Taxation

Borussia Monchengladbach  2  AS Roma  1

Europa League – Group Stages

The third day of the tour started with the usual lie in, followed by the mid-morning breakfast, with our driver Hendrik ‘Keke Rosberg’ Elsinga due with us about thirty seconds after he set off from his home of two miles away!

This time it was myself, Theo and Ben who were jumping in the car, and with Ben being a professional in the field of tax along with Hendrik, we felt it best to let them sit together in the front and regale each other of amusing stories about VAT Returns…..

Myself and Theo talked football and beer, the lads in the front must have been bored senseless with us!

Anyway, we went via Venlo to the City of Monchengladbach (Gladbach hereafter for typing purposes) and were very soon parked in the club car park and making our way to the bus stop to head to the city centre. Just six hours until kick off this time, so we needed to find something to do!

That something came courtesy of the NaNaNaNa pub (a tribute to the Muppets?) on the Alter Markt, a real football supporters home with the walls covered in scarves and various other items of memorabilia. The pub filled up over the course of the afternoon with Gladbach fans, and also quite a few from Roma who had made the journey North. Bearing in mind Celtic were playing at Lazio at the same time, getting out of Rome probably wasn’t a bad idea if you were a Roman.

Once five o’clock chimed we made our way back down the main street into the heart of Gladbach and found a very nice Italian restaurant where very good fayre was had by all, and the food was pretty good as well! The final stop in Gladbach before we made our way to the very West edges of the City and the stadium, was he Humboldt pub which sat adjacent to the bus station. Once again, a real football supporters pub with memories of ‘Die Fohlen’ adorning the place along with the colour green which of course is so associated with Borussia.

The club then.

One of the biggest names in not only German football but also Europe, they currently sit top of the Bundesliga with Dortmund, Leipzig and Munich for close company. The clubs golden era came in the Seventies when they won the Bundesliga an incredible five times, and were runners-up twice.

They appeared in the UEFA Cup Final four times in the period, winning it twice. Dutch outfit Twente were beaten in 1975 while the crack Yugoslav’s Red Star Belgrade succumbed in 1979. They also famously reached the European Cup Final in 1977 but were beaten by Liverpool in Rome.

The days of great players like Gunter Netzer, Berti Vogts and Allan Simonsen came to an end and since the Eighties the club has never been close to returning to the summit of German and European football. That said, the club moved to the new Borussia Park stadium in 2004 after leaving the famous Bokelberg, and had something of a revival, certainly over the last ten years.

They’ve made it to the Europa League and the Champions League in that period, and it was for a Champions League game that we made our last visit to Borussia Park, when Manchester City were the visitors in 2015.

They are still a very big club though, with attendances averaging 50,000, and despite the game against Roma being sold out, we managed to obtain tickets via an official website where season ticket holders can re-sell unwanted tickets.

You can’t fault the Germans for their planning and organization. A fleet of buses are on hand from outside the railway station that transport fans free of charge to the stadium, and within fifteen minutes of jumping on board we were being dropped off a few moments walk from the ground.

Borussia Park is an imposing structure, but so much more impressive at night when the green neon lights shine on the interior and exterior of the stadium. It’s built in a bowl like structure, and once through the turnstiles the concourses are open to the elements, and it was a cold night in Gladbach. Alcoholic beer was being served, which was a change because in previous years for European games, in Germany and Holland, the beer had to be alcohol free.

With seats taken behind the goal, it was time for the game. Some familiar names were in the Roma side, Manchester United’s Chris Smalling played at the back, while ex-City striker Edin Dzeko played in attack. From a Dutch perspective, Justin Kluivert played wide on the left, and the former Ajax man is the Son of legendary striker Patrick.

The first half wasn’t overly compelling but a Federico Fazio own goal ten minutes before the break gave the Germans the advantage. That advantage was ended by Fazio who redeemed himself with a 64^th minute equalizer, but like the game in Leverkusen, a late goal was to come…..

The game was in the fifth minute of added time (the final minute) when Marcus Thuram (Son of Lillian) netted the winner, sparking crazy scenes. The bench invaded the pitch while the Roma fans responded by dispensing their beer over the security fences and onto the delirious Gladbach supporters.

It as a thrilling end to a decent, if not spectacular game, and keeps the hosts hopes of making it to the next stages very much alive in a group that also contains Istanbul Basaksehir and RZ Pellets WAC (no, me neither….).

Our car parking space turned out to be a very good one as once again thanks to super German planning and efficiency, we were back on the Autobahn and quickly over the border back into the Netherlands.

More tax talk in the front. We stuck to cheese, ham and Heineken in the rear. Hendrik got us back in double quick time, with time for one more before bed. Back in England, particularly in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire, all hell was breaking loose with flooding, we were blissfully unaware, but we do know how to mitigate higher rate tax…….