FSV Mainz 05 and 1. FC Köln, assume their on-field positions.
The Bruchwegstadion, where Mainz played until the move to the Opel Arena in 2011, was small and close to the centre of town. The new stadium has modern facilities and room for growth, should Mainz, however unlikely it is, trouble Borussia Dortmund or Bayern Munich for Germany’s domestic honours.
On the roof of the new stadium there are solar panels supplying power to the ground. There are areas for events: large function rooms where you might go for your work’s Christmas party. It’s very functional. Inside, there are no bells and whistles. The charm is delivered by the fans with drums, twirling scarves and a parade of ticker-tape falling from the rafters. The noise comes from the voices of the locals and not overhead tannoys. The supporters, all on their feet, are central the matchday experience.
At the Opel Arena the seats are removed in the stands behind each goal, leaving shallow steps from pitch level to the top row. A ticket to the end terrace grants you entry to the whole stand. This means you can watch with your mates. You can drink beer too if you load some Euros onto a club card. This saves you from queues when it’s your round, or when you’re hungry and it’s Bratwurst time.
The crowd noise may be manufactured, but it’s loud and continuous, and as we found out, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is synonymous with clubs in Germany, not just Liverpool.
On the pitch, Peter Stöger’s Köln side had the better of the first half, building nicely in their 4-5-1 formation, with Sehrou Guirassy having the best chance but hitting his shot high and wide. As half-time approached, the home side, against the run of play, were awarded a penalty. While there are too many distractions in a free-for-all terrace to see why the penalty was given, it was duly scored by Daniel Brosinski.
The red card awarded to Giulio Donati on 62 minutes was shady too. None of us saw that, either, but it made BT Sport’s Twitter feed. The game ended 1-0, Köln still rock bottom on a stone-cold Saturday in November and six points from safety.
The final whistle blew. The locals know best, it seems. As predicted, Jean-Philippe Gbamin was the standout, not just for his dyed blonde hair, but his control of the midfield. Diallo excelled too, showing why the Monaco youth product played ten times for the club before departing for the Bundesliga.
We left the ground and walked through the crowd the same way we’d arrived when I was chatting to the man and his grandson. Then we hopped on the free shuttle bus back to the train station in the centre of Mainz. After waiting in an Irish bar for an hour we walked in the dark to the station and found our platform. We boarded our return train to Cologne (our base for the weekend), a city famous for its beer, huge gothic cathedral and for being Europe’s most flooded major city.
Cologne is a stone’s throw from Leverkusen, Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund, Duisburg and Bochum. Mainz and Frankfurt are a little further away. Its location means the city is the perfect stop-off for a weekend watching the Bundesliga. Especially if you like your beer and can navigate the regional train networks, which are free on match days if you present the inspector with a match ticket.
Less than 48 hours in Germany and home time beckoned. But cheap Ryanair flights mean getting up at the crack of dawn. No problem, you’d think 6am flights from Cologne to Manchester on a Monday morning aren’t usually full, wouldn’t you?
Think again.