Sandhausen

Ground: Hardtwaldstadion

Visits: 1

Date: 5th August 2012

Match: Sandhausen - FSV Frankfurt 1-1 (2. Bundesliga)

Attendance: 4 900

The first Sunday of August I woke up in Mannheim. After all the travel in recent days I fell asleep quickly and I was pleased to have an easy Sunday travelwise. Sandhausen were promoted to 2. Bundesliga for the first time ever at the end of last season and today´s match against FSV Frankfurt was for this reason the first ever game in Germnay´s 2nd tier for Sandhausen. From Mannheim it takes 25 minutes by S-bahn to St. Ilgen/Sandhausen and the walk to the Hardtwaldstadion then took me around 20 minutes. With a capacity of only 10 400 Hardtwaldstadion is quite a small ground for 2. Bundesliga. Sandhausen have been promoted several times in recent years and the ground has been gradually redeveloped and is now an interesting mis-match of different stands. The small main stand on the west side of the ground has had a covered terrace built next to it (this new terrace is above the old terrace). On the other side of the main stand a new seated stand is soon to be opened. The north end of the ground has a temporary seated stand with around 2 500 seats. This stand is covered but full of supporting pillars.

Before the match I met up with my friend Jonas (groundchecker.de) and we decided to buy a ticket for the open terrace opposite the main stand. We were told only the half given to away fans were open. OK, we enter as away fans. In order to reach the away entrances we then made a gigantic de-tour. This de-tour took us through a forest (see picture below) before we could buy our tickets. At 11 Euros each this was indeed a cheap ticket. Apparently the terrace opposite the main stand was completely closed so we ended up with the FSV Frankfurt fans in the south terrace behind the goal. I was not expecting many away supporters but in total around 500 FSV fans had made the journey to Hardwaldstadion. We were all thorougly searched and the banana I had with me was deemed a dangerous weapon and had to be thrown away. In total 4 900 fans was inside Hardtwaldstadion this historic day. Immediately to our left, in the new covered terrace, were the most vocal home supporters and they gave their team a decent support. To be honest there wasn´t much to get excited about. Two goals, one for each team, but very few chances in the match. For me it was a different experience to be in an open terrace with away supportes and after the match I ended up in a free bus to the train station. The bus was full with away supporters but the driver wasn´t allowed to start until all Frankfurt supporters were in the different buses. "Abfahren, Abfahren, Abfahren" was chanted in my bus and as we finally got away there was a huge celebration in the bus. Who said German football fans don´t have a sense of humour?

Tomorrow I go to Kaiserslautern for the highlight of this trip. Kaiserslautern vs Union Berlin at Betzenberg. I will also meet up with some old faces and hopefully we will witness a cracking match (and atmosphere) under the floodlights at Betzenberg.

hardtwaldtsadion