Thunderstruck

Preussen Munster  1  Chemnitzer  0

Germany Liga 3

When a team runs out to Thunderstruck by AC/DC, you know this is going to be one bad ass football club!

Our plans did not go the way we had hoped. The original idea had been to get to Munster around lunchtime, spend some time looking round the place, and then take in the game, but due to the previous evening’s shenanigans and the 4am close, that simply didn’t happen.

By the time we did eventually arrive in Munster it was dark, so sightseeing was out of the question, our aim was to find food! We found a nice looking restaurant, until it came to light it was of the vegan variety, so we made a quick escape to what turned out to be a very impressive Italian job close by.

Munster is a big and busy City, sitting North of Dortmund, and it was around an hour and a half drive from our base in Duiven, but much of that is cross country, with very few populous areas passed on the way. Getting to the stadium from the centre was easy enough and it was handy given that we only had half an hour until kick off to find plenty of room in the car park next to the ground.

Old School

We had purchased tickets in advance so made our way through security checks and beyond the turnstiles, and only then does it hit you. The Preussenstadion is an old school belter, with huge curved terraces behind both goals, covered terracing down one side and a more modern seated stand opposite.

We had terrace tickets behind the goal, the views were excellent but the air cold. The crush barriers had various stickers plastered all over them, most of which belonged to the various ultra groups that had obviously taken up residence at some stage on the curve.

The Flags Are Out

To our left was a specific section that was considerably more densely populated than anywhere else, and as time wore on, the flags and banners started to appear. Then came the songs, then the firecrackers and flares, and finally as AC/DC belted out of the PA system when the players entered the pitch, a collection of smoke bombs were detonated and the air was thick to the point where you simply could not see the pitch.

This was German football proper, with drums and a loudhailer at the front of the terraces co-ordinating the display. It was raw, it was atmospheric and while probably not entirely legal, it was brilliant.

The Munster support made a right racket, almost constantly throughout the game, and with a  crowd of over 6,000 in the stadium, including around 200 from the former East, it was a healthy turnout for a club that were struggling in the wrong half of the table.

And Now The Smoke Bombs....

The smoke eventually cleared and we could finally feast our eyes, albeit from a distance, on the action. To be brutally honest, it wasn’t very good, in fact the first half was spent pretty much spectator watching, it was more entertaining. Neither side could muster up much in the way of goalscoring opportunities.

Simon Scherder scored the only goal of the game just after half time when his shot from the edge of the box took a deflection and found its way into the Chemnitzer net. It was harsh on the visitors who had given as good as they had taken up until this stage, but it was a goal that had looked unlikely based on the way the game had been panning out, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to see many more.

When The Smoke Eventually Cleared

Munster went down to ten men in the closing moments when Stephane Tritz received a second yellow card and his subsequent marching orders, but the man advantage came simply far too late in the game for the visitors to see any tangible benefit.

For Munster it was a relief to get a win, to be relegated to the Regionalliga would be unthinkable for a club of their stature, others have dropped to that level in recent seasons, the likes of Alemenia Aachen, Energie Cottbus, 1860 Munich and KFC Uerdingen, and it does take some coming back as those four clubs have proven.

The Wide Vast Expanses Of The Preussenstadion

Departure from the stadium and indeed the City of Munster itself was pretty easy, and base was soon reached after a very quiet evening on the roads.

While the old style grounds like the Preussenstadion are not everyone’s cup of tea, I simply love going to places like this, they have a true football feel about them, especially on the terraces which have a culture all of their own.

I never thought that within a week of Malcolm Young’s passing I would be hearing one of his finest pieces of work at a football ground, and I guess that could only happen in Germany. The best Country in the World for watching football.

What's Not To Like?