RE: The annual 'Price of Football' debate
gooner666 > 15/10/2014, 19:18
pity we cant take leaf out off the germans book,we are being taken for 1long ride,wouldnt go now if you paid me,they dont give a fuck about us, all the prem wants is the pounds in the bank so they can bring more foreigners over here to take the hard earned money from the supporter,just think a pilot guides the flight for all the duration off the flight with a little help from his mate and doesn,t get half as much as the so called superstars who dont work for even for the 90minutes,they must touch the ball for what 10 mins all told,the germans have got the right idea,,,Borussia Dortmund's slogan "echte liebe" - or "true love" - says it all. The final whistle goes at the majestic Westfalenstadion. Dortmund have lost at home.
And yet none of the players disappear down the tunnel. None of the fans leave the ground. Defiant, determined, the 25,000 fans who religiously flock to the mythical south stand continue to serenade their team.
Manager Jurgen Klopp joins his players on the edge of the penalty area, where they stand for five minutes in awe, gazing up at one of European football's great sights, the "Gelbe Wand" (Yellow Wall), a sea of luminous shirts, scarves and flags. Towers of smoke rise from pockets of fans and waves of noise cascades down the steep terrace and onto the players.
This love is unconditional.
Moments such as this are why Dortmund are one of the last great romantic clubs. The tickets - and beer - are cheap, the atmosphere is raw and seductive and fans, not finance, come first.
When Dortmund reached the 2013 Champions League final, the club received 502,567 applications for 24,042 tickets. The entire city has a population of 580,956. True love, indeed.
Football is all encompassing here, it reaches ever facet of life. One fan even leaves the club shop having just bought a Borussia Dortmund-branded lawn mower. The chance to experience this love affair is attracting more than 1,000 fans from England to every home match.going football in the prem in this country is a mugs game,,no wonder the England team is so shit.
Dortmund fan Marc Quambusch, from Kein Zwanni (Not Twenty), a supporter campaign to keep tickets cheap, admits he is proud of what Dortmund has become, having grown up looking to England as the home of football's soul."When I was young, we all watched English football, the Kop and said 'yes, that is what football is all about'," he says.
"Now, when we go to English football, the stadiums are quiet and we say that it is actually quite boring. If you price people out, you change the atmosphere. If you price people out, it isn't the people's game anymore."
Dortmund's fervent atmosphere is the envy of Europe but it is not there by accident.
The club keeps prices low precisely to ensure all areas of society are represented in the crowd. There is no such thing as the 'prawn sandwich brigade' in these parts.