So, with this in mind I got myself a really long book to distract myself from the existential misery of being quite warm and that. Obviously, the best way to distract yourself from the ills of the present day, is to read an in depth study into East German football and what it reveals about the everyday society of such a fascinating state. This post isn't a book review (it's very good, but not a 'light read') but without the book, I'd have not gained the knowledge that will lead me to the point of the post so it's only fair to credit it.
Being the age I am, I can remember Eastern Europe as 'a thing' that 'just was.' It was only after the wall had fallen and the hammers and sickle flags been folded away, that it dawned on me that having half of Europe ruled by a totally different ideology and much of it hidden from Western view was in retrospect, a bit mad when you think about it.
Footballs clubs that represented these nations had and still have, for me, a certain mysterious cachet. I can recall a few seasons when European and international competitions would briefly lift the iron curtain and let daylight in on the dark and mysterious world that lay beyond it. Exotic names, gifted players that would sparkle for 90 minutes, then vanish back beyond the checkpoints into the unknown.
I'm not, by nature an adventurous soul. I'm happy enough to look at the world around me and try to see into the history of it, to find the exotic on my own doorstep, but 18 months of being largely confined to the same portion of north Lancashire has taken it's toll. The other day, I went to Morecambe (4 miles away from me) and it felt a bit 'other' - I think I need to address this...
I've long held a desire to go and watch football in some far flung places. I admire people who do the ground hopping thing, but I simply don't have the time. I can barely understand how people schedule all the football on telly into their lives and support a club, let alone manage to go around the world watching the game.
I'm getting older though. One day, I'll wake up and think 'Fuck me. It's too late. You never did do any of the stuff you meant to get around to. What was it all for?' and that will be that.
To try and avoid that happening, I've decided, in the style of the kind of football hipster that I fucking hate (i.e. myself) that I will try and make a list of teams in various places, that take my fancy and then by keeping tabs on them from afar, try and build up a version of the drive I feel to go and watch my own club and thus force me out of my own comfort zone into the rest of the world.
So... back to what was once East Germany and the book... amidst the many fascinating stories, the team that leapt from the annals of history were BSG Chemie Leipzig. Why?
1) The club, like many clubs in East Germany has a vastly complex history. It has been known by many names, disbanded and dissolved, reformed and merged over the years. As far as I can tell, it can trace its roots back to 1899 and a club known as Britannia Leipzig. The name of this club reflects the British roots of football in Germany and also, the club is source of one of my new favourite random facts - that the founder members of Britannia Leipzig signed a secret pact (why secret?) to swear off cigarettes (ok, fair enough, probably wise for a sporting team) and lemonade (why? what has lemonade done to anyone?)
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| Chivista, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
2) I really like the 'Chemie' name. There's something tremendously nostalgic about all the Dynamos and Lokomotivs but not all of them have retained their names in the post-communist era. It literally translates as 'Chemistry Leipzig' which fills me with alternate visions of a team of boffins in white coats with mad hair or a side that play such slick marauding passing football that they ended up with the moniker. I know neither are true, but it doesn't matter.
3) Like everywhere else, Eastern Europe has gradually lost the distinctive feel of its football grounds. Just as Britain has very few example of Archibald Leitch architecture left, the days of grim open concrete bowls are ending, with stadiums in places like Budapest, Tirana, Moscow being rebuilt in a style that makes them barely distinguishable from the Emirates or the Etihad, stadiums which themselves say little or nothing about place or history.
BSG Chemie Leipzig play at what appears to be a relic of a different era, a ramshackle stadium, consisting of a stand, quite a lot of terracing (including a magnificent two tier affair), what looks like a house perched on one side (which presumably functions as changing rooms/offices) and a massively reduced capacity for safety reasons. Whilst the days of mass crushes and collapsing staircases are nothing to be celebrated, it's lovely to see a ground with character. I miss the old Bloomfield Road. It was a shithole, but it was a shithole that stank of history (and piss)
4) Their glory years are roughly the same as Blackpool's. All their honours come between 1951 and 1966. What the honours list doesn't tell you is that in the hugely complex political world of the DDR, this also includes a time in which they were disbanded and their players handed to a more politically favoured Leipzig based side. When they were reformed, they still didn't get 'first dibs' on the best players in the region, but in 1964 pulled off a massive shock, by winning the league. There's something magic about a side that wins out against the odds, everyone loves an underdog and when the Goliath is the political will of the DDR then the David gains a certain amount of credit that say, Leicester City can't ever compete for.
5) Football in Leipzig is dominated by RB Leipzig who are the ultimate in 'plastic' football clubs. Both Chemie and their DDR rivals Lokomotive who are the 'traditional' or 'legacy' clubs, play in the 4th tier of the German system. Despite that, both retain decent hardcore support and a serious and quite frightening level of rivalry. It looks like a club not entirely divorced from the 'edgier' elements that follow it. Put it this way, I don't think there's a 'tunnel club'
Chemie have graced both the European Cup and the Cup Winners cup and as recently as 1987, Lokomotive reached a European final. To put this in context, it's a bit like looking up Birmingham City and Aston Villa and discovering that they now play in the Midland combination league and a team called 'Coca Cola Brummy Bears' that took the registration of Nuneaton Borough are in the Premier league. Sort of.
6) I like their kit.
7) I also like the look of Leipzig. My grandad was notorious in our family for not really ever wanting to go anywhere especially exciting. His mantra went something along the lines of 'why drive/fly all that way, when you can have a lovely walk along the prom.' As I've aged, I'm finding myself more and more falling into a similar mindset, something that Covid has probably accelerated.
I need to kick myself up the arse and move beyond my immediate confines from time to time. Perhaps if I write it down, it'll make me do it.
Further Reading from the web:
https://radicalterraces.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/bsg-chemie-leipzig-from-leftovers-to-legends/
3) Like everywhere else, Eastern Europe has gradually lost the distinctive feel of its football grounds. Just as Britain has very few example of Archibald Leitch architecture left, the days of grim open concrete bowls are ending, with stadiums in places like Budapest, Tirana, Moscow being rebuilt in a style that makes them barely distinguishable from the Emirates or the Etihad, stadiums which themselves say little or nothing about place or history.
BSG Chemie Leipzig play at what appears to be a relic of a different era, a ramshackle stadium, consisting of a stand, quite a lot of terracing (including a magnificent two tier affair), what looks like a house perched on one side (which presumably functions as changing rooms/offices) and a massively reduced capacity for safety reasons. Whilst the days of mass crushes and collapsing staircases are nothing to be celebrated, it's lovely to see a ground with character. I miss the old Bloomfield Road. It was a shithole, but it was a shithole that stank of history (and piss)
4) Their glory years are roughly the same as Blackpool's. All their honours come between 1951 and 1966. What the honours list doesn't tell you is that in the hugely complex political world of the DDR, this also includes a time in which they were disbanded and their players handed to a more politically favoured Leipzig based side. When they were reformed, they still didn't get 'first dibs' on the best players in the region, but in 1964 pulled off a massive shock, by winning the league. There's something magic about a side that wins out against the odds, everyone loves an underdog and when the Goliath is the political will of the DDR then the David gains a certain amount of credit that say, Leicester City can't ever compete for.
5) Football in Leipzig is dominated by RB Leipzig who are the ultimate in 'plastic' football clubs. Both Chemie and their DDR rivals Lokomotive who are the 'traditional' or 'legacy' clubs, play in the 4th tier of the German system. Despite that, both retain decent hardcore support and a serious and quite frightening level of rivalry. It looks like a club not entirely divorced from the 'edgier' elements that follow it. Put it this way, I don't think there's a 'tunnel club'
Chemie have graced both the European Cup and the Cup Winners cup and as recently as 1987, Lokomotive reached a European final. To put this in context, it's a bit like looking up Birmingham City and Aston Villa and discovering that they now play in the Midland combination league and a team called 'Coca Cola Brummy Bears' that took the registration of Nuneaton Borough are in the Premier league. Sort of.
6) I like their kit.
7) I also like the look of Leipzig. My grandad was notorious in our family for not really ever wanting to go anywhere especially exciting. His mantra went something along the lines of 'why drive/fly all that way, when you can have a lovely walk along the prom.' As I've aged, I'm finding myself more and more falling into a similar mindset, something that Covid has probably accelerated.
I need to kick myself up the arse and move beyond my immediate confines from time to time. Perhaps if I write it down, it'll make me do it.
Further Reading from the web:
https://radicalterraces.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/bsg-chemie-leipzig-from-leftovers-to-legends/
https://www.soccerbible.com/design/art-and-illustration/2017/the-world-of-bsg-chemie-leipzig-by-przemek-niciejewski/
https://www.ultras-tifo.net/photo-news/5554-bsg-chemie-leipzig-lok-leipzig-15-12-2018.html
https://fromboothferrytogermany.com/2018/07/01/leipzig-football-clubs/
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https://fromboothferrytogermany.com/2018/07/01/leipzig-football-clubs/
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