FC Memmingen

Abroad?

Must be somewhere in Bayern...

It's not the Waldstadion in Weismain, that's for sure. That on got an enormous terrace on one of the sides!

Well done Chris, it is indeed the ground of FC Memmingen.

As you are no doubt aware they play in the 4th tier of German football (Regionalliga Süd).

The ground has a capacity of 5,500 with around 900 covered seats on one side while the rest is open terracing. Amazingly they packed in 6,650 for the opening game at the refurbished stadium in 2007. The refurbishment involved moving the terraces and seats closer to the pitch and doing away with the old athletics track. It's a nice stadium to watch football in but standing when the weather is bad is definitely not recommended. If the stadium were in the UK I believe the capacity would be set much lower since there is a lack of barriers to lean on and high fences at the front.

The game I saw last Saturday was a 1-1 draw against SV Darmstadt 98, a club that were in the Bundesliga back in the eighties. The fans of Darmstadt choose this game to attend this game en masse with some even flying Ryanair via Barcelona! The main fan club wrote an open letter to the Memmingen paper the week before to say they were coming in peace and to enjoy the game. One local bar responded to the planned invasion by reducing the price of beer and laying on live (football related) music on Saturday lunchtime. In the end only 260 Darmstadt fans were at the game out of a 2,300 crowd. There was no hint of trouble but there was a huge police presence with at least 50 or so in the away end including dog-handlers. There was also a row a vans outside with others in the town. This was in addition to a fair few stewards so I don´t think the Bavarian police budget is too tight!

In my opinion Torquay would easily have beaten both teams playing on Saturday although it#s important to note that football is mostly amateur at the 4th level in Germany.

I find the actual experience of going to games in Germany at the same time both very different and very similar to visiting Plainmoor. There is hardly ever any trouble or even the hint of it but on the very rare occasions when it does happen it can be serious. I saw one game at Augsburg a couple of years ago (Vs Munich 1860) that left 70 people needing hospital treatment after clashing with the riot police.

The other thing that is interesting about the fans is that all the people that sing gather together in a so-called "fan block" and there is usually very little noise in other parts of the ground. I really noticed this difference last time I was at Plainmoor (for the League Cup game against Reading) back in August. For the size of the crowd, the atmosphere at Plainmoor is hard to beat.

One last thing I want to add is that every time I visit FC Memmingen I'm stopped by people on my way back to the Bahnhof and asked what the score was. The people are then either overjoyed or deflated by the result. Why don`t they go? - That's a discussion that belongs on another thread.

It's actually Augsburg that have the new stadium (Bundesliga 2) and it will be one of the venues for the Womens' World Cup next year. Funnily enough I also get them mixed up sometimes even to the point of looking for a shop in one that is actually in the other . . .

I have not yet visited the new stadium but have heard good things about it. I was a fan of the old Rosenau stadium and went to several games there. A vast bowl of a stadium that held 60,000 at one time and hosted the occasional international game.

Ulm play now in the same league as Memmingen and I'll be going there for the Memmingen game shortly after the winter break. It's not one of my favorite grounds as it's a mix of styles that don't fit well together. I note from the last Memmingen programme that Ulm are in very serious financial difficulty so they could end up dropping to a lower level or be reformed.

I know the areas you mentioned very well and, as you say, it's a paradise for photographers. The area around Neuschwanstein is probably the most photographed place on earth - it's by far the most visited attraction in Germany.

You would have driven within a few KM of my house when you were in this area. I did see your posts at the time but for the last couple of years I've not posted due to my work schedule. Recently I've moved to a relatively normal job and get time of in the evenings and at weekends so I've seen more games and been able to post knowing I'd be able to reply within a reasonable time-frame.

I too would like to visit St Pauli (BTW - Memmingen also take to the field to the sound of Hell's Bells). I can fly to Hamburg from Memmingen (or, as Ryanair call it Munich West) so let me know if you plan a visit. Family commitments allowing I would attend.

I'm using my oldest son's German keyboard so I apologize for any errors above. Sadly, I can't use my work equipment (including UK keyboard) for private use.

And guess who was in Memmingen just a few days ago . . .



www.all-in.de/nachrichten/kunst_kultur/allgaeukultur/Allgaeu-Kultur-Sie-koennens-immer-noch;art2746,903872

Not including Blackers of course but Night did play in Memmingen a year or so ago.

Not sure what inspired the Memmingen song - could be the 12 points drawn up during the "Peasant War" in 1524 or just the atmosphere of the walled city. I doubt it was the Wallenstein connection. Incidentally, the building where the 12 points were drawn up still exists. It was one of the first (maybe even the first) declarations of human rights in the history of mankind.

BTW - I didn't go to either of the concerts mentioned although I now wish I had.

It is an amazing smaller world than we imagine and I bet we have been at the same place and at the same time as other TFF members and TUFC fans without ever releasing it.

Thanks for putting up this thread Bayern Gull and I hope if you are able to go to other grounds you can take some pictures and share them with us.

I think you did far better using that German keyboard than I'm able to do using my English one, thank heavens there are such things as spell checkers or else I fear most of my posts would make even less sense than they do most of the times.