Bundesliga Fans 2012/13 ai??i?? A Tribute to German Football Fans

Bundesliga fans are famous for their support, and with reason. Here is a tribute to the best of German football fans in 2012/13.

Summer means trophies, rumors, and a slew of end-of-season awards for players, managers, transfers, quotes, matches, goals, bookings, penalties, and anything else journalists can think of. It is an impressive list. But amidst all this on-pitch scrutiny, what’s often overlooked are the outstanding moments from the stands.

The Bundesliga, in particular, is famous for its fan support. From Borussia Dortmund’s battle-ready Yellow Wall to the carnival atmosphere of Mainz 05, these fans are the lifeblood of football clubs and a team’s proverbial 12th man. And sometimes they are even more than that. Because life is not always about sport — but sport is so often about life.

So from the hilarious to the heartfelt, the brave to the bizarre, this is a tribute to the best of Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga fans in 2012/13.

Bundesliga culture and the 12:12 silent protests

On December 12, 2012 the DFL passed 16 new proposals on stadium safety, including: increased training for stewards, expanded CCTV surveillance, and bag and sobriety checks upon entry. 31 of Germany’s 36 professional clubs supported these new measures. But the same could not be said of Bundesliga fans. For weeks in the lead-up to December 12th, fan groups organized protests that saw the first 12 minutes and 12 seconds of Bundesliga matches being met with an eerie near-silence from full stadium crowds.

These 12:12 silent protests included not only ultras, but many supporters who all found fault with the DFL’s security proposals. First, said proposals had been discussed behind closed doors, excluding Bundesliga fans from the decision-making process. Moreover, the DFL was introducing these (unnecessary) new measures due to political pressure, after a summer of public hysteria about violence in football — but in fact, police reports showed no real increase in any such problems. The upshot of it all seemed to be that football fans were being demonized as hooligans, just so politicians could score points.

“Today, a football game is a family event,” said Thomas Weinmann, a fan representative of Borussia MAi??nchengladbach who wanted to set the record straight. “The atmosphere in the stadiums is great, and mainly peaceful.”

There were those who feared that Germany might go the English route, with the security crackdown leading to a loss of the lively Bundesliga fan culture. But the final DFL list of proposals included nothing even remotely so threatening. All told, the Bundesliga’s defining features — standing terraces, cheap tickets, 50+1 member ownership, and fan choreo — remain well-preserved.

So what did the 12:12 silent protests really achieve? Not just media coverage, but the spirit of active participation, which is as characteristically Bundesliga as cheap tickets and beer. The DFL may have set a dangerous precedent by succumbing to political pressure, but the fans showed that the Bundesliga at its grassroots will not be so readily pushed around. The disciplined, determined, and wide-reaching nature of the 12:12 protests is a testament to a healthy fan culture. While the DFL was pondering physical safety in stadiums, the fans themselves were working on a different kind of security — that of the football experience itself.

Chocolates for Werder Bremen

On February 23rd, Bayern Munich thrashed Werder Bremen 6-1. PrAi??dl was shown a straight red in the match, and Gebre Selassie scored an own goal. Though Bremen did force Bayern to concede their first goal in two months, it was overall an evening to forget for the Green-Whites.

The next day, Bremen players left training to find chocolates and hand-written notes on their cars courtesy of some kind, anonymous fan. Consolation, for a painful defeat in Bavaria. A quirky sort of encouragement, and a curious gesture of compassion.

Often after astounding losses, the instinct is to blame. We pin our hopes to a team, and it is only human to be angry when they fail us. Just take a look at the vitriol that floods social media sites week in, week out. Perhaps sometimes fans forget that the players, our heroes, our idols, are only human, too, after all. But that anonymous Werder Bremen fan remembered — and with a random act of kindness, reminded us that it is right to console, to commiserate in defeat, just as it is to celebrate together in triumph.

Eintracht Braunschweig’s 1967-meter-long scarf

It’s one of the more bizarre fan projects you’ll hear about: 938 Eintracht Braunschweig fans joined forces to knit a 1967-meter-long blau-gelber scarf. 1,178 separate piece-scarves. 5,184 stitches per piece. 6 million stitches in all.

Why? For the record books ai??i?? not even close. For charity ai??i?? maybe. But mostly, for love of their club ai??i?? who, at the time, were on the cusp of regaining Bundesliga status after 28 years away from the top flight. So bizarre as this expression of support may be, the joy is all one and the same: we do what we do because we love this game.

St. Pauli’s fight against homophobia

St. Pauli v. Paderbon - Fight Homophobia 2012 — St. Pauli fans’ anti-homophobia choreo

On Matchday 27 in the 2.Bundesliga, FC St. Pauli drew 2-2 against SC Paderborn thanks to a 90th-minute equalizer from goalkeeper Philipp Tschauner. For this match, St. Pauli ultras called on supporters to stand against homophobia and “obsolete notions of masculinity” where gay is synonymous with weak. In conjunction with the anti-fascist Alerta Network, therefore, home fans organized anti-homophobia choreo before kick-off and lit up the stands with sparklers, balloons, rainbow signs and banners.

It sounds and looks like a feel-good event, until you remember what the demonstration is up against. It is 2013, fifteen years after Justin Fashanu’s suicide and twelve years after Marcus Urban abandoned football for the stress it put on his personal life. And yet this February, Robbie Rogers left England and Leeds United saying that it is “impossible to come out” as a footballer. Within the sporting world, times change so slow.

The DFB, various Bundesliga players, and even the German Chancellor have urged gay footballers to come out in the fight against homophobia. This encouragement may be well-meaning, but it is rather like trying to take down a wall by planting some ivy in the cracks. Abuse the ivy all you want for not growing fast enough; at the end of the day, the problem is still the wall. And in football, that wall is homophobia and lack of acceptance. Asking a player to come out under such hostile conditions is at best a catch-22. At worst, it is stupidly naive.

This is where Theo Zwanziger, Angela Merkel, and Mario Gomez can learn a thing or two from The Buccaneers. Because rather than waiting for the ivy to grow, St. Pauli fans took a proactive grassroots approach to fighting homophobia — by generating an accepting atmosphere first, thus tackling the wall and loosening it brick by brick.

But they shouldn’t mix politics with sport, some might say. Sport is an arena of pure competition, devoid of the mess and complications that plague the rest of our days. And in many ways, it is. Because sport is an ideal: the perfection of the human body, honed in strength and speed and control, the finest exhibitions of grace and courage — living, bleeding art. Football is an expression of life as we desire it to be. Sharp, strong, successful. But also fair, and fun, and beautiful. It is the dirty reality of life straining for transcendence, a kind of faith that is as much football’s gift to us as goals and idols and collective memories.

It’s a kind of aspiration that means football doesn’t have to be just about winning, or aggression, or masculinity. Football can also be about joy and solidarity, and whatever we dream of as ideal. There is a racist, sexist, homophobic tribalism that marks the ugly face of fan support — but there is also a flip side, of unity and collective hope. And this, one might say, is football at its best.

Tags: Bundesliga Fans

For The Love Of Bundesliga ai??i?? A Tribute To German Football Fans

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