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NO DICE
FIRST EDITION

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NO DICE
Berlin football in words, photos and
illustrations
“Football? It’s like chess, just with no dice”
It’s a shame that the quote is apocryphal. Prince Poldi never said it, but it illustrates something
that so many people were happy to believe it was true for a long time.
It is the beautiful poem of the dumb. In many ways, like football itself. A game that can be as
elegant as it can be brutal or as cerebral as it can be, well, stupid.
We have always believed that football is a perfect way to understand and get inside a city and
its people. This is as much the case in Berlin as anywhere else. Berlin - with its unique history
of togetherness and division, of war and peace, of immigrants and locals - tells so many stories
through its football.
Though it’s not been considered a ‘football town’ since the game started being played in
Germany, the amount of people that play and watch the game in Berlin is astonishing.
The Berlin Fußball Verband alone has over 100,000 members. We aim to provide the slightest
snapshot of that.
Football is a language in itself, it will always cross over the bullshit boundaries of semantics.
Although No Dice is in English (the practical reason being that it is our native tongue) it is not
meant to exclude the German fan. No matter what language you speak, we sincerely hope that
every man, woman and child with a scarf draped around their neck, a whistle between their
pursed lips, or with a ball at their feet in the Hauptstadt will enjoy our magazine, and continue
to pursue that impossible dream - to enjoy the beautiful game.
3

NO DICE
FIRST EDITION
Page 9.
Page 21.
Page 36.
CONTENTS
Interview with Uwe
Neuhaus, by Jacob
Sweetman
Tennis Borussia returns
to its roots, by Stephen
Glennon
Berlin Referees - a photo
essay by Ian Stenhouse
5

No Dice are:
Jacob Sweetman - Ipswich Town, 1.FC Union
Stephen Glennon - Sampdoria, TeBe
Jude Flegel - Crystal Palace, 1.FC Union
Emily Sweetman - football agnostic
Ian Stenhouse - Hearts, Hertha BSC
photo by Matt Grayson
5

Don´t look BAK. Berlin Athletik Klub 07 look forward to the new heights of the Regionalliga Nord
Photo: BAK07
7

Emily Sweetman
INTERVIEW : UWE NEUHAUS
by Jacob Sweetman
In early 2007, Uwe Neuhaus was appointed head coach at
1.FC Union Berlin. At the time they weren’t so much a club
in transition as merely a collection of raw materials that had
the potential, with time, to be turned into something greater.
There was no roof on the tatty but charming Stadion an der
Alten Försterei, their home (in various guises) since 1920. The
team had just avoided relegation to the Oberliga, a repetition
of which could well have heard the death knells ringing
out across Köpenick for the fiercely proud, but at the time
impoverished club, despite the impetus brought in by the new
chairman - a fan, no less - Dirk Zingler.
The first game of that season was at home against Fortuna
Düsseldorf, a team that have followed Union, and therefore
also Neuhaus, step by step, league by league, over the last
five or so years. Despite ending up with only ten men on the
field, Fortuna won 1-0. The pain on Torsten Mattuschka’s
face would have been plain to see at the end, but his shirt was
pulled up to his eyes - he had missed a penalty - but Neuhaus
was proud of him. He had shown the qualities of leadership
that would, in time, make him captain. The team, though,
needed to show more of the fighting spirit that Neuhaus knew
was necessary for the fans to accept him as the man to take this
club back from the depths.
The new boss was already making up his mind about his
squad. The make-up of his team, which he knew would have
to be “Eisern” - made of Iron - to succeed in this league, but
also to keep the fans satisfied. He is the kind of man who
respects skill, but it has to come alongside the work ethic. That
Ruhrpott sensibility: they are sensible and solid people down
there. It is football country, but it is also hard working country.
They don’t suffer fools gladly.
I remember that Düsseldorf match vividly, because it was the
first game I ever saw in Berlin, having moved here a couple
of months previously. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a
kick off at the strangely normal time of 2pm on a Saturday
afternoon. Obviously TV didn’t have much interest in a battle
between two teams in the Regionalliga Nord, at the start of a
long season where the only tangible goal was to finish in the
top ten. The first and second placed teams would skip merrily
straight up to the 2.Bundesliga, the next eight would make up
the numbers in the brand new 3.Liga which would commence
from 2008.
Uwe Neuhaus, at that time, had little to lose. It would be
the managing of the expectations created as he increasingly
succeeded that would come closest to being his undoing.
They ended up so close to that second place. A miracle
was needed on the final day against Oberhausen. A 4-0
victory (with Düsseldorf also losing) would have sufficed, but
there were few among the 14,000 there that day who didn’t
believe it could happen. It was the end of a fantastic season,
after all. Neuhaus had delivered, and more. Oberhausen
spanked Union 3-0 that day, but the loss mattered little.
It was blindingly hot again, meaning the celebratory plastic
sheeting stretched out across the terrace behind the goal may
(in hindsight) have not been such a good idea. A guy who must
have weighed 20 stone fell down the full length of the tribune
in the heat, his seemingly unstoppable momentum eventually
ceasing at the bottom. A couple of fans picked him up, dusted
him down and gave him another beer. It was that kind of a day.
The last one at the old Alte Försterei.
Not only had the team moved on (Marco Gebhardt provided
strength and technical ability, Mattuschka was flourishing,
Karim Benyamina was scoring regularly, and young players
such as Christian Stuff had come through - Neuhaus had found
the foundations for a successful, occasionally stylish, but also
steely football team), but with the unbelievable help of the fans
for whom the word dedication barely musters justice, the club
was too. In spite of the capital city’s intransigence, they were
going to rebuild themselves. The fable of the Alte Försterei
is for another day, but within this story of hundreds of fans
donating many thousands of man hours, for free, to
rebuild their stadium, was Uwe Neuhaus looking on,
sometimes even helping out as an electrician, and trying to
understand these people. These fans. Their dedication was
astonishing. He must have realised then that they could be
tricky customers to deal with too. They were almost too close
to their club.
-----------------------------
That first year, 2007 / 2008, was to be one of the easiest rides
that Neuhaus would be given at the start of a season. He had
time to rebuild and the patience and grace of the fans as one.
But when I met him recently, it was the week after a 4-0
mauling away to Dynamo Dresden that epitomised a horrible
beginning for the club as a whole to 2011 / 2012.
Union had been knocked out of the cup in the first round to
the Regionalliga side Rot-Weiss Essen. His former club.
The 4-0 dealt out by newly promoted Dynamo was the
mirror image of the score against Greuther Fürth in the first
game at home. A routine win against Paderborn had started
with the unveiling of a banner that simply stated ‘Unzufrieden’
- unhappy - with the UN spelt out in red to avoid any
ambiguities as to who it was aimed at. The three points that
day took little of the pressure off. Paderborn are easy. Dresden,
though, are rivals. The players had looked spineless, and had
frozen in the glare of a game against a team with a shared
9

Emily Sweetman
history in the former DDR.
Sitting back at his desk, a Marlboro light still smouldering
away in the ashtray and the walnut hew of his summer holiday
tan not yet completely worn out by the stress of this horrible
start to the campaign, Neuhaus reflected on the differences
between when he had taken over and now.
“The preconditions that [first] season were totally different,
as I had just taken over a team that the year before had only
stayed up on goal difference.... The levels of expectation
weren’t as huge.” The growing of these expectations is best
shown by the fact that nobody minded being knocked out at
the same stage in his first year by the Bundesliga’s Eintracht
Frankfurt. “Getting knocked out of the cup is totally different
when you are a second division team against a Regionalliga
team.” He looked stung, drawn almost, reflecting on the bad
start.
Events on the pitch were bad enough, but attention was
being increasingly focussed off it. This was new to me. I
had attended almost every home game, and several away,
in the last five years and had never seen sections of the fans
arguing amongst themselves like they were said to have done
at Dresden. I had never seen them openly turning on the man
who was now the second longest-serving manager in the top
three divisions.
The success in ensuring 2nd division survival before time the
previous season had been overshadowed by the rancorous
reading of the headlines. The club’s all-time top scorer and
fans favourite, Karim Benyamina, had been allowed to leave
for FSV Frankfurt and naturally scored a typically elegant
volley against his former employers in the opening fixture.
The manager (in the German sense, a director of football
to the English) Christian Beeck had been fired in a surprise
announcement in May. To many of the fans, Beeck was
Union as much as Benyamina. He was the man whose quote
(whilst playing for Energie Cottbus) “we played fairly, with
the necessary brutality” would also sum up the black sheep of
Köpenick whose cries of ‘Eisern’ literally translate as ‘Iron’.
Beeck understood what they needed and what they expect
from their team. They want to see fighting for the cause. Not
for a single man. Not for Uwe Neuhaus, it seemed.
But he remains sanguine about it. “There was seemingly
a lot of disquiet in the summer. Some personnel decisions
that were taken didn’t have the complete support [of the fans],
and a few were surprised. I believe that this plays a part....
the last week’s headlines...” He trails off, talking about the
performances again. He likes to talk football. Not the other
bullshit. He says he trusts his players, and with his single
mindedness, is sure how to get the best out of them. Not for
him the Jose Mourinho ‘lightning rod’ technique, where the
Portuguese soaks up all of the off field pressure on behalf of
his squad. “I just try to regulate the pressure. You can’t take it
all off their shoulders. This last week is a good example. They
have seen the reaction of the fans, and taken it on board. They
read the newspapers, they know that the pressure is there, but I
have to redirect it on the training pitch.”
He says simply that his methods towards training won’t change
due to external circumstances, or due to the poor results. Why
should they, he asks. There are always specifics that come up
in the analysis after a game, but he says that that is completely
normal.
But this, in many ways, is at the root of some of the
fans’ problems with his management. He is seen as
an autocrat. As an inflexible dominant manager who
won’t see another way than his own. His accusers say
this was why Beeck was pushed out, and this is what
prompted a rash of ‘1.FC Neuhaus’ headlines in the
weeks that followed. Looking in, as an Englishman,
this is an argument that I have never fully understood.
Nobody tells Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger who
to buy (or not to buy in Wenger’s case).
Neuhaus sees it simply. “In England they do it one
way and in Germany we do it another. Everything
that is uncomfortable is received critically at first.
I don’t understand the anger, my methods of working
haven’t changed in six years... This was a false impression
given by the press.” This had followed the fallout from
Felix Magath’s unhappy second season at Schalke, where
he was ridiculed by all and sundry for wielding too
much power.
But Neuhaus’ mention of the press is telling. He seems
to be irritated by the workings of the game in the 21st century,
but does he accept that the press have a job to do the same as
he does?“Years ago, there were barely any headline stories,
ones that these days you see in different newspapers every
week. I have to accept it, but whether I like it or not is a
different thing.”
-----------------------------------------------
UWE NEUHAUS
Uwe Neuhaus has been through tough patches in football
before. Experiences that shaped his responses to the game’s
seemingly permanent state of crisis. In 1990, SG Wattenscheid
09 had made it to the promised land of the top flight. It was
unprecedented and Uli Hoeneß
described it as “the worst thing that could happen to the
Bundesliga.” As minnows, Wattenscheid knew they would
have to use all of their guile to stay up. They had to fight
together and learn how to come back from the inevitable bad
results that would follow.
That Neuhaus is such a determined and hard-working manager
is due in many ways to the fact that he was already in his late
twenties when Wattenscheid got promoted. He had honed his
skills in the lower leagues. The players may not have been as
naturally talented as some in the top flight, but the architect of
their promotion, Hannes Bongartz, knew how to make them
stand up to the best. This included a retort to Hoeneß’ words
11

UWE NEUHAUS
in a 3-2 home win over Bayern that kept them in a surprising
tenth position. That they were that high at all was because of a
remarkable bounce back in form. A formative period certainly
for Neuhaus.
A few months earlier they had been humiliated 7-0 by Hoeneß’
Bavarians (then managed by Jupp Heynckes). It should have
been eight, Stefan Reuters’ penalty having cannoned into the
post. Following the mauling, Wattenscheid lost 4-0 at home to
local arch rivals Bochum, and then 4-2 away at Nürnberg. He
struggles to think back, slurps his coffee and sneaks a glance
at the fags on his desk, thinking another one might help the
memory along.
“Well, these phases are a little bit different as a player than as
a trainer.... as a trainer you have complete responsibility As
a player you can play without it, you have other goals on the
pitch, naturally whilst trying to help the team. But, if
you have experienced this situation before it can help to
bounce back.”
He chuckles when he says that he played in every position,
even as goalkeeper a couple of times. As a kid he wanted to
be a striker. He wanted to be Gerd Müller, but that is hardly
surprising. You could throw a stick into a group of German
men of a certain age, and you know that it would hit someone
who wanted once to be ‘Der Bomber’. He became either a
holding midfielder or a central defender. The positions where
you can see the whole game developing in front of you. The
positions that can be played with the brain as well as the feet.
Experience counts at the back, and it counts to draw on as a
trainer.
Wattenscheid stayed up for three long seasons, but he knows
all too well they had it easier then. It was a less complicated
time when moustaches (his own inelegant little lip crawler
included) ruled the Bundesliga, and football could hardly seem
to be quite as significant in comparison to the events happening
on their doorstep every day with the re-unification of the
country.
“It’s more complicated for players nowadays, the whole
media has changed. You only made it into the headlines with
something spectacular in those days. Today you only need to
be photographed somewhere at 11pm and it’s on Facebook.
Agents also play a completely different role today.” He sighs.
“The whole business has changed.” He doesn’t look like a man
who is on Facebook, but there is also a contradiction here. He
has stressed the club needed to go in the new direction football
was headed. They didn’t need another football man any more.
They needed a businessman. Hence the replacement of Beeck
with Nico Schäfer. But it seems as though he still pines for
those times when the game was a whole lot simpler.
----------------------------------------------
Union walked the 3rd division in 2008 / 2009, all the while
playing ‘away’. While the fans worked tirelessly on the
stadium, Union were playing their games at the unloved Jahn-
Sportpark in Prenzlauer Berg. The ‘Tierpark’ as they call it: it
is only fit for animals, the home of BFC Dynamo’s greatest
European nights, the memories of which are still resented in
Köpenick. Many fans stayed away entirely for one of the best
seasons the club has ever enjoyed. But this is the way with
‘Kultklubs’, ‘Traditionsklubs’, call them what you will. You
are supporting an idea as much as 11 players and a boss.
Neuhaus knows this implicitly. His three managerial stations
have all been at such clubs - Essen, Dortmund, Union. They
are all what they are (at differing levels) purely because of the
fans’ particular connection to the team and the area. It would
be impossible for Unioners to countenance playing outside of
Köpenick. Simply impossible.
Naturally the conversation comes back around to the pressure
in these places particularly. He beams with pride when he says
“in everyday life in Köpenick the people confront you with
tactics. That is surely a huge point. Tradition is founded from
what is beautiful. But also through the bad times the tradition
is always there. To get 7,000 average attendances in the
Regionalliga is....” he trails off again. “I don’t see that reaction
at all other clubs.”
After a victory in Regensburg in 2009 that ensured Union
would be the first winners of the new third division, he was
speechless, simply managing to squeeze out a couple of cliches
for the throngs of press. The fans carried him aloft. In their
proudest moment, he was the star of the show. But how does it
compare to his other achievements? It really is impressive, but
this guy has been at Dortmund, where a wall of 25,000 people
sit in the south stand alone. His face lightens enormously
talking about nights like the time that the Dortmund side
(where he was assistant trainer to Matthias Sammer) beat AC
Milan 4-0 at home in the first leg of the UEFA cup semi final
(“an absolute highlight in life, the memories of which always
remain. It’s a shame we lost in the final [to PSV], it was a
crazily emotional time”).
“Everything in its way is special about days like those.
To reach a European final is a different dimension, but
despite that it’s not more meaningful than the promotion
to the second division with Union. I believe they both
belong at the same level, at a higher dimension than
winning the German title or the cup.” He loves talking
about football. This is probably at the root of his annoyance at
the modern game and the press intrusion. He likes to talk about
football. Not politics.
--------------------------------------------------
To many Neuhaus would always be an outsider, no matter his
achievements at the team, though he is (arguably) the most
successful manager they have ever had. The spectre of the
DDR is never far away at this club, and outsiders, ‘Wessis’,
are often dismissed as being interfering know nothings. The
inference being that ‘they’ didn’t live through the tough times
13

in a former country that formed the club in much the same
way that the Galapagos Islands were spat out of the sea floor,
the magma cooling to form spectacular new bodies. Though
incredibly welcoming, the fans of 1.FC Union Berlin can also
be a suspicious bunch at times.
At the same time that he was trying to sort out the on-field
stuff, the newspapers turned their ire onto president Zingler
due to the discovery that he had served in army group strongly
connected to the Stasi during his military service.The Union
wagons circled around their own. Neuhaus remained silent,
already angered by the heavy criticism of his role at the club,
but also in the knowledge that he would never be an ‘Ossi’.
The attacks were coming from without - the club made it
clear. It was journalists, they said, who had never lived in the
DDR and couldn’t possibly understand the pressures a young
man would be under in the regime - and he wanted to remain
within. It was best to keep his head down and try and get
some results on the pitch. He simply told the Berliner Kurier
at the time that “we must win to put a stop to this rubbish”. He
performs a Cruyff turn around my mention of the chairman’s
past and sticks to the basics, merely saying that his job is to
win on the pitch. There are no excuses.
Uwe Neuhaus is charming whilst at the same time obdurate.
He knows he has to be that alpha male that you find so often in
football to succeed. His watch must weigh as much as my bag.
His hair is immaculate and the shoes,
spotless as ever. But he is also unfailingly patient, polite and
generous to a foreign writer, stumbling through a language that
he doesn’t really understand. Immediately
I’m convinced that he couldn’t work any other way. To take
away the determination that gives him his weaker side, the
side that refuses to countenance outside opinions for instance,
would take away the very thing that makes him good at his job.
Looking back through the sides he has brought through
at Union, there is a common thread. Players such as Nico
Patschinski and Guido Spork were quickly wheedled out for
not toeing the party line. For not taking things as seriously as
he does. Players such as the outrageously gifted Santi Kolk too
have gone because they had trouble understanding the basic
needs of the German football fan in general, and the Union
one in particular. The need for fight, for aggression, but most
importantly the need to never give up. As they say in German,
‘Immer weiter’. His teams have relied on players such as
Marco Gebhardt, Patrick Kohlmann, Daniel Göhlert, Christian
Stuff and Torsten Mattuschka - players that fought.
Another of the frequent criticisms of him is that he sticks to his
favourites whether they are performing or not. In many cases
his detractors have a point. John Jairo Mosquera couldn’t buy
a goal last year at times, but he would never be dropped. He
only stopped using Macchambes Younga-Mouhani when it
became absolutely clear that he didn’t have the legs for football
at the highest levels any more. He is also accused of being too
frequently negative away from home. They see his pragmatism
as being an alien concept at times. This is what the fans were
UWE NEUHAUS
so angry about after the Dresden game. It was up to Neuhaus
to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again. To lose is one
thing, but to lose without trying is a cardinal sin. I mention
this in a comparison to English fans and he tells the story of
how as a youngster his club side played against a team from
Darlington. They were older, tougher “and they just flew in to
you”. He was impressed. Neuhaus always lost horribly against
these teams but he learned a vital lesson about the fight.
It is this which makes this complicated man tick, and this
which has made him so, at times belligerent, but at times calm
and understanding of others faults. If they can’t be avoided,
then so be it. But if it’s through lack of trying... there will be
hell to pay. It seems he needs the pressure to remain on him to
succeed and it seems he actually enjoys the confrontations at
times.
He had done his army service himself as a helicopter
technician in the old west. It was something he had to
do, but never has he thought that he would rather have
stuck at it, despite the fact that he has to deal with all
of this. Smiling at the inference he points out that although
it should be simple - this cable goes here and that cable
goes there and the thing flies - there is never a way out
of personal responsibility. He smiles away my suggestion
that life in the army would be somehow easier. People
die through a human error in a helicopter. He hasn’t got
it so bad dealing with a few pissed off football fans.
“There’s not always sunshine in a life in the middle, a
couple of raindrops will also fall, but it’s not so bad, this
pressure.”
As I write this now, the storm clouds seem to have passed
over. A ship that seemed to be listing has been righted,
and results have taken Union back to the top ten spot in
the league that he set out as his goal before the start of
the season (a prediction that caused him more problems
than he probably needed at the time). Uwe Neuhaus’s faith
in his players - those who are prepared to put in the hours
at least - has paid off.
But I had a final question when things seemed at their
nadir. Is he still having fun? He beamed back across the
desk and let that answer for itself. It seems he loves the
fight more than anything else. To pit himself against the
best and the hardest, in the knowledge that his hard work,
hard ethics and thick skin will see him through. And
who’d bet against him being at Union for another five
years?
Jacob Sweetman 2011
15

Hansa Stadion, Weissensee 16.09.11
Roter Stern NordOst - FFC Lichtenrade Ost 4-2
17

LFC Berlin- Türkiyemspor 3-3 24.09.11 Emily Sweetman
19

Tennis Borussia returns to its roots
by Stephen Glennon
Most football fans would give their right arm for their team to
be backed by wealthy investors desperate for on-field success.
However, after two such speculations turning to disaster,
Tennis Borussia Berlin is more interested in cementing its
unique philosophy than topping tables. Stephen Glennon met
some TeBe fans to discuss why they have embraced the club’s
recent relegation to the sixth division.
June 12th, 2011, and there’s a game on in Berlin’s Friedrich-
Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. There’s no police presence
Considering that one of these teams will be relegated to
Germany’s sixth division at the final whistle, one would
be excused for expecting at least some of the crowd to be
disgruntled and angry. The levels of expectation that football
fans can muster up leaves little patience for failure on the scale
of relegation.
After a tense draw and extra-time, Tennis Borussia Berlin
(TeBe) lost, and their subsequent relegation to the Berlin-Liga
was their second in consecutive years. As their triumphant
opponents Borea Dresden celebrated retaining their fifth
division status, the TeBe players slunk dejectedly over to
the terrace, where many of their purple-clad followers had
clambered up on the large, imposing barriers separating the
stand from pitch.
Like any symbolic moment, the significance of what happened
next can be understood in a variety of contexts. Buenos Aires a
couple of weeks after that game in Berlin offers one.
River Plate, one of Argentina’s most famous teams, suffered
a similar ignominy to TeBe in being relegated to their lowestever
divisional status. Their fans climbed fences too. They
did it to invade the pitch, causing the match to be abandoned.
They then rampaged out onto the streets of the capital, rioting
and battling with police. Water cannons were used to disperse
the crowds as the area around the stadium turned into a war
zone. To the overwhelming majority of football fans, the
River Plate supporter’s reactions were a baffling, inexplicable
overreaction.
The TeBe fans, however, after climbing the fences of the
Jahnpark, applauded their players, shook their hands and
thanked them for their efforts in a season that saw only
five league victories, a series of dreadful hammerings
and, seemingly, precious little to be thankful for. To the
overwhelming majority of football fans, the TeBe supporter’s
reactions were a baffling, inexplicable underreaction.
The reasons why the TeBe players deserved applause and
thanks, to an outsider, are far from immediately clear. This is
because TeBe, despite its average attendances of only around
300 per game, has one of the most absorbing histories, one
of the most well-developed and loyal fan scenes and one of
the most unshakable philosophies of any football team in the
world, but, due to events of the last fifteen years, is mostly
viewed negatively by the general football-supporting public.
TeBe was founded in 1902 in Berlin-Mitte’s old
Scheunenviertel, an area with a large population of Jewish
immigrants from Eastern Europe. In the precarious Twenties
between world wars, TeBe were one of Berlin’s top
teams, frequently battling with Hertha BSC for the Berlin
championship, losing four finals in a row before finally
overcoming their rivals in 1932.
Having a large proportion of Jewish members, more than any
other Berlin club, TeBe was used to recurring hostility from
the opposition, and its short period of success came to an
end in 1932 when Nazi decree banned Jewish players from
participation in organised competition.
After the war, Holocaust survivor and TV personality Hans
Rosenthal was TeBe President from 1965 to 1973, and he is
remembered every time TeBe scores a goal with the stadium
announcer repeating a version of his catchphrase “Wir sind der
Meinung, das war…”, to which the crowd roars “SPITZE!”
(We think that was… GREAT!)
These days, anti-fascism is the basis upon which the TeBe
fan scene is built, along with strong opposition to any form of
discrimination, be it based on gender, race, religion or sexual
orientation.
According to Carsten, lifelong TeBe fan and co-founder
of the website wesavetebe.de, the atmosphere at TeBe’s
Mommsenstadion was always incomparable to that at other
stadia. It was “pleasant and different”, he claims, even in the
Seventies as the team reached the pinnacle of its sporting
success – two short visits to the Bundesliga that both featured
plucky performances but ultimately ended with relegation in
1975 and 1977.
There is, however, nothing particularly noteworthy about
a liberal-minded bunch of fans who create a pleasant
atmosphere, and it was not until the late Nineties that the TeBe
philosophy really began to develop. The catalyst was one
that, in these days of ambitious oligarchs, American tycoons
and Arab sheikhs in search of expensive playthings, is all too
familiar – a rapid injection of cash from a group of investors
that don’t willingly answer questions about their motives.
Back then, without the numerous examples of teams going
bust following the withdrawal of large-scale investment, there
21

was none of the dubious suspicion that accompanies financing
of that sort today. As the gift horse’s mouth opened wide,
TeBe closed its eyes tightly shut. The benefactors were the
investment trust, Göttinger Gruppe, and they seemed happy
to invest freely in order to achieve the maximum amount of
sporting success in the shortest amount of time possible.
TeBe smashed their way into the 2.Bundesliga, finishing
thirty-two points clear of their nearest rivals, Dynamo Dresden,
without losing a single game in the 1997/98 season. High
calibre players such as Uwe Rösler and Toni Micevski were
lured to Berlin with exorbitant sums of money in time for the
2.Bundesliga campaign.
Naturally, their rivals for promotion were not impressed at
how uneven TeBe’s new-found riches had made the playing
field, even if much of the resentment that was directed at
the club for having apparently bought success is somewhat
off-target: in the early and mid-Nineties, TeBe were often
promotion candidates and the cash injection simply gave them
the push required to not only be able to win promotion but also
consolidate their 2.Bundesliga position.
Carsten’s co-founder of wesavetebe.de, Christian Rudolph, can
verify the animosity that TeBe fans endured, having himself
been part of it. “I had a really bad view of TeBe ... [they were]
a dislikeable team in the 2.Bundesliga times,” he said. But
in 2007, he started an internship with the club and saw the
reality. “[My opinion] was very quickly revised. I’m not even
really a football fan, I always found football too chavvy. But
I really found a home here ... it’s not the usual rowdiness and
abusiveness that you have with other teams.”
Carsten identifies the antipathy that the TeBe fans had to
endure in the Nineties as key in the development of the fan
scene.
“TeBe had a pretty strange appearance to the outside world
and a lot of bad things happened that directed a lot of hatred
towards the team. It was a good thing, almost, to see how
people dealt with the hate and persevered. That’s a particular
quality [of TeBe fans] .... we’d go to 1. FC Union Berlin and
there’d be bottles thrown at the old granddads in our crowd.
That really politicised our fan scene, as well as simultaneously
immunising it against people that we simply don’t want to
have around.”
Especially from East Berlin came a great deal of resentment
towards the newly-rich team from the already-wealthy
district of Charlottenburg. Beliefs, however, are moulded and
reinforced by adversity. They must exist beforehand, of course,
but it is only when they are threatened do they reinforce,
recruit, and advance. This is exactly what happened on the
terraces at TeBe in the late Nineties, as the fans started to
organise and stand firm.
TeBe fans were defending their way of life from external
sources, but soon it became clear that the biggest threat was
from inside the club. The Göttinger Gruppe, in their efforts
to achieve success as quickly as possible with their new
plaything, neglected to attempt to understand the wishes of the
TeBe fans. The players who joined were drawn by cash rather
than any particular attraction to the famous old purple Tennis
Borussia shirt.
The team’s second season in the 2.Bundesliga in 1999 started
excellently, with promotion looking eminently possible until
March, when ten of the last twelve games resulted in defeat.
Relegation was narrowly avoided, but off the pitch, things
were even worse.
Current Tennis Borussia chairman, Andreas Voigt, remembers
the period well. He was running the TeBe marketing
department that year and, as a true and pragmatic TeBe fan,
recalls that season as a success, since relegation was avoided.
One can’t help but feel that his über-ambitious bosses did not
agree, and as the Deutscher Fussball Bund (DFB) required
guarantees about the club’s financial health in order to be
allowed to participate in the following season’s 2.Bundesliga,
perhaps the Göttinger Gruppe saw an easy way to disengage
themselves from their little experiment.
According to Voigt, “back then, the DFB required a bank
guarantee and the Göttinger Gruppe had one from their own
bank ... but the DFB didn’t accept it. I believe the Göttinger
Gruppe would have gotten the relevant guarantee from a
different bank, but they were stubborn about it and had a
dispute with the DFB. That’s where everything went wrong
because the DFB didn’t grant them a licence for the second
division. You could speculate though, whether that was the
Göttinger Gruppe’s intention or whether they really were just
too proud, but that’s not a question that I can answer.”
TeBe was forcibly relegated to the third division, and
consequently lost the support of the Göttinger Gruppe
(whose fortunes were also on the decline, finally starting
insolvency proceedings in 2007) and the vast majority of
their expensively-assembled squad. A second consecutive
relegation was inevitable, and a year and a half after pushing
for promotion to the Bundesliga, TeBe was floundering in the
fourth division.
While the sporting side of things may have been difficult
for TeBe fans after the turn of the century, there was a sense
of relief amongst the fans at having their club back. The
following seven years in the Oberliga Nord saw consistent, if
unspectacular performances, and even featured four victories
in the Berliner Pokal (Berlin Cup).
By 2007, as TeBe’s financial affairs reached an even keel and
on-the-field performances became increasingly reliable, they
were again attracting the attention of large-scale investors.
This time it was the secretive Swiss company Treasure AG
providing the funds.
With the benefit of hindsight, one can criticise the club for
TeBe
23

once more accepting vast amounts of cash without either
asking the right questions of the sponsors or bearing the wishes
of the supporters in mind. This time, however, was somewhat
different to the experiences with the Göttinger Gruppe.
Treasure AG, for all their unwillingness to speak to the press
about the source of their wealth or their plans for TeBe, only
had one of their employees on the TeBe board of directors,
leaving most of the decision-making in the hands of the club.
Unfortunately, the hands of the club was where the problem
lay – the boss was now Mario Weinkauf, a former President
of hated rivals BFC Dynamo, a team that in many ways
resembles the ideological opposite to TeBe’s own convictions.
TeBe fans could not get over this link to their adversary, and
how Weinkauf, having had his Treasure AG proposals rejected
by Dynamo when he was there, had simply looked for the next
potential vehicle for his plans without any consideration of
what sort of vehicle it was.
What happened next followed a familiar pattern – the 2008/9
Oberliga was dominated with eighteen points to spare over
second-placed Dynamo (who, at that point, must surely
have been regretting their decision to turn down Weinkauf’s
investment) and, as promotion to the Regionalliga was
attained, the sponsorship was withdrawn when Treasure AG’s
member of the TeBe board of directors became embroiled in a
sexual abuse scandal.
Andreas Voigt looks back on the days of the Treasure AG
sponsorship in the same way as all TeBe fans – confusion
tinged with sadness.
“If I’m honest I didn’t understand the Treasure AG
sponsorship. They supported us really well in the Oberliga but
didn’t want it public. They didn’t want to be on the jersey and
didn’t want any advertisements and were very media-shy – I
don’t even know if the managers of Treasure AG ever carried
out any interviews. They also didn’t officially explain where
they earn their money and there was no internet presence. It
was all a little shady and you just had to ask yourself why were
they giving Tennis Borussia their money. The only explanation
I have is that the directors just wanted a bit of fun with a
football team and they just had some money spare.”
And so, after TeBe’s relegation from the 2009/10 Regionalliga
thanks to the inevitable insolvency proceedings after Treasure
AG pulled the plug, we find ourselves almost up-to-date with
proceedings. Just as before, the financial situation meant that
most players departed, and a second consecutive relegation,
after that game against Borea Dresden, followed. We still,
however, don’t understand why the fans were so appreciative
after that defeat. Surely the powers that be selling out for a
second time is more a reason to be entirely disgruntled than
politely sympathetic?
The answer lies in the fact that, post-Treasure AG, everyone
involved at the club was determined that nothing of the sort
should happen again. Twice bitten, change the structures to
ensure shyness.
TeBe
These days, the fans are rooted in the day-to-day running of
the club. As well as founding the aforementioned wesavetebe.
de, the aim of which is to raise funds for the club through
donations and increasing the team’s visibility on a local
level in order to attract small-scale investment, the matchday
programme is written and produced by the fans. They also run
the club’s website.
Perhaps the biggest change was the appointment of Andreas
Voigt as chairman. He is a TeBe fan, and utterly lacking in
the airs and graces one might expect from someone running a
football club. His policy is one of forthright honesty towards
the fans, with the result that, upon starting last year’s Oberliga
campaign, everyone was fully furnished with the knowledge
that survival that year would be nothing short of a miracle.
Voigt elaborates: “...we are very open with our fans and we
always say what is really happening. We didn’t promise
anything about staying in the division and maybe that’s why
everyone was so tightly-knit for the Dresden game – there
was no incentive for negativity. Everyone was obviously
very sad but many thanked us for our work all season and the
atmosphere at that game gave us strength to get working on the
next season.”
And the fans are on exactly the same page as the boss. “...
since [the takeovers], the club has been in the hands of people
like Andy Voigt. He stands with us and celebrates with us and,
simply put, he’s a fan”, says Carsten. “[The TeBe philosophy]
is carried on by idealism and it’s like that with Andy.”
This marriage of bureaucracy with fan participation is far from
unique in German football (St. Pauli and Union being two of
the more notable examples), but one can’t help suspect that it
is a structure that can only work in the lower leagues, and one
that is inherently impossible to combine with success. That
St. Pauli’s recent promotion to the Bundesliga came at a point
when their core base of fans fear that the club’s identity is
disappearing due to gentrification is telling.
Sebastian, another staunch TeBe fan despite growing up in
Mainz, has an answer. “What is success?” he asks rhetorically.
“Realistically, no-one expects us to be back in professional
football in the foreseeable future.” The experiences of the last
fifteen years have moulded the expectations of these fans to
such an extent that they are almost glad about TeBe’s demise.
Finally, the club belongs to them again, and what league they
are in is of little consequence as long as the club retains its
identity.
When asked about the theoretical idea of another big sponsor
arriving to pull TeBe out of their current position, Carsten,
Christian and Sebastian suddenly focus. We’re meeting after
the first game of the new Berlin-Liga season, a 6-2 win over
BFC Preussen, and spirits and beer intake are proportionately
high. Until now, it’s been joking and fooling around and
25

constantly greeting the stream of fellow fans that walk past.
“There’s the requirement that it’s transparent and with the
participation of the club: that it’s democratic. If that doesn’t
happen, then I am against it and would prefer to stay in the
sixth division,” says Sebastian definitively, “I think the fan
scene is self-aware enough now, and powerful enough, I’d say,
that we could say that we have conditions. We’re not running
after everyone that has money.”
Carsten agrees. “I don’t want that any more. If we stay here for
three or five years but can hold on to what we have and have
fun too, and we have players who realise who they are playing
for, that’d be great. It’s nothing to do with what league we’re
in, I have nothing against professional football or anything, but
we don’t need it and it’s not what TeBe is about.”
When one looks back over the last seven years, one can
understand why the fans feel so strongly about retaining the
status quo. Attendances fell from an average of around 4,000
during the 2. Bundesliga games to today’s 300 or so, making
it a great deal easier for the core group of TeBe fans to steer
the club’s philosophy in the direction that they feel it belongs.
Carsten is aware that it is the size of the fanbase that allows
this. “We accuse other [fan groups of opposing teams] of not
isolating fascists,” he says, “but it is easier for us to do it. We
have more control, more of an overview.”
As far as Christian is concerned, every TeBe fan has the
responsibility of upholding their beliefs. “Everyone pays
attention. We don’t ignore the things we don’t like,” he
explains. “Someone will always say, hey, that’s not what we
want here.”
What the fans don’t want is very simple. In the Mommsenstadion,
there is no place for fascism, homophobia, racism
or sexism. Christian is wearing a purple “Fußballfans
gegen Homophobie” (football fans against homophobia)
t-shirt, an initiative of some TeBe fans and the Lesben- und
Schwulenverband Berlin-Brandenburg (LSVD) who travel
to football games around Europe with anti-homophobia
banners in an effort to reduce intolerance in football. ‘Tennis
Queerussia’ shouts one of the regular stadium banners in
rainbow colours, as it sits beside a variety of anti-fascist, gay
pride and Star of David flags.
Such movements are relatively common in German football,
from the working-class liberal anarchists at St. Pauli to the
somewhat more extreme Roter Stern teams, who go as far as to
argue that the nationalism inherent in supporting the German
national team has no place in their fan scene. Comparing the
varying philosophies, however, serves only to degrade their
respective importance, and displays a fundamental ignorance
of the origins of the teams. TeBe, often labelled as ‘sell-outs’
or the ‘St. Pauli-lite’ by begrudgers, come from an entirely
different world to their friends in Hamburg.
St. Pauli has always been a working-class district, in stark
TeBe
contract to the well-to-do Charlottenburg area where TeBe
are based – St. Pauli football club is much more an organ of
the local community than any other team in Germany, and in
that sense is fully deserving of its cult status. The Roter Stern
movement, the most notable of which is Roter Stern Leipzig
(who, along with a group of TeBe fans, arranged a friendly
between the two teams this summer, which ended in a 2-1
victory for the Berlin side) is a relatively new development
in German football, which, of course, results in naysayers
mocking it for its lack of history.
The discussion ignores what these people are fundamentally
about. “As long as certain essentials that are important to us are
respected ... we all just want to stand on the terrace and drink
beer,” says Carsten. These football fans simply want their
terrace to also contain the basic fundamental values that we
accept as a given in our society. We may never achieve a world
free from intolerance, but every Saturday afternoon, these
fans meet to simply have fun in their own little slice of utopia,
carved from tolerance, openness, and no small amount of beer.
Andreas Voigt doesn’t necessarily have such a romantic view
of the future. He speaks hopefully of seeing TeBe back where
they belong, in the second or third division, and has a plan
about how to achieve it. Unlike his predecessors, however, his
projection of success involves a slow but solid development
based on secure foundations, and, most importantly, no
reliance upon one single sponsor.
“What we lost sight of in the last decade was to build up a big
sponsor pool from many smaller sponsors,” he says earnestly,
clearly having learned from the mistakes of his predecessors.
“If you have 50 or 100 small sponsors, it’s not so bad if three
or four break it off - we could find three or four new ones.
But if one big sponsor stops and you don’t have this base [of
smaller sponsors], then there’s the danger that the club could
finish totally.”
His idea is sound in theory, but the practice is somewhat
different. TeBe, as one of Germany’s so-called
Traditionsvereinen, never had a problem attracting one large
sponsor due to the combination of its famous name, solid
infrastructure and loyal fan base. When it comes to finding
smaller sponsors, however, TeBe suffers from being based in
a large city like Berlin. Here, there are so many sports teams
that the competition is fierce, and a sixth division football
team, Traditionsverein or not, finds it hard to compete with ice
hockey, basketball, and the plethora of other sports that can be
more rewarding to small sponsors than football.
This means that Berlin-based teams are at a disadvantage when
compared to teams at a similar level based in smaller towns.
“Take for example Rathenow,” expounds Voigt, speaking of
a town 80km west of Berlin with some 26,000 inhabitants,
“Optik Rathenow are the only sports team there so obviously
the local Sparkasse is going to sponsor them, and the same
goes for the car dealer, energy providers, butchers and bakers
and everything that’s there.” TeBe don’t have such a wealth
27

of options, and suffer accordingly.
The ongoing insolvency process also hinders the search
for sponsors. Voigt expects it to conclude in autumn, but
warns against the expectation that this will result in an
instantaneous upturn in the club’s fortunes. “Many think that
that automatically means that there’ll be more money but there
won’t,” he laughs, “because you have to be just as careful with
the money as during the process. The talks with sponsors will
be easier. Many of them are frightened away by the knowledge
that we’re in an insolvency process.”
The end of the process will also allow Voigt to concentrate
more on the sporting side of the club. Up to two weeks before
the beginning of the new season, the TeBe official website
indicated only ten players in the first team, and Voigt is upfront
about the difficulties they have not just recruiting players,
but retaining their promising youngsters. The TeBe youth
development set-up is renowned for producing excellent young
players (Bayern Munich and Germany central defender Jerome
Boateng played with the TeBe youth teams until snapped up
by Hertha aged 13), and compete at the second-highest level of
youth competition in Germany.
Bizarrely, with the relegation of the first team, the quality of
TeBe’s youngsters actually worked to the club’s detriment –
not wanting to make their senior starts in the sixth division,
the majority of the 2010/11 youth team preferred to move
other other, higher-ranked teams in search of the superior
level of football that they are capable of. In their stead, a
number of former youth teams players, including Alexander
Greinert, made their way back to TeBe after unsuccessful stints
elsewhere.
It obviously wasn’t a question of money for these prodigal
sons – TeBe players, according to Voigt, receive a minuscule
monthly sum for their services, occasionally ameliorated
by win bonuses in the rare case of some extra money being
available.
Voigt believes that the appointment of former youth team
trainer Markus Schatte as the senior trainer last April is one
of the reasons that that a number of former TeBe players
were attracted back to the club. Schatte worked with many of
the returnees over the years, and, seeing their former boss in
charge of the youth team, they jumped at the chance to work
with trainer whose credentials they are well aware of.
The excellent facilities at the Mommenstadion, virtually
unchanged since the days of the 2.Bundesliga, are also a big
draw. They include a sauna, and the players’ kit is always
washed and laid out on matchdays – unheard-of in the sixth
division. This, of course, returns us to the financial situation
– the much-loved kitman, Frankie Lange, must also be paid
for his work. Such a luxury, however, is important as it helps
the players realise that playing for TeBe, despite the current
restrictions, is an honour, and such an honour is accompanied
by benefits for them.
Clearly, every aspect of the running of the club is affected
by the lack of funds, but when asked if a certain amount
of suspicion arises when large sums of money are on offer,
Voigt’s answer is reassuring.
TeBe
“Those thoughts occur immediately. That’s clear. These
thoughts occur both for those running the club and the fans,
especially with the experiences of the past. We’ve seen it at
other clubs too, like at 1860 Munich... someone from the
Middle East made it very clear very quickly who had the say.
We don’t want that, that could go in completely the wrong
direction for us again. Maybe it could lead to short-term
success but it’s generally not sustainable.”
Like the fans, he does not want the club’s identity to be
threatened again. “We would have a problem with selling the
club. If the sponsor wanted to decide everything we’d have to
think about whether we really want that because we don’t want
to sell our philosophy.” However, being actively involved in
the day-to-day finances of the club leaves Voigt with a great
deal more pragmatism when considering the idea of another
large sponsor shovelling money into the club, and he appears
to have learned a great deal from the events of the last decade.
“What we learned is that when you have a big sponsor, you
can’t stop working in the marketing department. If we’re
ever in the position that a big sponsor comes and we have
some money, we would build up a marketing department. I’d
personally make sure that happened very quickly.”
Voigt believes that a large sponsor, rather than sending TeBe
hurtling up through the divisions again, would simply allow
the club to start building a foundation for a slow and steady
return to the 2.Bundesliga. And should that one large sponsor
decide to abandon the team, this foundation, in the shape of a
solid base of many smaller sponsors, would guarantee that the
club would not plummet to an all-new low, like what happened
when both Göttinger Gruppe and Treasure AG pulled out.
So far, Voigt has been in agreement with the fans Carsten,
Sebastian and Christian. None are totally opposed to a new,
large sponsor, but all would be entirely opposed to it if they
demanded control of the club. However, while the fans believe
that their participation in the running of the club could continue
indefinitely, Voigt is more businesslike.
“In the fifth and fourth divisions it’s possible, but from the
third division the structures become more professional,” he
explains. “My honest personal opinion is that we’d have to
be very careful that everything that we build up isn’t thrown
away. I know that it’s a difficult balancing act, you just have to
be honest about it.”
His tone quickly softens, however, perhaps when considering
just how far away from professional football TeBe currently
are. “But maybe it could run differently, I’d love if it did and
we could have that experience and keep everything how it is
up to the second division.”
29

One also gets a clear impression from Voigt that, like the fans,
a couple of seasons of simple stability, free from promotion
and relegation stress, is exactly what the club needs. He’s also
been very specific in his downplaying of the team’s chances
this year. “We want to consolidate our position. That means
avoiding a relegation battle at all costs. I think we’ll fit into the
mid-table nicely and it could be that there’s a surprise and
we’re further up – if that happens, we’ll take that chance but
we’re not going into this season with the goal of promotion
because the competition up there is much greater.”
The competition of which Voigt speaks is that offered by the
second teams of Bundesliga, 2.Bundesliga and 3.Liga teams,
squads that he feels badly skew the playing field and leave
smaller teams like TeBe or Dynamo with a much smaller
chance of success. These teams have such comparatively vast
resources that they can effectively decide if they want to get
promoted, simply moving quality young players from their first
team to their second in order to achieve their goals.
This, as well as unfair distribution of DFB funds, is one of the
main reasons that smaller teams struggle greatly to keep their
heads above water. Even in the 3.Liga, teams rarely have any
financial security – TeBe’s neighbours and friends Babelsberg
03 were hours away from insolvency before a last-minute bank
guarantee saved them last May, and both Rot-Weiss Ahlen
and TuS Koblenz were forcibly relegated from the 3.Liga due
after failing to meet required standards of solvency. Below the
2.Bundesliga, there is precious little TV money available and
teams are forced to survive with contributions from the fans,
sponsorship and a great deal of fiscal prudence.
As Voigt and I chat, the club secretary interrupts us briefly with
a phone call. When the call is finished, I finish asking Voigt my
question, about what TeBe has learned from all the sponsorship
crises it has been through.
“You can’t really say TeBe like that,” the secretary interjects,
“it’s always been different people responsible [over the last
fifteen years], so who is TeBe?”
It’s an excellent question. One can easily criticise the club for
selling out repeatedly, but the fact remains that those who sold
out are no longer involved with the club, and at the time, only
saw it as a cold, profit-oriented investment. With the club’s
financial problems, there are currently very few players or staff
who stay at the Mommsenstadion for more than one single
season. Here, there is no Alex Ferguson or no Alex Del Piero
to embody the spirit of the club as it threatens to be eroded by
profit-hungry investors or corrupt directors dragging the club’s
name through the mud.
Therefore, that responsibility falls to the fans. People like
Carsten are the only mainstay that this club has had during
its turbulent recent history, and while the fan scene’s holierthan-thou
attitude towards other fans less concerned with
bringing politics in the shape of a liberal ideal onto the terraces
occasionally grates, one can’t help but respect and admire the
dedication, perseverance and loyalty shown by the Lila-weisse
fans.
The heady heights of the 2.Bundesliga are currently a long,
long way off, but from watching a game at the Mommsenstadion,
it’s clear that that doesn’t really matter very much.
Even though the team currently lies bottom of the Berlin-
Liga with that easy victory over Preussen looking more and
more like a footballing false dawn, the TeBe fans continue to
applaud their charges from the field regardless of the result.
Things may not be great on the pitch, but on the terraces, TeBe
is as healthy as it has ever been.
TeBe
Stephen Glennon
2011
Images by Ian Stenhouse
31

Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark 12.08.11
Türkiyemspor - FC Anker Wismar 2-1
33

Berlin Referees
Images by Ian Stenhouse
The referee used to share his uniform only with those equally-loved folk, the undertakers and the traffic wardens.
There is a popular rumour that they only started wearing other colours because the beautiful alliteration of “Who’s the
bastard in the black” didn’t scan from the stands when they wore yellow or purple. Of course, like everything else in
football, it was more about letting the players wear the coolest colour so that the clubs could sell more shirts.
It’s a shame in many ways. Black suits them, and their singularly thankless profession. Johnny Cash sang “But just so
we’re reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought to be a man in black”. It was as a penance that he wore
that colour on his shoulders. It was as a penance that the referees had to wear it too. They are the forgotten ones, trying to
impose order on a chaotic world, with the support of no-one and the love and respect of even fewer.
There will always be a minimum of fifty percent of people who think that the referee has done a bad job in every game and,
despite the fact that everybody seems so sure that they could do it so much better, they are never willing to get into the ring
themselves.
When Gerald Bothe donned his shirt to officiate the Berlin Landesliga fixture between Medizin Friedrichshain and TSV
Helgoland he didn’t expect to end the day in hospital after a horrific attack. But after he had flashed a second yellow card
to a TSV player in the 85th minute (as the teams were level at 3-3) everything changed. This was no longer just a game.
Bothe was punched to the ground.
He was lucky that the appropriately named Medizin had a medic playing for them that day who, it is acknowledged, saved
the referee’s life. He swallowed his tongue when he hit the deck. Bothe ended up returning to hospital after being initially
discharged with bleeding on the brain. It was, to use a footballing analogy, touch and go for a while.
There are over a thousand referees, men and women, registered in Berlin at this time. Week in, week out (and, to quote the
great man again) they walk the line. They have the shittiest job of all, but without them there would be no game. No-one
ever paid money to see anarchy on the pitch.
These photographs are dedicated to all of them.
35

Kreisliga C
SK Türkyurt II- RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 1-8
18.09.11
Oberliga Nord
LFC Berlin- Türkiyemspor 3-3
24.09.11
37

Kreisliga A
SV Berliner Brauereien - BAK07 II 2-1
11.09.11
BerlinLiga
TeBe - Berliner SC 1-5
20.08.11
39

Kreisliga C
RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 - Fortuna Pankow ll 11 - 0
23.10.11
Kreisliga C
RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 - WFC Corso/Vineta II 10-1
28.08.11
41