The Yorkshire St. Pauli Fanzine Edition 16 PHOTO TAKEN BY @DAVEDOUGHMAN
2 WE RE BACK! After just a few weeks to recover from the trauma of last season s performances, the season is upon us again. 19th July, exactly two months since St. Pauli s last game of the season, the boys in brown will return to the Millerntor for a tough first game against 1860 Munich. The problem with pre-season is that there s nothing really exciting to talk about. It s just not that exciting is it? I miss the football during the summer as much as anyone else, but I find it difficult to become bothered about the score in a pre-season friendly match. Do people really care about the thumping s we ve given some local amateur sides, or what number shirts the new players are going to be wearing? We thought not. The problem with that is, it leaves us very little to tell you about in our fanzine. So, rather than give you loads of boring details and indepth analysis on rather meaningless stuff, this fanzine will cover some random and hopefully interesting stuff. Forget the Rugby Union style friendly scores, our pre-season special will tell you stuff that may (or more likely may not) come in useful during the course of the next season. Fixture dates, ticket advice, chants the useful stuff. We re also going to tell you about some of the interesting projects that are occurring both within Yorkshire St. Pauli and St. Pauli, and we may well tell you a bit about the football team too. So here s to another season, and hopefully one that is better than the last. Scott NEXT MEETINGS Our meetings last year went from strength to strength. More people, more fun, more entertaining and we even had a Christmas Party! It s great to see the number of people who now attend our meetings, watch games and become involved in Yorkshire St. Pauli. Whilst the performances we watched last season were not great and probably put a few newbies off, the majority of new people to the group stuck it out and got involved in the group. As Yorkshire St. Pauli grows, we want to ensure it is more than just turning up to a local (and excellent) co-operative pub and standing in the back room to watch German football with German commentary for 90 minutes. We want to welcome new people and explain to those unfamiliar with the group and the club what St. Pauli is all about and just why 20-30 of us meet up every few weeks to watch some rather average football. We also want to have more events following the success of the football match we had against the excellent Republica side, and we also wanted to help support a local charity - more on that later. Unfortunately, the first few fixtures were unkind to us - so we have to wait a few weeks for our first meeting. However, since we miss each other so much we have arranged to meet-up on Saturday 20th July for the Wharf Chambers Beer Festival. If anyone fancies popping along and saying hello, please feel free to do so. We ll be there from 12pm! One of the things we have discussed for some time is meeting up and watching a game at the 1 in 12 club in Bradford, which is an excellent private members club of a similar ethos to our home, Wharf Chambers. We put this to the vote of our members, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of a trip to the 1 in 12. So our first meeting to watch a game will be played away! We ll be showing the Arminia Bielefeld game on Sunday 11th August from 15:30. Please note - you must be a member of the 1 in 12, or signed in by a member in order to attend. Membership is 5. Please contact us via email on memberships@yorkshirestpauli.com if you have any questions. Following this, we will go back home to Wharf Chambers in Leeds. We ll be showing St. Pauli against Union Berlin on Saturday 31st August from 4.30pm followed by St. Pauli against FSV Frankfurt on Saturday 14th September from 3pm. As Wharf Chambers is also a private members club, you must be a member or signed in by a member. Membership is 1 and can be paid on the day at the bar. Hope to see you all at one of our meetings soon!
3 MEMBERSHIP! Yorkshire St. Pauli was established in May 2011, with the idea to get a group of like-minded St. Pauli fans together to watch games. Two years later, and we have a home at Wharf Chambers in Leeds, we have met hundreds of fans who share our love for St. Pauli and we've established a great online community through our website and social media. Because of this online presence we've also managed to extend our group to the wider community, and last year we had over 70 members from all over the world. This season we decided as a group that we wanted to do something more. St. Pauli is a great club with a community conscience that is both aware and provides assistance to those who need it, both in St. Pauli and beyond. St. Pauli has a broad awareness of political issues, and there are many projects run both officially by the club and also by the various fan groups of St. Pauli. We wanted Yorkshire St. Pauli not only to mirror the support of the football team, but the support of the community as well. During pre-season our members voted to establish a charity fund, and increase our membership fee from 1 to a minimum of 3 for the forthcoming season. 1 from the membership fee will cover costs of running the fanclub - such as our official fanclub registration with the club, the administration of our website and subscribing to St Pauli TV which allows us to show delayed streams of games. The extra 2 (or more if you are happy to donate more!) will go straight to our charity fund, which will be collected and donated to our chosen charity. We are delighted to announce that the charity our members voted for was PAFRAS - Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. PAFRAS works with asy lum seek ers, refugees and local communities in Leeds and the surround ing area. You can find more information on PAFRAS on their website, here. Alongside every 2 that will go to PAFRAS from each membership, we will also try and have several fundraising events throughout the course of the year as well to support the charity, and will have more information on that in the coming weeks and months! We are aware that some people do not wish to donate to charity for various reasons, therefore if this is the case please let us know when you pay your membership and instead we will donate the 2 from your membership fee to the 1910 Museum - a project to build a museum at the Millerntor. Our membership is open to everyone (except Nazis and sexist pigs), wherever you are in the world. Even if you do not live locally and can't attend our meetings, we do have a members forum where members can get involved in the group and discuss everything that is happening within the group which means everyone can get involved and everyone's opinion is heard. Membership is available now, and you can renew your membership or become a new member by simply sending us your 3 membership fee. This is the minimum membership charge, but if you do wish to donate more all extra donations will also be passed on to PAFRAS. Membership can be paid either in person during one of our meetings, or via PayPal to our email address info@yorkshirestpauli.com Please note - If you pay via PayPal, please pay the PayPal fees, otherwise we will incur a charge from PayPal for your payment which then means we won't receive the full membership fee. PayPal should give you the option when sending the payment to say that you are sending it to "friends or family" and to pay any transaction fee. If you are paying from abroad and do not have this option, please pay 3.50 and this will cover the PayPal fees. If you do not use PayPal, you can also pay by bank transfer. Please email us on memberships@yorkshirestpauli.com for further details. Membership fees are not obligatory, everyone is welcome to watch the games with us, but if you can afford to become a member to help with the running costs that would be great. If you have any questions about membership, please contact us via email at memberships@yorkshirestpauli.com.
4 PAFRAS www.pafras.org.uk A BIT OF BACKGROUND INFORMATION As mentioned in the memberships article earlier, our members voted PAFRAS as our chosen charity for the year. 2 from each membership fee will be donated to PAFRAS - which stands for Positive Action For Refugees and Asylum Seekers. PAFRAS are based in Leeds, and works with works with asylum seekers, refugees and local communities in Leeds and the surrounding area. PAFRAS focuses on providing humanitarian support for asylum seekers who are homeless, without food or money and prevented from improving their situation by government policy. PAFRAS runs a twiceweekly drop-in, at which they provide a hot meal and casework support amongst other services. They currently receive an average of just under 700 visits each month. The drop-in service is run every Tuesday and Thursday morning at a church hall in Harehills, Leeds. At the drop in sessions, individuals can receive food parcels, meals, clothing and essential toiletries. PAFRAS themselves have 2 part time advice workers available (although charitable grants for these posts is nearly at an end) and there are also advice/support workers available at each drop in from the British Red Cross, York St. Health Practice, Skyline HIV charity and Touchstone mental health charity. All of these workers are a first port of call and often have to make referrals to more specialist services (if their rules actually allow them to help a destitute asylum seeker) including the LASSN Grace Hosting project which organises volunteers to provide short term emergency accommodation (http://lassn.org.uk/ short-stop/). Given this, PAFRAS also provide money where possible for destitute asylum seekers to travel to important appointments. All of this is expensive and by law cannot be funded by any part of government. All contributions that go directly to the individuals themselves are vital. The current charitable funding situation however means that the funding for the people who actually organise and deliver all of this is also running out fast. WHAT WE AIM TO DO. Whilst our primary objective is to raise money for PAFRAS through our membership fee and also other events that we hope to organise throughout the year, we also feel strongly about offering more. As a group, we want to be proactive in our support of PAFRAS, and recently one of our members, Ian, went along to a meeting with two representatives from PAFRAS to see what other assistance we could offer. One of the great stories of the community spirit of St. Pauli is that of the work that fan groups do with refugees and asylum seekers, including buying them a match ticket and transporting them to and from the ground. This is exactly what St. Pauli is about, and we wanted to replicate this in Yorkshire. So one of the things we hope to do from our first streams at Wharf Chambers is to invite those people who have contacted PAFRAS to come and watch a game with us at Wharf Chambers. We will offer free Yorkshire St. Pauli membership and sign people in as guests at Wharf Chambers, watch the football and hopefully be able to provide food and drink as well. We ll also cover the cost of transport to and from Wharf Chambers. We ll also be having regular collections of clothing items, non perishable foods and essential toiletries during our streams, which we will then pass onto PAFRAS to hand out to those in need. So before you come to a meeting, why not have a look through your wardrobe and see if there s anything you don t wear anymore? In addition to that, we will be looking at other ways in which we can raise funds - such as a gig during the course of the season. As and when these events are organised, we will post information on our website and publish details in upcoming editions of the fanzine. This is a truly great cause, and you can support it by becoming a Yorkshire St. Pauli member today.
5 TICKETS! A HOW TO GUIDE... Note - Please be aware that St. Pauli is against every form of discrimination and against every form of racism, sexism and hooliganism, moreover against any kind of discrimination of same-sex preferences and inclination. Any form of discrimination is not welcome. In recent years tickets have often been difficult to obtain for St. Pauli - due to success off the pitch, and rebuilding work off it. With the new Gegengerade stand built, tickets are more readily available and as long as you plan ahead you should have no problems. Obtaining tickets from St Pauli is a relatively easy process, although the process is complicated by the hideous way in which the fixtures are confirmed. Although the fixture list is announced at the start of the season, each fixture is only set a particular weekend. This means that the fixture will definitely take place on that weekend, but the day of the fixture could be anything from Friday evening up until Monday night. The confirmed dates and times of games announced in blocks, which can be left up until a month or so before the fixture. This can make it extremely difficult to plan trips to Germany in advance! There is no date given as to when the confirmed dates will be given either, so the whole thing makes it difficult for fans wanting to plan trips in advance. The club and the Fanladen (fan project) are aware of the demand for tickets from overseas fans, and are very accommodating. They try to keep an allocation for each game, specifically to accommodate foreign fans. The Fanladen receive a specific allocation of tickets for home and away matches, and a proportion of this allocation is kept for overseas fans. Details on how to obtain tickets are below. I Home games: Home game ticket information is often posted on the club website when the tickets are due to go on sale. Tickets are usually available to be purchased online and for foreign fans they can then be collected from the ticket counter at the ground. However, tickets will generally not be available in South Stand Lower - the home of USP. The alternative is to contact the Fanladen, who usually supply tickets in the South Stand. If you are travelling from abroad and want to enquire about the availability of tickets the best thing to do is to email the Fanladen on info@stpaulifanladen.de. Also keep an eye on our website and twitter feed, where we will keep fans posted when fixture details are confirmed and ticket information is available. Away games: For away games, the club divide tickets into allocations, the Fanladen receives a percentage of the allocation to distribute, and then the away ticket office distributing the rest. As an overseas fans, you can either arrange a ticket via the Fanladen or the away ticket office. If you contact the Fanladen they will confirm your ticket (if available) and arrange to meet you outside the away ground before the game to collect the ticket and payment. Alternatively, you can contact the Away ticket office. They will post the ticket out to you for an additional cost, and take payment via credit card. To acquire tickets you can email the ticket office at auswaertskarten@fcstpauli.com (in English is not a problem if you can't speak German). There is no deadline from which you can send ticket requests, so get them in as soon as possible, with each of the following information: Name: Address: Membership number: (if applicable, note that members and season ticket holders get priority over non-members) Match: (state the match you want to attend, note that each match should be on a different email if you want to attend more than one) Tickets required: (state the number of tickets you want, and also whether you want them to be standing or seating tickets) Payment details: (provide your credit card number and expiry date, and the ticket office should be able to charge your credit card.) If you have any questions, please email us at tickets@yorkshirestpauli.com
6 A VERSE OR TWO. One of the great things from an English perspective about the St. Pauli experience is being able to join in with some of the chants which are sung in English, such as You ll Never Walk Alone (albeit sung with a certain German twang!). But we asked one of our twitter followers @hamaarbhainsva to give us a translation of the regular chants that are a bit more complicated! Feel free to print this out and use it at the Millerntor as a song sheet, followed by ripping it up and using it as part of the chereo... Voran FC Sankt Pauli! Niemand zwingt dich in die Knie Voran FC Sankt Pauli! Unter! Nein, das gehst du nie! Translation: Forwards, FC St Pauli! No one can push you to your knees, Forwards, FC St Pauli, No, you will never go down! Alé, Sankt Pauli Alé, magischer FC, unser ganzes Leben, uns re ganze Kraft! Translation: Come Sankt PaulI, Our magical FC, Our entire life, with all our strength! Gehst du durch s Viertel, Hörst s jeden rufen - Liest es auf Schildern, Wänden und auf Stufen - Schwarz, weiß und blau, mag keine Sau! FC Sankt Pauli euer Supergau! Translation: alking through the streets, hearing everyone's calls, reading it on the signs, walls and on the steps, Black, white and blue, Don't like the pigs, FC Sankt Pauli - your "meltdown" Voran FC Sankt Pauli, Du wirst hier heute gewinnen! Wirst den Gegner niederringen! Hörst du uns re Kurve singen? Translation; forwards, FC Sankt pauli! You will win here, today! You will subdue the opponents! Do you hear our stands singing? Wir sind immer für dich da Fahrn zu jedem Spiel, na klar Wir singen nur für dich damit du gewinnst voran FC St. Pauli FC St. Pauli alé FC St. Pauli alé Translation: We're always there for you, Without a doubt, we'll travel to every game! We're singing only for you, so that you will win, Forwards FC St Pauli!! Wir sind Zecken, asoziale Zecken, wir schlafen unter Brücken oder in der Bahnhofsmission! Wir sind Zecken.. Translation: We are ticks/bugs, Antisocial ticks/bugs, we'll sleep under bridges or in the Train Station!! We're ticks/bugs. Explanation - a song sung by St. Pauli fans to joke about themselves, a way of stopping opposition fans doing so. A bit like the Scheiss St. Pauli chants that you ll often heard sung. Ich liebe dich, ich traeum von dir, in meine traeumen, bist du Europacupsieger doch wenn ich aufwach, faellt's mir wieder ein, spielst ganz woanders, in liga zwei!! Translation: I love you, I dream of you, and in my dreams, you've won the champion's league but when i wake up, i realise, you play in the 2nd league!!
7 A LOOK AHEAD By Lee @tiertwofooty It is just a matter of hours until Sandhausen s Hardtwald Stadion & the Audi Sportpark in Ingolstadt witnesses the simultaneous kick off the 2013-14 2.Bundesliga season, a campaign that I imagine will go to the wire (although having tipped Eintracht Braunschweig for relegation on these very pages last year expect the title to be sewn up by winter break!) A fraction under ten million Euros has been spent by the 18 competing sides, and around 50% of that by just four sides keen to return to the German top flight. FC Koln are 2.BL s biggest spenders with around three million Euros on a squad they believe will go one better than last season when they finished fifth mainly due to a woeful start to the season (they didn t see the top half of the table until after the winter break). Anthony Ujah hit 12 goals whilst on loan from Mainz last season & Koln have parted with two million Euros to make that move permanent. Marcel Risse joins him from Mainz & highly rated midfielder Max Thiel arrives from Wacker Berghausen for 50,000 Euros as Koln will hope to hit the ground running this season. Kaiserslautern have also laid out cash for new signings by bringing in Oliver Occean from Eintracht Frankfurt & Simon Zoller top scorer for Osnabruck last season & they will compete with Mo Idrissou & Albert Bunjaku who formed a great partnership last season for a place in the starting XI. The sale of Alexander Baumjohann has left a huge void in midfielder but no fewer than five midfielders have arrived, Kevin Stoger joins from Stuttgart on loan, Marcel Gaus arrives from last season s promotion chasing rivals FSV Frankfurt & experienced Karim Matmour also joins the ranks as Kaiserslautern aim to put last season s play off heartache to local rivals Hoffenheim behind them. Both Greuther Furth & Fortuna Dusseldorf were promoted from 2.BL two seasons ago but both suffered the drop last season & have been busy planning another promotion assault with some quality signings. Furth have spent the vast amount of their summer budget on one man & they will expect big returns from Ognjen Mudrinski who arrives from Red Star Belgrade with a better than one goal in two games record last season. The young striker is also off the mark for the Serbian under 21 side following a goal in the 5-1 rout of Macedonia. Furth are another side to have raided crisis club Duisburg & have taken Goran Sukalo & Daniel Brosinski & the signing of Groningen midfielder Tim Sparv could prove to be a masterstroke. Fortuna have spent slightly more as they aim for an instant return to Bundesliga spending big on Georgian midfielder Levan Kenia from Karpaty & bringing in on loan with a view to a permanent move former AZ forward Charlison Benschop from French side Stade Brestois. Elsewhere FSV Frankfurt have lost some key players from last season s over achieving squad but have been busy themselves in the transfer market & look to have done some good business & it wouldn t be much of a surprise to see them punching above their weight again this season. Two other sides who look to have had a shrewd summer in the transfer market are Union Berlin & St. Pauli & if either (or both) were challenging at the end of the season I would not be surprised. Union have made a couple of loan signings from last season giving them stability & have brought in Aalen s Captain & midfield dynamo Martin Dausch & purchased Damir Kreilach to play alongside him, the powerful Croat certainly one to watch. Also arriving at Alte Forsterei is Swiss defender Mario Eggimann from Hanover, Soren Brandy from Duisburg & Ben Kohler from Kaiserslautern. Bernd Nehrig & Chris Nothe were part of Greuther Furth s promotion winning squad two seasons ago & they are together again this time at St. Pauli who are looking to progress following a disappointing campaign last season. John Verhoek also arrives from Rennes following a loan spell at FSV Frankfurt & he will compete for a place alongside lanky young Austrian frontman Michael Gregoritsch who joins on loan from Hoffenheim & has already impressed in pre season & add to the mix the flair of Marc Rzatkowski & Sebastian Meier who arrive from Bochum & 1860 Munich respectively & it gives you a starting XI that can match anyone on their day.
8 1860 Munich have been reasonably quiet in comparison in this summer s market but the signings they have made look impressive. Midfielders Daniel Adlung (Cottbus) & Yannick Stark (FSV) will certainly add quality to the side & the vast majority of last season s side has been retained. Cottbus, Paderborn & Ingolstadt all finished in & around mid table last season & although some decent players have been brought in all are unlikely to trouble the sides at the summit. Aalen did better than expected last time but the sale of Martin Dausch will have an effect & they will do well to avoid a relegation battle this season, as will Sandhausen who survived courtesy of Duisburg s demotion. Aue have made the loan deal of Jakub Sylvestr permanent & have brought in Soloman Okoronkwo to partner him but may find keeping the ball out of their own net a bigger issue. Dynamo Dresden, who Aue pipped on the last day to avoid the play off spot, look much stronger & seem to have addressed last year s goal scoring issues so they should enjoy a much more comfortable season. The two sides promoted from 3.Liga have been busy reinforcing their squad, Karlsruher have brought in Dimitrij Nazarov from Preussen Munster & will partner him with Ilian Micanski who arrives from Kaiserslautern. They have also spent 175,000 Euros on winger Dennis Mast to supply the ammunition. Arminia Bielefeld s main aim was to keep hold of 20 goal Fabian Klos & they have not only managed to do that but they have partnered him with Francky Sembolo who found the net eight times last season for Jahn Regensburg who finished bottom of the pile. Jan Fiesser (Sandhausen) & Oliver Petersch (Eintracht Braunschweig) also arrive with recent 2.Bundesliga experience. THE NEW GUARD By Luke Over the past two summers we ve seen a somewhat seismic shift at St Pauli. Michael Frontzeck s first season as St. Pauli manager was marred with disappointment, after the team finished the season placed 10th in the league, just a season after finishing 4th and narrowly missing out on the promotion playoffs. The reason for this drop in performance seems simple. Before the start of the 2012-2013 season, then-manager, Andre Schubert, was keen to implement his stamp on St Pauli, letting fanfavourites and first team players leave, with 2011-2012 star man Max Kruse being one of a few players allowed to leave. Schubert and the club were never able to properly replace the gaps, and looked to rely on loan signings from 1.Bundesliga to fill voids. It was destined to be ill fated and our league position confirmed this. Although fußballgott Florian Bruns and Marius Ebbers have been able to leave the club this summer, Rachid Azzouzi has led a successful recruitment drive for the club, and things look bright for the next season. In March, the club announced the signing of Marc Marc Rzatkowski. Rzatkowski from Vfl Bochum. Rzatkowski was out of contract at Bochum and signed for St Pauli for free on a three-year deal. The 20-year-old midfielder played 14 times for Bochum last season, scoring on 3 occasions. Rzatkowski will be used to fit the space left by Patrick Funk, who has returned to Stuttgart after spending two years alone at St. Pauli. Rzatkowski said he had not taken the decision lightly as Bochum was his club and his hometown, but he was looking forward to working with him (Frontzeck) for the next
9 3 years. The second signing of the summer was Marcel Halstenberg from Borussia Dortmund. The 21 year old left back, who can also play at centre back, also joined on a free transfer and signed a 3 year deal with the club. Halstenberg spent the last season playing in 3.Liga for Borussia Dortmund II. Azzouzi credited Marcel for his strength in tackles and his aerial ability. St Pauli completed their 3rd signing for the new season in May. The club picked up striker Christopher Nöthe for free from recently-relegated Greuther Fürth. Nöthe, 25, featured heavily in the Fürth team that won promotion to the Bundesliga in 2012, but he struggled to cement a place in the first team last season. Nöthe is no stranger to Rachid Azzouzi; they worked alongside each other whilst Azzouzi was at Furth. Azzouzi said Nöthe will buy into the character of the club and will be eager to prove himself after a disappointing season. Nöthe looks set to replace Daniel Ginczek, who was the club s top goal scorer last year, who returned to Borussia Dortmund, before being sold on to FC Nurnberg Azzouzi raided Fürth for a second time to pick up his 4th signing of the summer, Bernd Nehrig. The right back joined on a free transfer and comes highly rated after making 26 appearances last year in the Bundesliga, scoring once. Nehrig is a former German u21 s international and started his career as a goalkeeper! St. Pauli captured SSV Jahn Regensburg defender Philipp Ziereis in June, the club s 5th signing of the summer. The club had to pay a fee for the services of Ziereis to Regensburg, however this fee has remained undisclosed. Ziereis can play all along the defensive line and will seemingly offer a versatility, akin to that of Chris Avevor, whose loan will not be renewed. Ziereis said he did not have to think twice when St. Pauli offered him a contract. The club announced the loan signing of Michael Gregoritsch on the 6th of June. Gregoritsch joined from TSC Hoffenheim for the season and comes highly rated. The 19-year-old striker is a current Austrian u-21 international and holds the record for being the youngest goal scorer in the Austrian Bundesliga. The move was perfect for Michael, who stated he wanted to stay in Germany to learn and ply his trade. Azzouzi has praised Gregoritsch s technical abilities, calling him a good, strong, proven striker. Gregoritsch played for Hoffenheim s under-23 team last term, notching 11 goals in 26 appearances. Sebastian Maier also joined the club on the 6th of June. Maier, 19, came from 1860 Munich, and whilst a transfer fee was involved, the clubs have remained quiet over how much this actually was. Sebastian signed a 3 year deal and said he is very excited about moving to Hamburg and he calls the move the most important step in his career. Maier plays in midfield, but is known for pushing forward a little and taking a more attacking/creative role. Rachid Azzouzi was very happy with the signing of Maier, as the club beat off competition from the Bundesliga to secure the signature of the German Under-19 international. John Verhoek became the 8th new signing for St Pauli. Verhoek is a striker who spent last season on loan at FSV Frankfurt from Stade Rennais, where he scored 6 goals in 17 performances. Verhoek, 24, saw his best form in his homeland, the Netherlands, where he scored 10 goals in 17 games for Den Bosch, however, he has found it hard to replicate that form. That said, he seemingly never got chances at Rennes, and has had to go out on loan. Hopefully the stability of St. Pauli (probably the first time that has been said in a long while) will encourage Verhoek to kick on. Rachid Azzouzi has done a great job this summer. We have been able to sign players permanently, which is a huge step forward from the loan signings which built up our squad last season. One thing seems overwhelming in Azzouzi s choices the future. We are building a young squad, as seen with the acquisitions of Maier, Rzatkowski and Halstenberg, but we also expect these to thrive and work well with the experience we have, with players such as Boll, Kringe, Bartels et al all expected to remain part of the club s plans. We can expect good attacking football from St. Pauli next season, and with any luck, promotion may be a possibility. Luke
10 TOURNAMENT JINGOISM IS LOSING ITS GRIP By Liam Scarth @scarthlp Over the course of this summer's Confederations Cup, hosted in 2014 World Cup nation Brazil, mass street protests have been aplenty. A nation that has in recent decades experienced economic and social regression. Perhaps two international sporting events in the form of the 2014 FIFA World Cup as well as the 2016 Olympic Games could mask such internal decay, why not play the jingoism card to distract the masses from their day-to-day struggle? Such technique has had its day, evidence at international tournaments in the last decade shows that people no longer view such tournaments one dimensionally; the masses are finally questioning the method in UEFA/FIFA and the host nations' madness. Despite Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff claiming the Confederations Cup protestors had every right to protest, her willingness to embrace Brazil's show case events exemplify her appreciation of the World Cup's and Olympic's masking quality. Both of which will display Brazil to the rest of the world as a respected nation, able to host such grand events in monstrous re-structured and recently constructed arenas, yet will it show that they are unable to provide sufficient education and healthcare? In Brazil's case it seems they have bitten off more than they can chew, and the consequence is disgruntled masses, the masses who have been fooled by the people who are supposed to have the nation's honesty in their best interests. Brazilian taxes haven't gone towards the enrichment of the nation's internal sphere, instead they have been pumped into the back pockets of FIFA - the international governing body who set the motto for Brazil 2014 as 'all in one rhythm', evidently not if your cash cow tournaments are turning host nation's governments against it's own people. Already disgusted by the governments exploitation of its people, police brutality in the face of mass protest provided a further spark in the on-going conflict. Such brutality that was clear to see even before protest intensity escalated illustrates the governments desire to suppress its own people, ensuring that they are brutality dealt with if they don't embrace the jingoistic celebrations of hosting a national tournament. The copious use of tear gas is material evidence of such corrupted government desires, an abomination of democracy. With higher taxes to fund projects such as the re-structure of the Maracanã, ensuring its now sterile atmosphere, as well as increased transport costs and cancellation of planned
11 social programmes, it shouldn't shock anybody in the worldwide public or international media that Brazil is experiencing its most intense protests in twenty years. The outcome of Brazil's inner corruption, pushed along by FIFA, can certainly be paralleled to the World Cup hosted in South Africa, 2010. During this tournament, which was key to FIFA's ethic of rebuilding nations through a international sporting event, a country once stricken by apartheid and now riddled with poverty saw a minority of its people become organized in campaigns against the superficial nature of such hollow ethic. In Gabriel Kuhn's book 'Soccer vs. The State - Tackling football and radical politics', (of which also features, unsurprisingly FC St. Pauli, as well as Yorkshire based Republica FC), campaigns by South African's against the World Cup are documented. Namely the work of the 'Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front' (ZACF) as well as the South African 'Anti-Privatisation Forum' (APF). ZACF released a statement prior the beginning of the tournament to set out the reasoning behind their protest. They exposed the corruption, similar to Brazil, of their own government. A government who stressed that hosting the 2010 World Cup would be a 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity, with a chance to seize and reap the rewards of social and economic upliftment. Reality however was much different. The tournament, to the benefit of FIFA and Sepp Blatter, became a feeding frenzy for global and domestic capital, as well as the South African ruling elite. South Africa's expenditure of R8000 billion, 757 of which on infrastructure and 30 on stadiums illustrated a sizable lack of consideration for a more pressing problem than hosting a World Cup - a 40% ever-increasing unemployment rate. The corruption surrounding such investment in infrastructure added insult to injury to the South African people, part of the 757 billion infrastructure fund went on the 'Gautrain' - a new modern firstclass rail and bus service. Allowing a new service between Johannesburg and Pretoria, yet exclusive to wealthy tourists and officials during the tournament only - FIFA really are enriching each nation they set their filthy hands on aren't they? FIFA's superficial nature can also be seen in their emphasis on external appearance, to somewhat glaze over inner corruption. Such policy filters into the decisions of the host nations, for example, during the 2010 World Cup 15,000 homeless people where rounded up and put in Johannesburg shelters. It begs the question, why not help homeless people outside the duration of an international tournament? FIFA's techniques to funnel money into their own pockets demonstrates how South Africa's aim of 'social and economic upliftment' was never a realistic aim, added to that the gluttony of South Africa's own elite. FIFA controlled areas around the stadiums of the tournament were exempt from tax, highly ironic considering the taxes of South Africa people, also seen with Brazil, were used in a public money pot to help the staging of the tournament. Perhaps a reward for the use of peoples' taxes would be the opportunity to help local businesses during the tournament duration, think again. FIFA set a policy to ensure that around a sizable radius of all stadiums, only FIFA sanctioned products could be sold, meaning all the more money for them. Whilst South Africa 2010 and most recently Brazil display a general annoyance at government and FIFA exploitation, there has also been more specific issues that have caused controversy at similar tournaments. Prior and during the Ukraine/Poland European Championships in 2012, a Ukraine feminist group called FEMEN staged 'naked protests' against the prostitution industry that was openly accepted by authorities, even to the extent that it was an essential industry for economic gain during the tournament. FEMEN's anger is at the belittled view towards women in post-soviet Ukraine, the group share allegiance with Pussy Riot and like their brothers and sisters in South Africa and Brazil, they wanted to resist the immoral capitalist frenzy of international tournaments; specifically the female sex industry. The issue of racism in the two Eastern European nations during the tournament was also significant, whilst the authorities dealt with it well during the tournament duration, it isn't addressed as heavily during league matches away from the media limelight. The masses are beginning to wake up and mobilize, the days of using sporting events to cover up internal issues are numbered.
12 MICHÉL PREDICTS! Ahead of the new season we caught up with St. Pauli legend Michél Mazingu-Dinzey and asked him some important, and not so important, questions on the upcoming season for the boys in brown. Before we get onto your thoughts and predictions for next season. Why do you think St. Pauli had such a poor season last season? Last season was very bad because the team was not in a good shape and after the sacking of Schubert the situation got even worse. Also, the signings last year were simply not good enough and we missed a player of Kruse s quality alot. I think we'll see a better season than last year, Azzouzi and Frontzeck have signed some really good players for this season, there s no excuse anymore. That's why i think we will have a much more better season. So, onto your predictions: Where do you think St. Pauli will finish in the league this season? I think we will finish in 7th position. I have a lot of trust in our team! Who do you think will be St. Pauli's top goalscorer? This is also very difficult but it will be very close between Christopher Nothe and John Verhoek. With a bit of luck, both can have good seasons and be very important for the club. Will Michael Frontzeck last the full season, or will he depart during the season like Schubert did last season? It's very difficult to say because you never know what is coming up in a season but I really hope that we don't sack him like Schubert last year. But the pressure is bigger than ever for him and Azzouzi. Who will be voted Yorkshire St. Pauli's player of the season at the end of the campaign? Fin Bartels How many starting appearances will Fabian Boll make? I think Fabian Boll make more than 20 game appearances is depend of his fitness. And the final random question, How many goals will St. Pauli score in total this season? Overall i would think 58 goals in league and cup games.