Guided by community, St. Pauli are taking on modern football

I often hear from American and British friends that sport and politics should never intersect. However, anyone accustomed to the world of German football knows that perhaps well-intentioned theory simply doesn’t apply across the length, breadth and complexity of the Bundesrepublik.

The game in Germany is in fact a wider extension of community, and if you truly embrace that, it means making a stand to support the rights of people you share a public space with.

St. Pauli, back in the Bundesliga this season for the first time in 13 years, reflect their immediate environment in Hamburg, by the infamous Reeperbahn and near the city docks. That the Kiezkicker (Neighborhood Kickers) are a left-wing club politically is no secret, indeed it’s enshrined in the club’s Leitlinien (founding principles), and, some might argue, even a selling point to many within Germany and around the world.

First and foremost, St. Pauli are a football club, but you wouldn’t become a fan if you didn’t have an egalitarian view of life, while abhorring fascism (they wore a one-off “no football for fascists” shirt in 2020-21), racism (and a “no room for racism” shirt in April), homophobia, sexism and discrimination generally. Just get off at St. Pauli U-Bahn station, walk a bit and you’ll see plenty of stickers that read “Refugees Welcome” and “No One Is Illegal.”

I remember arriving in Hamburg for the first time as a student in the 1980s and hearing from locals about how this tiny club sought to be different in representing the residents of their district and their political outlook. Then it was a mixture of alternative music, subculture and social issues like the plight of homeless people and squatters’ rights, which were important topics in the city on the Elbe.

St. Pauli were becoming a force for social activism and change and in a sense, a counterpoint to the hooliganism then prevalent in European football, which often had made common cause with far-right thinking.

It was around that period that the club saw their following increase substantially. By the ’90s, they had adopted the now-familiar skull and crossbones, thanks to Doc Mabuse, among other things a singer from a local punk band who one day brought a Jolly Roger flag nailed to a broomstick to a game at their Millerntor stadium.

The Millerntor experience these days is that of a loud, vibrant party in front of just under 30,000. Music remains part of the experience, from AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells,” which the teams walk out to, all the way to “Song 2” by Blur, the club’s Torhymne, played over the public address system to accompany a St. Pauli goal.

Getting to witness the spectacle is the difficult part considering there are as many club members as there are tickets available per game, but I have lost count of the number of non-German-based fans lucky enough to get in who have raved about their day or night in a world that to them feels light years from staid, modern, corporate football.

This week, the men in braun-weiss (brown and white) face Bayern Munich, which evokes memories for many in the Kiez.

In the 2001-02 campaign, St. Pauli finished dead last in the Bundesliga but still contrived to beat the Rekordmeister, who were also Inter Continental Cup winners, thus leading to the creation by fans of a marvellous new compound word to describe St. Pauli: Weltpokalsiegerbesieger (conquerors of the world club cup winners).

Bayern helped St. Pauli soon after that with a friendly to ease the financial difficulties that hit the club following their demotion to the Regionalliga. Still, the Kiezkicker somehow made it to the semifinals of the 2005-2006 DFB-Pokal, overcoming Wacker Burghausen, VfL Bochum and then-Bundesliga clubs Hertha Berlin and Werder Bremen. But it was Bayern who ended the romantic journey with a 3-0 win at a heaving Millerntor. The story is told evocatively in an ARD documentary entitled “das Wunder von St. Pauli,” “The miracle of St. Pauli,” which I strongly recommend to German speakers.

On Saturday, Bayern make their first official return to the Millerntor for more than 13 years. Relations between the active fan scenes of both clubs tend to be strong, sharing similar worldviews, and this will be an occasion taken in by many more eyeballs globally than usually is the case for the Kiezkicker. Their wage bill is around 4% of Bayern’s.

So far, St. Pauli, under former Union Saint-Gilloise coach Alexander Blessin, are making a decent first of it and can harbour genuine hopes of achieving the Klassenerhalt (staying up). They might be the lowest scorers in the Bundesliga with only seven, but they have the joint-fourth-best defence with a squad made up of mostly journeymen, several previously with British clubs, a signature of sporting chief Andreas Bornemann’s scouting and recruitment outlook.

One such example is club captain Jackson Irvine, an experienced Australia international of Scottish descent who fully embodies what it is to be St. Pauli. Irvine identifies with the music, community and social activism, and rather than driving home in an expensive car, he walks home to where he lives — directly in the Kiez. He has even been known to turn up for a drink and a chat in the famous Jolly Roger pub.

This week, St. Pauli formally launch their Genossenschaftsmodell (cooperative) concept, borrowed from other areas of German industrial life to ultimately give them complete ownership of the stadium that sits on municipal city land. Fans can buy shares with each costing €850, but no matter how many one purchases, their voting rights remain the same: you get only one vote. It’s the St.Pauli way in that you can’t buy your way to a bigger seat at the table.

The idea is that in time, fans themselves can decide on how to modernise the Millerntor, and the club sees the “one person, one vote” structure as a fitting counterweight to contemporary football run by heart-of-stone rich investors. Further, funds raised can be used to eliminate debt and invest in training facilities. Ultimately, any profits can be shared among cooperative participants.

This runs in tandem with the existing membership structure whereby fans apply to be members and run the club in line with the 50+1 model, keeping it out of the hands of wealthy companies or individuals who, it is argued, might have different and less noble priorities.

St. Pauli president Oke Göttlich was the star guest on the Sunday morning institution that is the Sport-1 “Doppelpass” show recently to outline the Genossenschaftsmodell and talk generally about the club’s mission. In doing so, Göttlich, a former executive in the music business and journalist, wore a pocket square featuring a phrase that St. Pauli and their fans have adopted since visiting VfL Wolfsburg striker Kevin Behrens had expressed reservations about signing a rainbow-coloured shirt.

In such a polemical and polarised political world, St. Pauli are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but their rise is organic and truly comes from a place in the heart and from a vibrant community that shows it cares. Saturday will see millions around the world get a taste from afar of the special Millerntor party atmosphere.