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Guest contribution: Steven McMahon - Weekend In Hamburg! / St.Pauli-Celtic Party 05.02.2005
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The weekend started on Friday and we where on our way to Hamburg, from Manchester, to celebrate with our Brothers Across The Sea, the members of the St.Pauli C.S.C. We arrived in Hamburg, and made our way through the dark city night, to our digs in the Bartelstrasse, in St.Pauli itself. St.Pauli is a district of Hamburg renowned for its immigrant population, and stance against Fascism. Everywhere that we went that night on our search for the Jolly Roger we saw St.Pauli Anti-Fascists stickers everywhere, which was nice, but we needed to find the Jolly Roger, so like 3 tourist we stood outside this shop which was giving us light to read our street map, when the girl appeared at the door, cropped bleached blonde hair, and in a German/English accent asked if she could help us, we stood confused and thanked her for her assistance, ‘We’re looking for the Jolly Roger’ we asked her, and she promptly turned around and said to us ‘You wouldn’t happen to be Celtic Supporters would you’, we laughed and nodded to her, we are indeed was the reply, as we said that her partner came to the door also, and in a very good take off of a Scottish accent he relayed, ‘Its just roon the corner’, with this info we said our thanks and headed off, with the girl shouting to us, ‘We’ll see you in there shortly’.
We made it to the Jolly Roger and it was just open rather empty, but with a few Tims from Scotland and Ireland already in there and a number of St.Pauli fans, there was a couple of wee rebels from the Preston Emerald CSC, and more from Coatbridge, we got our drinks and headed for the seats, taking in all the club scarfs adorned the walls, from all over Europe, nice to see there wasn’t any Man United scarfs too though!!! After a couple of drinks the bar started to fill up with supporters who were coming from all over the place, we had the South Wales Bhoys in now, and they were full of song, so we started a few songs as the DJ played his Punk and Ska, foottapping though it is nothing beats a good sing-a-long to yer favourite rebel tunes, so soon enough we had the whole bar singing the tunes and it was great to see our German Brothers singing in harmony with us, these lads are great Celtic Fans and its great to see the enthusiasm these lads have for Celtic and vice versa obviously, St.Pauli is a club with close ties to us Celtic Fans and in our beliefs we share a lot of ideals, and anything Celtic can do to help the Brown Bhoys in there hour of need I fully condone like a Pre-Season friendly to help there financial burdens, and more of these weekends. The beer was flow the jack daniels was going down a treat and the gang of rebels in the Jolly Roger was growing and the temperature was rising, as the Bhoys sang a loud to the tunes of ‘Go On Home British Soldiers’, the place was rocking, and yet more people from Frankfurt, London, Poland, Derry and Dublin to name but a few were congregating and having a great time. By this time a was merry with drink and having a great buzz with the German lads, who knew just about every song, which left me feeling a bit guilty when the St.Pauli song came on and a couldn’t sing it coz it was in German, and ma grasp of the lingo ain’t that good to be fair, but still we danced and sang all night having a rip-roaring time, all the old rebel tune were sang with passion and fervour and if this was the warm-up what was Saturday night gonnae be like, pure bedlum probably! I was in ma element sat in the Jolly Roger with all the Bhoys and Ghirls around me also feeling that way, it was sum what surreal, being in a bar in Germany singing rebel tunes at 2am in the morning, like we was still in the east end of Glasgow somewhere, in a lock-in! These guys knew how to party and still going at 4am with a few of us still left we decided to make our way home down the bitter cold streets of St.Pauli, it makes a nice change to be somewhere that’s actually colder than Scotland.
We slept off our hangovers, and on Saturday we took a nice leisurely stroll down into Hamburg City Centre, via the Port side with all the ferries docked up, the waters edge was rather close and the movement of the boats and the water made me feel rather awful and was arousing my hangover again, and that’s not what I want, so we made our way towards the City Centre and to look for Finnegan’s Wake, we had heard it was showing the Celtic game on the Sunday against Kilmarnock, so we headed there and had a few drinks and something to eat and had meta few people from the night before slumped over the bar in Finnegan’s, obviously suffering from those large measures of Jack Daniels in the Jolly Roger! After a few hours we headed back to the Hotel and to get a quick nap before the night at The Knust. We had been awakened by the sound of sirens in the night air, and wondered what this could be, and off in the distance we could hear muffled shouting, a large group of people it sounded like, coming from the direction of the gig, and then the next minute an ambulance, cop cars, fire engine, and an armoured personnel carrier drove past our window, what the hell was happening I asked myself. Anyway we got ready to go out, and I had decided I was gonnae risk trying one of the local Kebab shops, as it’s a favourite dish of mine, and thought it was a good way of filling me up with crap before a good drink that night, whilst standing in the Kebab shop I started to hear the shouting again, but this time a lot more louder and closer, ‘Hope it no a Fascist march’, was my 1st thought standing in a Kurdish owned Kebab shop, then curiosity got the better of me and I walked outside while waiting for ma father and brother, the sight a seen was mad, about 300 cops all in riot gear and a group of protesters, shouting about some Hotel in the area being knocked down or built on land they didn’t want it either way and the guy in the Kebab shop said it was a weekly thing here that they always had marches and protests, which 99% of the time were peaceful, after the march had went past and we left the Kebab shop, we walked towards The Knust, kebab in hand getting stuck into the best kebab I think I had ever had, but also trying to keep warm from the biting wind chill that had gripped Hamburg that weekend.
We made it to the Knust and when we entered was greeted by Punk music and a couple a boys on the floor kicking and punching the shit out of each other, this was normal for punk, but to see it was rather enjoyable, these lads were having a great time, getting kick up the arse and the likes, we decided to a drink and leave them to it, walking round the venue, and scooping it out, there was a large number of people here, but it was getting bigger all the time, green and white hoops everywhere, and also the brown and white of St.Pauli, scattered across the rooms, Jolly Roger flags and Anti-Fascists emblems where everywhere to be seen on the clothing of the St.Pauli Fans, the 1st band on where Drunken Sailor, a German band but who sang some Irish Songs, all the band kitted out in either Celtic gear or wearing kilts, was a site to behold, and they started off the night, with a bangs as the St.Pauli Fans battered each other at the front of the stage we took prime spot up in the balcony, watching the proceedings. The next band on were Rubberslime,
wwwwwwwoooooowwwwww, there loud and clear on the speaker system, the place was rocking to Stupid White Hun, the time for The Spirit Of Freedom was coming soon, by this time again drunk and taking in the sights of the St.Pauli Fans with mohicans and allsorts of weird and wonderful contraptions pinned to them, it was like running the gauntlet to get to the bar thru that mind field of a dance floor with 3 bottle and a Jack D in yer hand it was a challenge I was to encounter all thru the night. The Spirit of Freedom was on the stage and this was the Rebels time to get going, this was also the 1st time I had seen them and they were good, with all the old favourites coming out to play, the place was rocking once more, and the German Bhoys were in full swing again, with the Fields Of Athenrye, some guy from Livingston had this great big banner thrown across the venue, with all the relevant flags on it, what a sight to see, this thing was great, Jolly Roger, Che Guevara, Palestinian, Soviet, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, to name but a few colours on it!
The night had been long and the early rises and beer had taken it toll on me, as a sat down to catch breath the party was still bouncing around me, the Celtic Supporters in full voice, by 2:30am, we was done and had to leave the Knust, made up with the night and the overall weekend, with so many good things to take home from Hamburg and the German Celtic fans, it was like we had found a new family member we didn’t know about, and embraced them fully and they the same to us, it was great and fully hope to be coming back next year and that by that time St.Pauli may be back in the Bundesliga 2. It was such a great time in Hamburg although only short, we plan to come back at some stage, and lap up the hospitality of the St.Pauli Bhoys, hope to see you all again next year or sooner and HAIL HAIL to all the Bhoys and Ghirls who were there!!!!
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| 21.02.2005 |
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