Rhein Derby and Hip Hop for Hertha!

FC Köln Fans

74th Rhein Derby this Sat­ur­day in the Bun­desliga: 1. FC Köln against Borus­sia Mönchenglad­bach. A Derby with great his­tory and even bet­ter sto­ries, most of the time Borus­sia came out ahead. 19 times Mönchenglad­bach has been able to win in Köln, more than against any other Club they have vis­ited in the Bundesliga.

Bundesliga.de con­ducted an inter­view with the Borus­sia Fan Coor­di­na­tor Thomas Wein­mann about this Bun­desliga Clas­sic and what makes it so special.

bundesliga.de: Herr Wein­mann, what is the cur­rent mood of Glad­bach Fans after the clear 4:1 Vic­tory against the HSV and ahead of the Derby with Köln?

Thomas Wein­mann: Every­one is in great spir­its and the con­fi­dence in being able to stave off rel­e­ga­tion is also improved. We beat Ham­burg con­vinc­ingly and even though we lost to Berlin dom­i­nated a good por­tion of that game. We are pretty con­fi­dent: We will stay up!

bundesliga.de: How impor­tant is the game against Köln?

Wein­mann: It is the high­light of our Sea­son, the most impor­tant game of the year. For over 30 years now. We don’t want to be rel­e­gated; obvi­ously that is the most impor­tant thing. At the same time we do not want to lose any games against Köln.

bundesliga.de: How many tick­ets do you think could have been sold to Glad­bach Fans?

Wein­mann: At least 20000, per­haps even 30000. Borus­sia Fans have always trav­eled well to Köln, in the old Müngers­dor­fer Sta­dion in the 80’s and 90’s we often had 15000 to 20000 Glad­bach Fans. Today Away travel has only increased because in and around most Sta­di­ums it has got­ten much safer. Unfor­tu­nately the ticket num­ber to Away fans is set at a cer­tain number.

bundesliga.de: What make this Derby special?

Wein­mann: Köln’s view is like this: Köln is a big city and the 1. FC Köln is the Num­ber 1 in the region. In the 70’s you sud­denly see “the Farm­ers from the coun­try” become suc­cess­ful and are the Num­ber 1 team. That laid the foun­da­tion for this rivalry; it was played hard but still remained fair. When both teams went through hard times in the 90’s with rel­e­ga­tion and try­ing to sur­vive eco­nom­i­cally a lot of bit­ter­ness came up on both sides. That set the tone and the inten­sity got a bit rougher.

bundesliga.de: The last Derby in Köln had some ten­sion after the “Fah­ne­naf­färe” (BMG Ultras had their Flags stolen by Köln Fans). How do you see this one?

Wein­mann: Dif­fi­cult to say exactly as there is still some thought about that inci­dent. At the same time our Fans are in a good mood after the win against the HSV; we are con­fi­dent we will win there again like we have in the past even though we have not won at their new Sta­dium yet. And I would like to add that even though there was ten­sion at the last match, after the game was over Fans of both teams crossed paths out­side of the Sta­dium and noth­ing happened.

bundesliga.de: What sort of influ­ence as Fan Coor­di­na­tor do you have on the behav­ior of the Fans?

Wein­mann: Not much on a match day, our work is more long term. We try to com­mu­ni­cate to cer­tain Fans how to behave, that there are rules and con­se­quences. There is no place for vio­lence. This is a process that does not hap­pen overnight; ide­ally the Fans come to a real­iza­tion by them­selves how to con­duct themselves.

bundesliga.de: There is no other team that Glad­bach has been able to beat on the road as much as Köln. Is there a game that has a spe­cial mem­ory for you?

Wein­mann: 1975 I attended my first Derby, at the old Köl­ner Radrennbahn and we won 2:1. Or the 4:0 win in 1993, as Peter Wyn­hoff made a spec­tac­u­lar Goal after a solo run that cov­ered half of the field. We also lost there once by 0:4, but the only thing that mat­ter to both Glad­bacher and Köl­ner is that the other team does not win.

Ten thou­sand Hertha BSC Fans have changed the text to a Hip Hop Song. The Melody is from two Hip Hop artists from Tem­pel­hof that dis­cov­ered their sud­den fame on TV watch­ing the Sportschau.

 Two week­ends ago Vin­cenco de Mar­cos, 30, was sit­ting on his couch in Tem­pel­hof. The TV was on and the “Sports­chau” was report­ing on the Bun­desliga Games of the day. “I was sort of flip­ping chan­nels” said de Mar­cos. When the Hertha BSC game high­lights came on and the Fans were over­joyed at tak­ing over the top spot in the Bun­desliga, Vin­cenco de Marco almost fell off his couch. “The whole Sta­dium was singing our Melody, our Song” he said.

Vin­cenco de Mar­cos is a Rap­per, he calls him­self “Fraue­narzt” (Gyne­col­o­gist) and together with his friend Marc Schnei­der, 28, they appear as “Atzen DJs” on stage. They mix Elec­tro beats with Rhymes and pub­lished a song that included the lyrics: “Hey, das geht ab – wir feiern die ganze Nacht!” (Hey, this is hap­pen­ing – we party through the whole night). At Con­certs the crowd was jump­ing along and some­how, some­time the song was added to a CD from Fans of Hertha BSC, they played it on a Bus head­ing to away games. The same way Fans adapt other songs is what hap­pened next: They took the Melody and changed the lyrics. The lyrics that were heard in the Sta­dium came out like this: “Hey, das geht ab – wir holen die Meis­ter­schaft!” (Hey, this is hap­pen­ing – we are going to be Champions).

This past week­end the Team also sang the Song in the Olympias­ta­dion, danc­ing arm in arm on the blue run­ning track. “We are not even real Hertha Fans, at least not as bad as the Fans in the curve”, the Rap­pers said while sit­ting in their favorite Café near the U Bahn­hof Kaiserin-Augusta-Straße. This is their “Hood”, where they attended School. “I have to go back to the Sta­dium”, said de Mar­cos, “that deal with our Song – it is hot.” “We make Baller­mann Music (so called after the leg­endary Baller­mann 6 Club in Mal­lorca, many (some older) Ger­man Lan­guage Songs that are infused with a techno beat), inspired by the 80’s beats from the Band Kraftwerk”, said de Mar­cos. It seems to be suc­cess­ful since their video for “Das geht ab” was viewed on Youtube over 1.4 Mil­lion times. Their Song “Florida Lady” is played at a lot of party’s. And now they cre­ated the Melody for the Cham­pi­onship Hymn at the Olympias­ta­dion. And since Berlin­ers are prac­ti­cal peo­ple, they are also prepar­ing for the con­tin­gency of a UEFA Cup spot: “Hey, das geht ab – wir holen den Europacup!” Hertha Fans have already prac­ticed this one just in case.

I apol­o­gize in advance if some of the ter­mi­nol­ogy in the story about the Hertha song is wrong, but I am not well versed in Hip Hop terms.  Especially the Ger­man Hip Hop Scene that likes to mix US terms and some of their own as well.