ON THE LEFT-WING IN GERMANY | DEFINITELY MORE THAN A GAME

The ‘kult’ that is St Pauli

Home matches are like a big party

HOW does a soccer team that has never won a trophy in its 100 years of existence, only ever played in the German Premier League (the Bundesliga) on five occasions become a cult team with over 11 million Germans claiming to be fans of the club and over 200 supporters’ clubs spread across the world - including Ireland?
It was in the mid-1980s that FC St Pauli began its transition from a traditional football club into a ‘kult’ club. The club turned the location of its ground in the docks area of the town, bordering Hamburg’s notorious Reeperbahn, the centre of the city’s nightlife and its red-light district to its advantage, giving it headlines and an edge that saw an alternative fan scene growing with a very distinct left-wing political identity in a mainland Europe blighted by neo-Nazi and racist gangs. With the rebellious politics (they adopted the distinctive skull and crossbones emblem alongside the club’s official crest), the fans cultivated a rocking party atmosphere full of energy and fun.
The St Pauli district has seen an influx of foreigners, students, squatters and ‘alternatives’ move into the district, it has a very high unemployment rate and is one of the poorest districts of Hamburg. Watching St Pauli play brings a distraction to their problems and the home matches are like a big party. Here the Turkish greengrocer drinks his beer (yes, you can drink in the Millerntor stadium), standing with a lawyer on one side and a punk on the other side.
St Pauli prides itself on being different from other clubs in that it is owned by the membership, where it’s one member/one vote and in no danger of being taken over by moneybags like the Glazers at Manchester United or Sullivan at West Ham. St Pauli also enjoys a certain fame for the left-leaning character of its supporters. Most of the team’s fans regard themselves as anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-sexist, something that has brought them into conflict with neo-Nazis and hooligans at away games.
The organisation has adopted an outspoken stance against racism, fascism, sexism, and homophobia and has embodied this position in its constitution.
St Pauli supporters can regularly be seen not just on the terraces but in the ranks of demonstrators in Hamburg protesting about housing, defending squatting.
The centre of fan activity is the Fanladen St Pauli, located in the Brigittenstr, not far away from the Millerntor stadium (capacity 24,000).
The fanladen help visting supporters and are responsible for looking after the fan scene. It is the key co-ordination centre and one of the central meeting points for the fans as well as the home of many fan organisations and committees.
The fanladen are independent of the club but  on top of what’s happening because members are also members of committees within the club itself.
This close co-operation of the independent fanladen and the club is one of the key structures that make FC St Pauli different from other clubs. The fanladen organise travel to all away games, special programmes for young fans below the age of 16, tournaments for supporters and programmes for young female fans. The club prides itself on having the largest number of female fans in all of German football.
In 2002, advertisements for the men’s magazine Maxim were removed from the team’s stadium, in response to fans’ protests over the adverts’ sexist depictions of women.
The strength of the fans was seen 1999 when they forced the club to change the name of the ground back to Millentor after discovering that Wilhelm Koch, the former club president the stadium was named after in 1970, had been a member of the Nazi Party. And when the club had plans to build a state-of the-art, all-seater ground in 1989, the fans organised public discussions, produced leaflets, held demos and at one match the whole ground remained silent for the first five minutes in order to show how the atmosphere would have changed if the all-seater stadium was built. This resulted in another victory for the fans.
Over the years the strength of the fans has resulted in reduced admission for the unemployed and the installation of a kindergarten in the stadium where parents can leave their children before kick-off.
The club’s fans have also been active on behalf of people outside the club and in a spirit of internationalism. In 2005, the club, the team and the fans initiated the ‘Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli’ campaign (‘Living with Water’), which collects money for water-dispensers for schools in Cuba and for clean water in Rwanda. The idea came from the players after staying in Cuba for a pre-season training camp.
The club also hosted the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup, an alternative football World Cup run by FIFI, the Federation of International Football Independents, that unrecognised national football teams like Greenland, Tibet and Zanzibar could take part in. The home side took the field as the ‘Republic of St Pauli’.
The Ultra St Pauli (USP) bring people being held in asylum camps near Hamburg to some home matches to show solidarity with them.
And the club has stopped using TNT for its mail services as the company in Germany does not adhere to minimum wage standards for some of its workers.
Michael ‘Dixie’ Dickson, one of the leading lights in the Dublin branch of the worldwide St Pauli supporters’ network and a regular at St Pauli matches in Germany, says:
“What other team enters the pitch to AC/DC’s ‘Hells Bells’ and celebrates each goal with Blur’s ‘Song 2’,when the terracing becomes one big moshpit?
“With tickets starting at €12 it’s no wonder the ground is sold out for every match.”
And Dixie has more reason than his love of football for which to be grateful to St Pauli fans’ international solidarity - when he was jailed in Germany in 2002 for attacks on the British Army barracks in Osnabrück in 1996, St Pauli fans held up banners in the stadium in his support, plastering stickers calling for his release and holding benefit gigs, whilst also visiting him in prison.
Now returning the support he once got from them, Dixie says:
“This year, with the club back in the Bundesliga, you would image all is rosy but it wouldn’t be St Pauli if there wasn’t a new protest going on. This campaign is called ‘Sozialromantiker’. It’s basically come about due to the club going back on its word on motions that were passed at congress (and are therefore binding).”
The main points for the fans are:-

• 90 minutes’ football without being a commercial event;
• A time slot of 5 to 10 minutes before kick-off just for the fans’ acoustics;
• No contracts with sponsors suspected to be fascist, racist or homophobic or connected with wartime economy;
• No sale of the stadium’s name to corporate commercial interests;
• No commercial advertisements that could distract from the match;
• A dialogue between supporters and club/management on questions of the implementation of these guidelines;
• Distribution of tickets in way that respects the interests of the club members.

The fan groups also took issue with the following developments:-

• The brand new main stand consists of 50% business seats;
• There are twice as many corporate boxes than planned originally;
• A strip club was allowed to rent a corporate box in which scantily-clothed or naked girls pole danced during the match;
• Suddenly the team line-up is presented by a sponsor;
• Corporate interests seem to be taking precedence over fans’ protests about sexist advertising, sponsors’ messages on goal nets obstructing clear views and other corporate and multinational advertising dominating inside the ground.

So, all in all, there are still interesting times ahead at St Pauli but, as always, the fans are up for a fight to preserve everything that St Pauli means to them.
It is more than a game - it’s a way of life.