The Sleeping Giant

Alemannia Aachen   3  Bergisch Gladbach  0

Regionaliga West

The Saturday of the Football Weekend is always a big day.

Typically we try and get to two games, taking advantage of the fact that in Germany the games kick off in the afternoon, while the Dutch games tend to take place in the evening.

We talked last year about the possibility of going to Aachen, if the fixtures allowed it, and of course, could we combine it with a game in Holland that wasn’t going to cause too much of a logistical nightmare?

Bingo, a plan came together nicely, Aachen were at home, and the game wasn’t being moved, but not only that, just over half an hour away Fortuna Sittard were playing in the evening.

Aachen is approximately two hours from Duiven and our route (with me at the wheel) took us via Nijmegen and Venlo, before crossing over the border. The hugely impressive New Tivoli is located on the main road that leads from the motorway into the centre of the City, so access to the ground, and also a very handy car park right behind the main entrance, proved to be very straightforward indeed.

Wow, just wow! What a place this is, but lets have a brief history lesson before the stadium descriptor.

Historically a Bundesliga 2 outfit since the early Seventies, they had a brief spell in the third tier until returning and then remarkably earning promotion to the top Bundesliga in 2006. This season in the top flight was the clubs only, and then came a steady decline which culminated in bankruptcy and a place in the fourth tier of German football (Regionalliga West), where they have remained since 2013.

In 2004 they lost to Werder Bremen in the German Cup Final, but as Werder had already got into the Champions League, it meant Aachen were to have their one and only season in the UEFA Cup in the 2004-05 season.

The First Round saw a comfortable victory over FH of Iceland by 5-1 on aggregate, while the Group Stages saw them pitched against Sevilla, AEK Athens, Lille and Zenit St Petersburg. A Third place finish got them into the Round of 32, where Dutch side AZ Alkmaar beat them 2-1 on aggregate.

The New Tivoli was opened in 2009, to replace the original Tivoli Stadium which stood nearby. The old Tivoli was a superbly atmospheric ground, but the new version is stunning, and is capable of holding over 32,000 spectators. Interestingly today, with Aachen sat just above half way in the league, and some distance from the promotion berths, a crowd of 4,600 were in attendance.

I’d better describe the beast then, the beats that is known as the Neuer Tivoli in your finest Germanic language.

From the concourses which run all the way around the stadium, the exterior itself gives you the impression that it’s going to be something pretty special. The clubs colours of yellow and black are used to define the exterior, notably the roof, and if you think San Siro but about a third of the size, that’s what it’s like from the outside.

Buying tickets was a doddle, it invariably is, and pretty soon we were inside the stadium and trying to decide whether to try and get into the restaurant / bar area first for a drink, or juts hit the Bratwurst early doors.

We went for the restaurant, and what a very impressive place it was. They were serving a hot meal (I remember not what it was) or just drinks if you preferred. We opted for drinks, and took the view that we’d wait until nearer kick off for our sausage. Also at the end of the bar area was the club shop which also incorporated a small museum. The museum was a fascinating place, not least for the model of the original Tivoli that was guarded by a large glass case.

With kick off fast approaching, the sausage was calling, so with that in hand it was up to the seats, and it’s as you walk out into the stand that you see the Neuer Tivoli for all it’s glory.  

Three sides of the stadium are all seater, with bright yellow seats, while behind one of the goals is a steep bank of terracing. It’s not quite the Yellow Wall as per Dortmund, but I suspect in Aachen’s World it compares! Executive boxes sat atop the stand opposite, while the away fans were housed to the side of this area, albeit they numbered two dozen at best. The opposite end of the ground to the terracing was not open for spectators.

In fact, while the terraces were reasonably populated, the seating areas were certainly not, you could pretty much pick your spot, in fact you could pretty much pick your row in some cases. Is the New Tivoli a white elephant, is the ground simply too big for them?

Maybe it is right now, but the potential to get back to Bundesliga 2 is certainly there. They have the history and they certainly have the facilities, they just need the team, and probably the money first and foremost to get the team to the right level.

Visiting Bergisch Gladbach, from the East side of Koln, arrived in Aachen in poor form and in the relegation zone. The first half was pretty dismal it has to be said and the standard of the football was not particularly good, but things improved somewhat in the second half as the temperature got noticeably colder.

An own goal gave the hosts the lead five minutes after the break, and then the game was effectively over in the 56^th minute when Florian Ruter got the second. A third goal arrived in the 63^rd minute and that came from Belgian striker Jonathan Benteke.

The game fizzled out somewhat after that, and we made our exit to the car park right on the final whistle, but a good five minutes later as we entered the car park, the lads and lasses on the ‘alternative’ yellow wall were still singing away and regaling their heroes.

It’s time Alemannia Aachen started to make some upward moves through the leagues, this club is far too big to be languishing in mid-table of the fourth tier. But that is someone else’s problem, and with the exit negotiated quite easily, we were back on the Autobahn, on our way back for Part Two, in Limburg…….