Sankt Pauli

Today (Sunday) I went to my first St. Pauli soccer, sorry, football game. St. Pauli is a skunky, punky little Hamburg 'hood that has it's own soccer, sorry, football club. Their symbol is the skull and crossbones, and they wear it over black or dark brown. They have their own stadium, a few seating areas, but mostly standing areas. The players wear black uniforms with a sort of bad-ass, pointy typeface, and when they come onto the field for the first time, the stadium speakers blast Hells Bells by AC/DC. Awesome! It's a really exciting start.

Which of course turns out to be a bit of a let down, as most soccer, sorry, football games are a total yawn fests. Sure, there are usually a few seconds of excitement sprinkled throughout the match, especially when the teams are good... but down here in the whatever league, there's a lot of "oh! oh! aaaaaaah..." which is what it sounds like when he shoots! but doesn't score. The St. Pauli team is currently in fifteenth place in some extremely minor league, so it isn't exactly The Bulls with Jordan at the helm. Today's game ended with a zero to zero tie. Exciting.

I ordered a fischbrötchen, which is a little sandwich made out of a stale bread roll (brötchen) and a cold piece of fish (fisch). It's served by an old man of the sea with two of the dirtiest paws I've ever seen in my life, who wraps your sandwich up in the thinest of paper napkins and wishes you a "Buon apetit!" with no sense of irony whatsoever. There are two mystery sauce condiments in extra slimy bottles, and you get all this for a mere €2.50. Cheap! And pretty delicious, actually. I had two.

But the most interesting thing about the St. Pauli team is the brand they've put together for themselves. They stand out from every other soccer, sorry, football club with their super punk/pirate attitude. It's got a real blue collar, underdog feel to it that inspires the sort of noisy patriotism that is blind to minor faults like hardly ever scoring or winning a game, and stale fish sandwiches. Still, you really get the feeling that these guys would play their hearts out even if it was pouring rain and the other team was all David Beckhams. And the Pauli players don't do that thing that so many soccer, sorry, football players do: collapse in fake agony at the slightest bump so as to inspire a particular call from the ref. The other team was falling and wailing like a bunch of pansy-ass sissy boys, while our guys got up every time and got on with it. That's the way it oughta be, and for that, they have my unyielding devotion.

And the fischbrötchen helped too.