Farewell game for deserving players from FC St. Pauli

I had been thinking for a long time about going to Millerntor on Saturday. Fabian Boll's farewell game was on the agenda. Nothing against the fundamentally likeable Fabian Boll, but personality cults are rather sparse at Millerntor. "Players come, coaches go..." I'm happy that I went after all.

When I read who was to play as "hellhounds" in Fabian Boll's team, it was clear to me that this would not be a farewell game for a deserving player. It was more like a class reunion. The players were accordingly excited about each other and the Millerntor. For me too, the encounters on the sidelines were more like a look into an old poetry album. After all, the people on the pitch were mostly the same people I used to throw my vocal cords at from the opposite straight when I was in the regional league.

Apparently even more spectators in the stadium had this association. The opposite stand was louder and more fun than it had been for a long time. With typical St. Pauli humor, the main section was first asked to "get up, get up" and then sent to "get a beer, get a beer." And yet there was no typical business seat audience there on Saturday. So please, dear opposite stand: please sing again at the next game.

The chants with the North Stand were also wonderful. “The whole stadium…” At least there was a steward in the North Stand. She was allowed to celebrate the wave alone with the team after the game.

It was almost impossible to capture the atmosphere and all the individual actions on Saturday. That's why I like to refer you to them Pictures by Beeblebrox, you can not only see the north curve support wonderfully. A nice highlight for me was that my 400 sprint at Bruns' penalty in the 90th along the sideline was taken by the lovely Wolf AFM Radio was commented on. I haven't heard it myself, but someone on Twitter heard it. Unfortunately there was no cheering pose to photograph.

The game itself was of course only a sideshow. In his closing remarks, Fabian Boll summed it up briefly: "Easier opponents than the hellhounds will come to Millerntor again." The current team was overwhelmed by FC St. Pauli with a score of 5:1.

Lele ran like a berserker along the right line. Naki duped his opponents time and again, but he was only surprised by Meggle. OK, the term "player coach" was really apt at the moment when Meggi jumped up from the coach's seat and stole the ball from Naki, who was dancing in front of him on the sidelines. It was almost exactly 7 years and one month ago that Marvin Braun last scored at the Millerntor - he opened the scoring on Saturday. The still lanky Morike Sako also got on the scoresheet. Along with Deniz Naki and Fabian Boll. He wasn't even on the field at first. Ralle Gunesch had to leave the pitch after a few seconds of play because he immediately hit a catastrophic bad pass. Coach Stani changed offensively and midfielder Boll came in to replace the defender. Stani in general: how beaming he was to be back on the sidelines at Millerntor. Ralle was then allowed to use the free kick spray again as a substitute referee.

For me it was a nice farewell game for many deserving players who had kept the club alive in a dark time and not all of them got a farewell game at the time.

For me it was also a nice farewell game because I was able to act a little differently with my camera than in other games at the Millerntor. Above you can see - with one exception - only photos that I took with my Leica and the 24. A tiny homage to Paul Ripke, whose final picture book is coming in November. Sports photography can be so much fun even without a thousand millimeter focal length...