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Bundesliga fans start early. It’s 11am on the normally sombre walkway between Berlin’s central station and the Brandenburg Gate, a route that is home to several dignified memorials commemorating the city’s darkest days. But sombre is not on the agenda for the legions of Hamburger SV supporters who have descended on the German capital for this afternoon’s encounter with Hertha Berlin. Almost everyone has a bottle of beer on the go. Several have two. We’re barely past breakfast.
But such prodigious intake carries no cause for alarm. German domestic football is renowned for its happy-go-lucky, celebratory atmosphere, where clashes between opposing fans are rare. German football is also applauded for its inexpensive admission prices. For instance, entry to a Bayern Munich home match – one of the top three teams in Europe, no less – can cost as little as €15. The cheapest ticket for one of Arsenal’s top home games is more than £65. In search of more affordable matches, I’m taking my nine-year-old son Finn for a half-term short break to see how Europe does football. Our tickets, bought in advance from the club website to avoid disappointment on the day, are burning a hole in our pockets. Four days of father-son bonding, with lashings of football, trains and pizza. We’re as excited as each other.
As we’ll be making good use of Berlin’s excellent rail network for the next 24 hours, our base in the German capital is the smart yet comfortable Steigenberger Hotel Am Kanzleramt (doubles from €85), barely a goalkeeper’s clearance from the city’s Hauptbahnhof. The station is a fascinating destination in itself. It’s like a scene from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, with trains of various sizes and colours crisscrossing the concourse on different levels. The match is a 20-minute ride across the city on the overground S-Bahn network, autumn’s yellows and browns warming up the grey suburbs we see from the window.
Hertha Berlin’s home ground is the Olympiastadion, the venue for this season’s Champions League final, and the crucible for the 1936 Olympics. I give Finn a rudimentary history lesson on the significance of that particular sporting event, a lecture that’s helped by our seats being just along from where Hitler sat scowling as Jesse Owens collected his four gold medals. The Olympiastadion is still used for athletics, but the running track is now a strikingly modern blue in colour.
The track might separate crowd and pitch, but our view is faultless and, come kick-off, we’re engrossed, especially Finn (“my heart is pounding,” he tells me between mouthfuls of a hot pretzel the size of his face). Both sets of fans, almost 60,000 in total, are in full voice throughout, competing choirs doing battle using the weapon of song. Both sets of fans also appear to be keen advocates of mass pogo-ing – a way of showing devotion to their respective teams while also keeping out the biting Berlin chill.
A sharply contested match is decided by three second-half goals for the home team. The Hamburg fans around us are far from despondent, though. Despite the result – and the amount of pre-match refreshment – there’s little visible disgruntlement, no tense atmosphere ready to boil over. I don’t see so much as a discarded beer can getting kicked in frustration.
Then it’s off for the second leg of our tour: Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in Brussels to catch Belgium’s league-leaders, Anderlecht, in action. Finn and I have travelled west taking one of Europe’s many sleeper trains: in our case, the 14-hour service that glides between Berlin and Paris. Last night, from the cosiness of our two-berth compartment, Finn watched the lights of eastern Germany flicker past our window. This morning, as he tucked into his complimentary breakfast of baguette, brioche and chocolate milk, his top-bunk view was of sunrise over the green fields of Belgium.
In Brussels by midday, we press our noses up against the windows of the out-of-our-price-bracket designer shops of Avenue Louise, the city’s upmarket retail district, before grabbing a shower and an hour or two of stamina-saving rest at our hotel. Just off Avenue Louise and a 20-minute walk from the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Midi, Hotel Zoom (doubles from €100) is a recently opened, photography themed boutique establishment that describes itself as “cosy industrial”. Finn is particularly intrigued by its huge collection of analogue cameras; to a nine-year-old’s eyes, these are relics of a bygone era.
If you’re following a more relaxed itinerary than us, Brussels makes a perfect single-city destination for the UK-based football tourist. Closer to London by train than Manchester, it offers a host of cultural attractions with which to fill the weekend (see visitbrussels.be for more). Plus, you can get into an Anderlecht match for €25 (£20); some non-league English teams charge almost that much every Saturday afternoon.
This evening’s visitors are bitter rivals Standard Liège but, as in Berlin, the pre-match mood is calm and fraternal. The stadium is in a residential neighbourhood and surrounded by several bars serving Anderlecht’s fans, watering holes that you suspect do slow trade outside of match days, if they’re open at all. Finn and I share a portion of frites and mayonnaise outside a bar called Le But (The Goal), before taking our seats in the main stand. The capacity may only be a quarter of that of Berlin’s Olympiastadion, but a full house ensures the atmosphere is even more passionate. In a stadium reminiscent of QPR’s tight Loftus Road ground, we’re closer to the action too.
Again, though, we’re sitting with the losing supporters. Tonight Standard upset the form book, dishing out a 2-0 defeat to the top-of-the-table locals. It’s deep sighs and disbelieving shrugs all around us. But Finn doesn’t care who wins. He’s more delighted that all five goals this weekend have been scored at the end of the stadium where we’ve been sitting. I’m just relieved that our 1,800-mile odyssey has avoided a pair of 0-0 draws.
Next morning, arriving at Gare du Midi to take the Eurostar home, we make a pact to undertake a continental football pilgrimage every season. We’re both hooked. But why wait another 12 months? I glance at the departures board. There’s a train for Amsterdam in five minutes. Perhaps the mighty Ajax are at home tonight …
Way to go The trip was provided by British Airways Holidays (ba.com/holidays), which offers European city breaks from £129pp, including flights and two nights’ accommodation. Train travel was provided by Voyages-sncf.com, specialists in organising journeys across the European rail network
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