The official FC St. Pauli thread

[ONeill]

Great start of the season for our boys, thumping Freiburg with 3 goals in the last 7 mins.

Stanislawski has them playing great stuff

[Square Ball]

Great start of the season for our boys, thumping Freiburg with 3 goals in the last 7 mins.

Stanislawski has them playing great stuff

where do we play Oneill?

[ONeill]

We play at Millerntor-Stadion in Hamburg.


St. Pauli enjoys a certain fame for the left-leaning character of its supporters: most of the team's fans regard themselves as anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-sexist, and this has on occasion brought them into conflict with neo-Nazis and hooligans at away games. The organisation has adopted an outspoken stance against racism, fascism, sexism, and homophobia and has embodied this position in its constitution. Team supporters traditionally participate in demonstrations in the Hamburg district of St. Pauli, including those over squatting or low-income housing, such as the Hafenstraße and Bambule. The centre of fan activity is the Fanladen St. Pauli.
The club prides itself on having the largest number of female fans in all of German football. In 2002, advertisements for the men's magazine Maxim were removed from the team's stadium, in response to fans' protests over the adverts' sexist depictions of women.
St. Pauli is also a worldwide symbol for punk and related subcultures. The Totenkopf logo and the team's brown and white football jerseys have often been worn by international artists such as the band Asian Dub Foundation. Turbonegro recorded a special version of their song "I Got Erection" with re-worked German lyrics for St. Pauli. Bad Religion played a charity match against St. Pauli's third team in 2000. KMFDM frontman and Hamburg native Sascha Konietzko is a recognisable St. Pauli fan, even at one point placing a huge picture of a fist smashing a swastika on his band's main page, with the caption St. Pauli Fans gegen Rechts! (St. Pauli fans against the right-wing) underneath it. One of the most notable supporters and sponsors is Andrew Eldritch, lead singer of band The Sisters of Mercy. On his 2006 'Sisters Bite The Silver Bullet' tour, Eldritch wore the famous Totenkopf shirt. Other German musicians are fans[citation needed]: Fettes Brot, Die Ärzte singer/drummer/songwriter Bela B., Kettcar, Tomte and many other bands, most of them underground. Georg Holm, bassist of the Icelandic post rock band Sigur Rós, performed at several festivals wearing a Sankt Pauli shirt.
When the team played in Germany's second football division, their home fixtures at the Millerntor used to average greater attendances than any other team in that division, and often exceeded turnouts for second division teams. St. Pauli have more holders of season tickets than many Bundesliga teams[citation needed]. One study recently estimated that the team has roughly 11 million fans throughout Germany, making the club one of the most widely recognised German sides. There are about 200 registered fan clubs, many of them outside Germany.
St. Pauli, and their fans, are also known for their close links with many other foreign clubs, enjoying a particularly close friendship with Scottish side Celtic. St. Pauli fans are often seen attending Celtic games on the continent when Celtic play UEFA competitions, St. Pauli flags and scarves are frequently seen on display at Celtic matches, the official Celtic club shops sell St. Pauli merchandise. Every year Celtic supporters arrive in Hamburg for the annual St. Pauli – Celtic Festival.[citation needed] The link between the two clubs was strengthened once more in 2010, when as part of their club centenary celebrations, St Pauli invited Celtic to play in a friendly match at The Millerntor. The match was played on 17 May 2010. Celtic won 2-0 thanks to second half goals from Paddy McCourt and Morten Rasmussen.

St. Pauli opens its home matches with AC/DC's "Hells' Bells", and after every home goal "Song 2" by Blur is played.
St. Pauli had what was probably the last non-electronic scoreboard in the upper leagues. After every goal, a worker manually updated the scoreboard by taking down and then replacing a number placard. With the 2007 opening of the new South Stand, a large electronic scoreboard was installed in the South-east corner of the stadium. However, the electronic scoreboard still resembles the old one.
The club president Corny Littmann, long active in German theatre and head of the Schmidt Theater on the Reeperbahn, is openly gay.
St. Pauli have made pre-season appearances at Wacken Open Air, a heavy metal festival, several times.
The club hosted the 2006 FIFI Wild Cup, a tournament made up of unrecognized national football teams like Greenland, Tibet and Zanzibar. They participated as the "Republic of St. Pauli".
The British band Art Brut have a song about the club called "St Pauli", which is featured on their album It's A Bit Complicated.
In 2008, Nike commemorated the club with two exclusive Dunks, both released in limited quantities. The High Dunk (featuring a black colorway, and the skull and crossbones symbol) was released to all countries throughout Europe, with only 500 pairs produced. The Low Dunk (featuring a smooth white colorway, and holding the team's logo impregnated in the side panel leather) was released only to shops in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, with only 150 pairs produced/i]

[ONeill]

Their stadium is in a red light district.

[ross4life]

Their stadium is in a red light district.

A lot cheaper than Amsterdam so I've been told 

[Niall Quinn]

Club President, Corny Littmann, has a great old name.
He looks a like a stage in Smeagol's progression to Gollum.

[mhacadoir]

Be some craic at their games -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2r8vsEnko

[mountainboii]

I'm in. Hardy will hate our lads.

St Pauli ready to hoist the Jolly Roger over the Bundesliga

Phil Minshull | 21:21 UK time, Monday, 3 May 2010

It's been a week of mixed emotions in Hamburg.

On one side of the city the fans of Hamburger SV are still bemoaning their lost opportunities last Thursday.

Rather than the Rothosen - red shorts - it will be Fulham who will contest the Europa League final against Atletico Madrid in their own Nordbank Arena on May 12 after Hamburg's 2-1 defeat at Craven Cottage.

However, in the areas down by the docks and the famous Reeperbahn, or should I say infamous depending on your point of view, there has been unrestrained joy over the last day or so from the fans of cross-city rivals FC St. Pauli.


St Pauli have been immortalised in a Blur song - photo: Getty

The smiles are not just because of the Craven Cottage comeuppance of Hamburg, the club that famously beat Juventus 1-0 to win the European Cup in 1983, but after a 4-1 away win at Furth on Sunday, arguably Europe's most atypical professional club are heading back to the Bundesliga after an absence of eight years.

More than 9,000 St Pauli fans followed their team to Furth and, as happily pointed out by German newspapers on Monday, peacefully invaded the pitch after the final whistle, while more than 10,000 people congregated on the Reeperbahn.

What a better way to celebrate your centenary than with a promotion back to the top tier of German football?

St Pauli, resplendent in their rather unusual brown kit - now how many teams can you name that have regularly played in that colour - and their supporters in their Jolly Roger totenkopf - skull and crossbones - attire are now set to wreak their own particular brand of fun and mayhem when they visit the comparatively staid surroundings of Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen next season.

Words like eccentric or odd are often used in the context of St Pauli but results have still to be achieved on the pitch so The Buccaneers of the League, as they are often known, are not really football's answer to the Harlem Globetrotters.

However, there is a certain attitude and atmosphere that surrounds St Pauli.

The best way to describe them might be just to say that they are different.

Even though the club has been around in its current form since 1910, a unique identity has emerged over the last quarter of their existence.

"St Pauli opens its home matches with AC/DC's Hells' Bells, and after every home goal Song 2 by Blur is played, turning the stadium into a giant mosh pit," says Wikipedia. "St. Pauli is also a worldwide symbol for punk and related subcultures."

"It was in the mid-'80s that St. Pauli's transition from a traditional club into a 'Kult' club began... An alternative fan scene emerged built around left-leaning politics and the 'event' and party atmosphere of the club's matches.

"Importantly, St. Pauli became the first team in Germany to officially ban right wing, nationalist activities and displays in its stadium in an era when Fascist inspired football hooliganism threatened the game across Europe."

The promotion comes at an appropriate time as St Pauli are expanding their Millerntor-Stadion to 27,000 in order to accommodate their ever increasing fan base.


St Pauli's Deniz Naki celebrates promotion to the Bundesliga with the club's supporters

St Pauli have been in the Bundesliga before, managing to stay in the top flight for three years between 1988-1991, while the club had a brief stint in the Bundesliga in the 2001-02 season.

Sadly, it wasn't a glorious swashbuckling ride on the pitch as they finished bottom and by a very long way, having only won four games that season.

They slid through the 2. Bundesliga the following season in similar fashion and then spent four years in the regional third tier - the Regionalliga Nord - before starting their climb back up.

There are a few signs that St Pauli is finally having to join the 21st century; perhaps in the same way that punk icon Iggy Pop is now doing adverts for insurance companies.

Do I hear the words 'Sold Out' being uttered by some radical elements?

Club legend Holger Stanislawski, who has been a player, sports director vice-president and is now their coach, told German newspapers after Sunday's game, "St Pauli can't afford to be a social utopia anymore."

They are moving to new training facilities in 2012, and the current clubhouse where fans and players still mingle together for a coffee or beer - imagine that at any other first division club across Western Europe - may just become a distance memory.

Sponsors have increased the club budget to around €40m (£34.6m) so regular and frantically solicited injections of emergency cash from friends in the theatre world of club president Corny Littmann who, coincidently, is openly gay, are no longer necessary.

Stanislawski has also warned that if he's still the coach in July, and several other clubs are believed to have already made bids for his services, then sentiment could be in short supply.

Familiar faces who have been with the club since its days languishing in Regionalliga Nord look set to be shown the door and while Stanislawski has promised loyalty to many of the players who have got them back in the Bundesliga, he has said that three or four signings are inevitable.

Nevertheless, if St Pauli do lose a modicum of their charm as commercial reality bites, they should still bring a lot of fun to the Bundesliga next season.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philminshull/2010/05/st_pauli_ready_to_hoist_the_jo.html

[muppet]

"Asian Dub Foundation"!

Has this anything to do with Jayo?

And is the answer to the question on the colour of the jersey is Cleveland?

But count me in too.

[Hoof Hearted]

Club President, Corny Littmann, has a great old name.
He looks a like a stage in Smeagol's progression to Gollum.

i thought this was you muppet. looks a bit like you anyway !!

[clarshack]

I'm in too. Was talking to a fella during the week about these buckos. They often come over for Cliftonville matches and "are mad as fcuk" apparently. They were up at DC a few weeks back.

they have great celtic links as well

[sammymaguire]

I am more of a Hamburg fan myself, since the Keegan days of course ;-)

[mountainboii]

I am more of a Hamburg fan myself, since the Keegan days of course ;-)

Amburgo, Amburgo: Vaffanculo!

[ONeill]

Be some craic at their games -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2r8vsEnko

Going through those videos, they seem to sing a lot of their songs in English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtJI59JhnY4&feature=related

[sammymaguire]

I am more of a Hamburg fan myself, since the Keegan days of course ;-)

Amburgo, Amburgo: Vaffanculo!

You support Lazio too?