Following on from the recent post explaining the Leicester-Bochum link, here’s a review of the latest trip to the continent undertaken by some of our members
Pombar, delicious pombar.
Salty snacks shaped like teddy bears you can shove into your gob nine at a time from a big bag (only a Euro an’ all!) while trying to balance a six pack of Warsteiner in your other hand. Bouteflika, one of the lads in our party, is already seething.
Not only has the daft bastard already bought the German equivalent of Shandy Bass from the shop thinking he was gonna get boozy, he’s then tried to make amends by buying a six pack – which turned out to be ALCOHOL FREE.
It’s midnight and I’m in the concourse of Bochum Hauptbahnhof amid a throng of Germans clad largely in blue and white scarves – some looking moody, some looking happy, all buzzing for what’s ahead of us.
It’s a train journey.
But this ain’t your average Ivanhoe line trundler from Sileby. This is the Sonderzug – a Football Special chartered by the fans of VfL Bochum to carry them right across the country for a crunch relegation battle at 1860 Munich. We get up to the platform and it isn’t exactly the Orient Express, but it’s going to be one hell of a party over the next eight and a half hours (like I say, it’s a long way to Munich).
Pombar – the perfect meal
There’s a good contingent of about 15 English (with the majority Leicester) aboard and we’re soon into the beer and the City songbook with the German lads we know. There’s a designated disco carriage, complete with a bar, and it’s not long before we go to explore. The DJ’s playing a weird mix of German pop, Anglo-American rock and just about anything which made the charts in the 1990s. It’s a solid soundtrack as we roll through the Teutonic night, getting slowly drunker and doing our best to keep our dancing shoes on while the crazy Bochumers mosh around us.
At one point the emergency cord is pulled, leading to a mass pile-on and my poor mate Twiglet’s glasses getting smashed. He’s off his rocker and couldn’t give a fuck. We party on.
I myself manage to stay up for the entirety of the journey down south, winding up singing Oasis numbers and Football’s Coming Home (Germans absolutely love that tune) while shoving my head out the window, tongue out like a dog, to take in the fresh Bavarian air – off my nut on a combination of rum and snuff.
The English contingent (VfL Britain) partying on the Sonderzug – the eyes being painted over is purely decorative
We get into Munich and there’s an army of Deutsch Robocops there to greet us.
As soon as I step off the train I feel groggy – a night of dancing on a moving train has rendered my legs useless and it feels like there’s a perpetual earthquake going on under me. Regardless, we hit the English Beer Garden and I reckon half a lager shandy will do me good. Except in Munich there is no such thing. You ask for a beer and get a fuck off jar which is a struggle to carry, let alone drink.
I take about three hours to get mine down, the party life taking its toll as even a decent schnitzel fails to rouse me to life.
Bochum have a bit of an alliance with Bayern Munich (something to do with the fact they both hate Dortmund), and so a few Bayern fans have joined us. We march from the Garden to the tube station en masse, singing songs (a lot of German chants are a bit derivative, but there’s some originality there and of course the support is constant).
The singing continues on the train, aided by a cardboard cut out of Claudia Schiffer the Bochum fans have as a mascot and which has already been dry-humped to death in the disco carriage of the Sonderzug.
We get to the Allianz Arena and as someone who hates sitting at football, I can honestly say I’ve never been so relieved to see seats.
I feel like a right clown for not being at my best, but I desperately need a rest before the game. In fact, most of us sneak a little kip in at some point.
The 1860 Ultras are making a fair noise at the other end, but their Bochum equivalents are putting on a show as the teams come out. A huge blue smoke bomb is detonated (not like the shitty little ones the kids seem to love setting off over here, I’m talking a proper cloud of blue so thick we couldn’t see the game going on) followed by a red one to celebrate the Bochum-Bayern link.
On the pitch Bochum are dogshit. I’ve seen them win once in four visits over there and sod’s law I was too pissed to remember that one.
But the Bochum fans keep singing regardless, even when a few of them (including a couple of our contingent) come in for some stick from some heavy-handed policing. 1860 breeze the game 2-0, but results elsewhere have gone Bochum’s way and they’ve survived.
I’m spent and I pass the first two hours of the return journey in a deep sleep in our carriage.
Oh Claudia…
But soon I feel well enough to hit the disco carriage for a dance and couple of glasses of Fiege (Bochum’s brewery which they’re seriously proud of – imagine Leicester fans going to games wearing Everard’s scarves!)
There’s more German pop, more metal, a singalong to Wonderwall, and even some Spice Girls. “Zigazig AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” scream one of the German lads we know, clearly recalling one of his past visits to England in our end at West Ham where we spent the second half tormenting Rob Green (“Twat! You’re shit AH!” is a favourite Leicester chant of our Bochum friends, along with “One man went to burn…”)
I retire back to get what sleep I can around 1am, still around three hours from Bochum. We’ve cemented old friendships and made some new ones too, the link between Leicester and Bochum grows stronger, and we’ve learned a carriage full of 30 German hooligans can do a surprisingly good impression of the Backstreet Boys.
It’s a trip I’d be happy to repeat soon.
Filbo Spirit 