Ruhrpott Derby Observations

Gelbe Wand in Schalker hands (or not?)

Have you ever won­dered what makes a true Derby and how the emo­tions of the Fans are affected by the spec­ta­cle? After this weekend’s Ruhrpott Derby between Schalke 04 and Borus­sia Dort­mund (1:1) some of the blogs have inter­est­ing takes from both sides. I am not going into the specifics of the game as there are plenty of avail­able match reports but have cho­sen to trans­late a few excerpts about one par­tic­u­lar piece of Tifo that has been at the cen­ter of atten­tion between the two sides.

Schalke Fan:
After all the pre game Music, the Intro­duc­tions and Adver­tise­ments the game is finally about to begin. Every­one starts wav­ing their Scarves as the Whis­tle blows and we are under­way. In the Nord­kurve the first Ban­ner makes an appear­ance “Wir tun alles — ihr nichts…!” (We do every­thing – you do noth­ing!), maybe a bit early is my feel­ing. As I look closer at the Blue Wall I see to my sur­prise sev­eral giant yel­low pieces, and they truly look like rem­nants of the famed “Gel­ben Wand“ (“Yel­low Wall”), the one that dis­ap­peared one night about two years ago from its loca­tion 80 Meters above the pitch of the West­falen­sta­dion. As I look at the Vis­i­tors sec­tion I rec­og­nize they are beside them­selves and not a very happy bunch, and the Schalke Fans are singing some­thing about “Gelbe Wand in Schalker Hand” (“Yel­low Wall in Schalke Hands”) and are cel­e­brat­ing them­selves and their so called Heroic Deed. I won­der are those yel­low pieces “real”?* When yel­low player ban­ners have been imi­tated even I have to won­der. But UGE (Ultras Gelsenkirchen) would not embar­rass us by mak­ing this them­selves, I can’t really imag­ine it.
* It seems that appar­ently there was an inci­dent in which Schalke Fans made Dort­mund Player Ban­ners and held them up in the Schalke Sec­tion so as to appear they were cap­tured from the oppo­si­tion.
In a few sec­onds the entire Sta­dium is on its feet and singing “Die gelbe Wand, die gelbe Wand, die gelbe Wand ist wieder daaaaa!” (“The yel­low wall, the yel­low wall, the yel­low wall is back again!”). This results in severely test­ing the sta­bil­ity of the Plex­i­glas enclo­sures around the vis­i­tors sec­tion. Before the match the songs were less about “Sup­port” and more “Anti Sup­port” already because both Fan Groups wor­ried more about each other than with their own team and this inci­dent actu­ally height­ens that feel­ing. At least until a few min­utes into the game when the action on the field causes reac­tions to the actual match……….

Dort­mund Fan:
The whis­tle had barely blown when the Blue Sup­port­ers already got our atten­tion. It seems that even though the roof of the arena was closed that some of them were a bit cold and needed to wrap them­selves up in a warm yel­low blan­ket. Seems the addi­tional warmth had them feel­ing bet­ter as we could see by their singing and danc­ing. Since the noble yel­low mate­r­ial was appar­ently the one lov­ingly man­u­fac­tured in Dort­mund until it changed hands through a crim­i­nal action all of us were a bit enraged. The jour­ney from Dort­mund to the lit­tle Fish­ing Vil­lage already had its share of delays and trou­bles, this dis­play finally tor­pe­doed the remain­ing sen­ti­ments of those try­ing to calm the feel­ings before the derby. In this sit­u­a­tion you have to ask your­self why there are talks between del­e­ga­tions of both teams and the police before the Derby. The promises of FC Per­jury ahead of the game to not par­tic­i­pate in any kind of provo­ca­tions where bro­ken again. They have had a ban­ner over the Nord­kurve since the last derby that made ref­er­ence to our miss­ing ban­ner: “Einst war ich schwatzgelb und hing im Süden” (“I used to be yel­low and black and hang in the South”). If that is their idea of de esca­la­tion then that is why we hope this Club does not sur­vive the year 2010. Prob­a­bly a ques­tion best posed to the Russ­ian. (Ref­er­ence to the Schalke Spon­sor Gazprom)

So there you have it, dif­fer­ent views on activ­i­ties sur­round­ing a true Derby match. Thanks to the blog­gers from auswaertssieg (Schalke) and schwatzgelb (Dort­mund) for shar­ing your expe­ri­ences. Right or wrong, it is part of what makes the atmos­phere of a rivalry match so heated and dif­fer­ent from what we are used to in the United States. Your thoughts?