Reading The Game (eBook)

Women know why a man calls another man “Pretty Boy”. Probably to gain some modicum of revenge on those better favoured by the gods in matters of physical beauty.

Anyway.

This is Pretty Boy’s story.

But not just his.

It's also the story of a marvelous day out.

Dortmund, Tuesday 9 May 1989.

DFB-Cup semi-final, Borussia Dortmund versus VfB Stuttgart, deep in the second half.

Corner, Möller takes.

Jürgen Klinsmann, the contortionist, twists himself into one of his extravagant pirouettes. Frank Mill plants both fists in Nils Schmäler’s back, rises, heads home. 2–0.

Berlin, Berlin, we’re going to Berlin.

The south stand is rocking. Yellow cards, red cards, wild challenges, final whistle, all over. Borussia Dortmund were in the 1989 German Cup final. The stadium was like a madhouse.

For me, the game had been a kind of comeback.

I didn’t spend a lot of time in Dortmund back then, but I’d never lost touch with my friends from the early 80s, and a semi-final was a perfect occasion to renew old acquaintances.

So I headed to my local, surrounded by a sea of euphoric Borussia fans, sprayed with outpourings of the filthiest language by the stout Swabians who'd come along.

And believe me, being the target of Swabian foul language is an odd experience.

It bats back and forth, but it never crosses the line.

No fists fly. It has gone no further than charming, folkloric Swabian verbal blows before Jupp Schmiedeskamp, 300% Borussia fan, who will be referred to henceforth as the “Tour Guide”, manages to find the right words.

“Put a sock in it, Schwabe, come with us. Free beer.”

An offer no Swabian can refuse (and which quite possibly also explains our beautiful friendship with the Celts of Glasgow Celtic). Anyway – the local, bonds are forged, songs are sung. And as each new round is poured, someone begs:

“Swear at me, Swabians!” We laughed until the tears flowed.

It must have been around this time that it was decided – of course we were travelling. We were going to be there. Berlin, Berlin.

No sooner said than planned.

As morning approached I had to take the first train to Cologne, where I was already living at the time. Jupp Schmiedeskamp, the Tour Guide:

“OK mate, don’t worry about anything, you’ll be hearing from us.”

Days pass. May is over. We know by now that we will be meeting Werder Bremen in the final. My telephone rings.

“Schmiedeskamp, travel bureau. We'll be waiting for you on Saturday 24.06., eleven in the morning at my place. Don’t forget your passport.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“A new lot.”

The Tour Guide wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me at the time. He'd been a regular at the modest pub I had once run with some friends in Dortmund. It was over the course of the next 48 hours, though, that we were set to become more than mere acquaintances.

Set off from Cologne about half nine, arrive at the meeting place at 11 on the dot.

As I entered the Tour Guide’s cramped flat in north Dortmund, not far from Borsigplatz, I experienced the first magic moment (many more were to follow over the next two days).

This modest flat, more a Borussia Dortmund museum than a place to live, had a pocket-sized kitchen, and on the kitchen table in this pocket-sized kitchen stood a glass of pils.

Pilsner at eleven.

Pilsner that had been pulled with sublime and exemplary skill.

All the pils you see during commercial breaks on TV is bile and bilge compared to this.

“Cheers!”

DEPUTAT was to be my next initiation.

I knew it was a mining term. As a miner, my father had the right to a certain amount of coal for household use. Deputat.

The whole neighbourhood had it.

The Tour Guide was an employee of the Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei. DAB. Taking up much of the space on his balcony was a swish and shiny beer dispenser, and before we started our long journey east, we needed to “wake up” the keg. So it began.

With each and every member of Tour Group Schmiedekamp having assembled to take joint custody of the Tour Guide’s Deputat, I was witness to what seemed an inexhaustible supply of cans of beer being loading into the ugly blue Buchbinder minibus that was to be our chariot to Berlin.

It goes without saying that at least one of the group forgot their passport. Probably Pretty Boy. Nevertheless, after re-equipping with new passport photos quickly procured at the railway station (you could get a single-entry and -exit visa for your cash D-Marks at the German-German border) we could finally depart.

I’ve already mentioned the lifetime supply of beer, so I don't need to explain why I’m an expert on every layby and service station between Dortmund and Berlin.

Someone had to go. Every single time.

Delayed by more than one traffic jam – half of Westphalia was headed east, after all – and by a convention of Saxony’s most humourless border guards, we finally reached West Berlin towards evening and decided that our first priority must be to get a beer in.

The inexhaustible beer supply was exhausted. As were we.

The rest of the evening passed without incident.

The travel bureau had arranged a flat in Kreuzberg for us. We bedded down wherever we could find the space – there were ten of us, after all – and drifted off into dreams of lifting the cup.

As morning arrived and I opened my eyes with a yawn, I saw an object on the sofa opposite me. Pretty Boy! He was sleeping with a smile on his face and a full bottle of Schultheiss beer in his hand. It had been opened.

He'd managed that, at least.

Cup final day. Sunday the 25th of June, 1989.

A picture perfect day. Radiant blue skies. Warm sun. Green and white Werder fans, Nordic cool. The tour group strolled through the divided city. Even at this point, many of us had the feeling that today, glory awaited.

The Olympiastadion.

Tickets are distributed.

“VIP box, or is it the Albert Speer seats?”

The ghost of fascism still haunts this place. Not even the Rolling Stones could exorcise it when they appeared here a couple of years later.

The tour group has to split up as it enters the stadium for the match.

And, oh my God, what a match.

I’m in clover.

I’m sitting level with the byline at the Marathon Gate end. Four of the five goals are scored at my end, almost at my feet.

In front of my very eyes, Norbert Dickel will become a living legend.

I’ll keep it short and sweet.

RIEDLE

DICKEL

MILL

DICKEL

LUSCH

They’ve only gone and done it.

4–1, Dortmund have won the cup.

Let me repeat myself: “The fans go wild!”

I love these good old-fashioned commentator’s classics.

A fantastic game was over. A fairy tale was fact. And Nobbi’s knee was forever crocked.

I’ve never seen so many men cry.

And then I heard it for the first time, from thousands of hoarse Dortmund throats at once. Perhaps the most momentous chant in football history:

Berliners, we love you, we’ll get you out of here!

Berliners, we love you, we’ll get you out of here!

What next?

The travel bureau had taken care of everything.

The word on everyone’s lips: Malheur. All together after the game, in the bus and off to Kreuzberg to Malheur, a pub on Gneisenaustraße. Not to worry if you get a bit lost. Head to Malheur. Everyone knows it.

The tour group is united, euphoric, drunk on victory, totally Nobbled.

The bus pulls up, we pile in, have a little scrimmage, the doors close – all accounted for??? – Pretty Boy’s outside. The bus drives off. No problem. We wave. “Go to Malheur, Pretty Boy, go to Malheur!”

Change at Bahnhof Zoo. Down a quick pils at the Dortmund bar that used to be there. From today’s point of view, a piece of the cultural fabric that's been ripped out. Still, I’m sure they’ve destroyed bigger things in Berlin. Maybe Pretty Boy will head here too. Let’s wait for him. No Pretty Boy arrives.

Carnival in Malheur. A hundred or more Borussians lift the roof off the quiet pub in Kreuzberg 61. The Malheur, bedlam. A startled, bearded sixty-eighter at the bar, a Swabian no doubt – I'm sure his elbow has worn a groove into the woodwork – eyes me up through his (no word of a lie) John Lennon glasses and says: “Hey, are you this lot’s social worker?”

The place is fit to burst. I find myself on the bar again, yes, I admit it, and conduct a magnificent choir. A song that I brought back from Millwall. To the tune of Rod Stewart’s “We Are Sailing”, it goes:

No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care!

It’s getting late. No sign of Pretty Boy.

Search parties are sent out. To the nearby pubs. Always in pairs. So we don’t lose another one. It turns midnight. One. The celebrations have reached their zenith for the time being.

PRETTY BOY’S BACK. Pale, unsteady, thousand-yard stare. Has Pretty Boy been crying? What happened?

Cut! New POV!

Outside the Olympiastadion. The bus doors...