LTU-Arena
Liga 3
"Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo"...
Admission 18 € (tickets at 13 € available)
Club Newspaper Fortuna Aktuell, A4, fantastic value at just 1 €.
Colours Fortuna (all black), Wuppertaler (white, red trim)
Also In Attendance Sid
How To Get There Metro U78 tram direct from Dusseldorf HBF. The LTU Arena is the last stop. Probably about 3/4 miles walking distance northwest of Dusseldorf centre.
Food Much the same as FC Cologne within the arena:- brockwurst, currywurst and what looks like pizza with tuna.
Food Much the same as FC Cologne within the arena:- brockwurst, currywurst and what looks like pizza with tuna.
Drink Warsteiner (apparently non-alcoholic, whatever it wasn't very nice).
Dusseldorf is the business capital of Germany, and the administrative capital of the federal state North Rhine Westphalia. The city hosts many fashion fairs. The small river Dussel flows off the Rhine, hence the city name. As with many other German cities, Dusseldorf suffered terrible bombing during WWII.
Fortuna Dusseldorf were formed as a gymnastics club (Turnverein Flingern) in 1895 in the village of Flingern, a village now swallowed up by the city. In 1919 as TV Flingern they merged with local side Dusseldorfer Fussball Club Fortuna 1911 to form the mouthful 'Dusseldorfer Turn -und Sportverein Fortuna'.
Fortuna were the first club from the Rhine industrial area to win a German championship, beating Schalke 04 in 1933. This is the only time that Dusseldorf have topped the national league. They weren't strong enough to enter the inaugural Bundesliga, although they have played several seasons in the top division since, with 2 third places finishes to their name. They have won the German national cup on 2 occasions, having been beaten finalists 5 times. Their best cup performance was probably reaching the European Cup Winners Cup final in 1979, losing 4-3 to Barcelona in extra-time. Fortuna are known as a yo-yo club, moving between the top 4 levels of German football over the last twenty years. They were invited to be members of the newly created 3. Liga (German 3rd. division) last season (2007/08).
From 1930-72 (plus 3 seasons 2002-05) Fortuna played at the 8,500 capacity Paul-Janes-Stadion, named after a former international player. They played for the next thirty years at the Rheinstadion, which has since been demolished. Nowadays Dusseldorf play at the colossal 51,500 capacity LTU Arena. It took 2 years to build at a staggering cost of 240 million euros. Fortuna share the optionally closed roof stadium with NFL (German NFL?) side Rhein Fire.
Apart from Kraftwerk, and arty bands such as Can & Faust, the only German musicians I've heard of that are actually any good are the rock band 'Die Toten Hosen'. They even sponsored Fortuna for a couple of seasons.
The second leg of our continental tour with the game that we had agreed would be the 'must do' on our trip, Sid had been here before for this year's pre-season friendly with FC. Koln. Whilst back home England was receiving a deluge, in western Germany it was pleasantly warm, temperatures were around the 16 degrees centigrade mark. Upon arrival at Dusseldorf BHF the first point of call was the tourist office, once our tickets were secured we could relax with brunch at 'Buttermaker' , an American diner situated close by.
The second leg of our continental tour with the game that we had agreed would be the 'must do' on our trip, Sid had been here before for this year's pre-season friendly with FC. Koln. Whilst back home England was receiving a deluge, in western Germany it was pleasantly warm, temperatures were around the 16 degrees centigrade mark. Upon arrival at Dusseldorf BHF the first point of call was the tourist office, once our tickets were secured we could relax with brunch at 'Buttermaker' , an American diner situated close by.
From the outside the arena looks more akin to an office block, than a football ground. If it wasn't for the scores of polizei and security I wouldn't have known which direction to head in. Inside it reminded me most of Wigan's JJB, but on a much larger scale. Several food outlets and club merchandise stalls were open, but at 60 euros I had to forgo purchasing the Fortuna away kit, a black shirt with a white smudge which looks like someone has spilt paint on it. Like many German grounds it is a complete oval, a mixture of grey, red, yellow, white and blue seats, personally I think they should have gone for just red and white and picked out the clubs name.
Not being aware of lower level Bundesliga I was unaware that a) this was a local derby and b) both clubs had vociferous support. There was trouble outside the ground both before and after the game. Early on a flare was thrown onto the pitch , when Wuppertaler opened the scoring with a Reichwach penalty the travelling ultras threw 3 further flares onto the pitch. The referee took the players off, and the riot police were called in.
While the players were off the pitch whoever was in charge of the music over the tannoy decided it would be apt to play Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire'. When some scuffling took place over on the far side the record of choice was Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance'. Whoever said that the Germans don't have a sense of humour?
It was end to end stuff, the Lions (Wuppertaler) should have added a second and were made to pay for wasting their chances when Marco Christ unleashed an almighty (see what I did there) shot from fully 40 yards out which despite travelling down the centre of the goal the Wuppertaler keeper couldn't stop. This got the home support back up and jumping, shortly after the interval we were treated to the Fortuna rendition of 'I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You', replacing the 'I Love You Baby' line with 'Fortuna Dusseldorf, fortuna dusseldorf...'.
Some good work down the right saw the 'second coming' of Christ as he finished on the turn to put the home side ahead. A red card shown to penalty scorer Reichwach on 57 minutes meant from here on in Wuppertaler were chasing the game, they were caught on the break once too often as a Fortuna forward waltzed past the keeper, squared and with the very last kick of the game Dusseldorf's no. 18 Deniz Kadah tapped into an empty net to secure all 3 points in front of Fortuna's best crowd of the season.
More fighting outside meant severe delays on the tram, we waited for about half an hour 1 stop on from the Arena as firms clashed with each other and the polizei. Once moving our tram was bottled on one occasion, and had to stop short at Nordstrasse. Although we had to make a 20 minute walk from here it never felt like we were in any serious danger. We reached the Aldstadt by the Rhine, where we found a couple of Irish bars, one of these had a number of club scarves from various countries attached to the ceiling, we supped in here while watching the FA Cup 1st. round scores come in.
Classy chaps that we are, Sid and I had to stop for more curry wurst at the stall outside Dusseldorf station. I had mine with frites (chips) and smothered with mayonnaise, the most appetising sausage and sauce combo yet. We'd seen 7 goals and 2 red cards, could the good fortune continue the following day at Duisburg?
Final Score Fortuna Dusseldorf 3 (Christ 45,76, Darim 90) Wuppertaler SV 1 (Reichwach pen 27)
Final Score Fortuna Dusseldorf 3 (Christ 45,76, Darim 90) Wuppertaler SV 1 (Reichwach pen 27)
Attendance 16,663
More Photos Here
Links
Europlan for pictures of virtually every German ground.
Groundhopper 2000 reports on the home game vs. Rot-Weiss Erfurt
This chap also has some crowd footage from the same game. Concentrates too much on the 'ultras' for my liking, but it gives you a jist of what the atmosphere was like on the day.
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