Betze-HSV, Traditionally: FC Kaiserslautern vs HSV Tradition Day

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Sam Wainwright, Floyd Heubel, Tom Reed

Cover image: Sam Wainwright

Kaiserslautern is not known as a beautiful city but it is known for its football club.

The passing of time measured by football socks pulled up and down and you’ve gone from childhood kick-abouts to having the heaving Westkurve at your back.

How magnificent it must feel to be a Betze player.

You can get a good vibe too at the team with the wall at Dortmund and in the Forest with Union and all the fine German clubs that command overseas attention but FC Kaiserslautern fans will explain, in compelling detail, why their FCK are the best.

West Ham say they won the World Cup for England in ’66 with Hurst, Moore and Peters but Germany claimed the 1954 Weltmeisterschaft with no less than five Kaiserslautern players.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. FC Kaiserslautern.

Two particularly tasty German Championships in 1951 and 1953, won by the club out of a total of four, are chiselled into the mindset of Betze supporters, like the Fritz-Walter-Stadion is cut into the cliff in the South West German city.

The imposing ground bears the name of of the elder Walter brother who lifted the ‘54 World Cup and completed the Miracle of Bern, in a team containing his sibling Ottmar.

Up as champions of Bundesliga 2 in 96/97 and going straight on to win the Bundesliga in 97/98.

Shooting like a rocket and not stopping till the victory is a burned image on the retina.

Here is a club though, that has come through financial crises and ten straight seasons from 2011/12 when league positions were worse or no better than the season before. The Regionalliga Südwest was a distinct possibility.

This leaves a deep impression in this place of just 100,000 people that produces gates of 49,000, like Burnley in England but turned up a few notches.

A one-in-two goal ratio is considered a gold standard for strikers but nearly one-in-two people by population go to watch Kaiserslautern in a diamond class turnout.

Miroslav Klose as a standout former player, the one-time roofer with the work ethic who went on to house a significant trophy cabinet.

The Fritz-Walter-Stadion is more of a castle than a football stadium, a concrete Super Mario fortress on a hill, with no shortcuts to the top.

From the wooded side, there’s over 200 steps to reach the turnstiles and you feel each and every one. A match at Kaiserslautern produces those sweet burning calves and a hoarse voice that you yearn to feel again, before the pain has eased.

The experience is charted by the collected crud on the soles of your Adidas; beer, grime, currywurst sauce, kebab juice and a light sprinkling of the pints of Riesling and water they chug as a delicacy.

©Sam Wainwright/ Terrace Edition. FC Kaiserslautern.

A soundtrack of clinking bottles, firecrackers at your ankles and chants you don’t really know the words to, but find yourself humming at a family dinner some days later.

“Never mind Kaiserslautern Olé dear, pass the salt”

It helps that the kick-off is 8.30pm on a Saturday, with ample time for the size of the occasion to ferment.

“Traditionstag” with the mighty HSV as visitors and a very naked celebration of the heritage of the two great sides.

Not that the match needed much promotion as Kaiserslautern and HSV have history that’s secured tight, like the sewing on a Kutte denim jacket.

©Floyd Heubel/ Terrace Edition. FC Kaiserslautern.

A march was organised to leave the city at 4.30, by which time the Red Devils were hanging off the balconies at the St.-Martins-Platz bars, drinking Hells lager and filling the square with empty flare tubes, smoke that smells better than any vape and a Champions League level of love for their club.

They might not make Europe just yet but they are off somewhere and so is the march of umpteen thousand people, blocking off the streets in a show of time and place and a football club in a city and a city of the football club.

There’s a Derby County fan from England, with his German girlfriend and although a Baseball Ground guy, you can see on his face that what is happening here is next level in terms of fan culture. They met when the Rams played a pre-season match in K-Town and haven’t looked back.

The HSV fans troop from the train station to the ground, with little jeering on this day of tradition and they are quietly saying ‘yes we respect your club but we are going to shoot off fireworks and support our team from Hamburg, which needs to be top tier’.

Amidst the cavernous concourse, there’s Kaiserslautern legend Martin Wagner who played for Germany but takes greater pleasure in talking about the goal he scored in the 1996 German Cup Final win against rivals Karlsruher SC. A couple of star-struck fans stop for selfies but Wagner is representative of the calm needed in the chaos to claim a result.

Before kick-off, the passion is as high as the stadium, as tifos bearing the images of Walter eleven player Horst Eckel, cult goalkeeper Ronnie Hellström and former club President Norbert Thines are unfurled, all of whom passed away recently.

A giant portrait of Fritz Walter himself is the last to fill the Westkurve and tumble down as fans hold up their old-school scarves made specially for the day, producing a poignant moment of real football gravitas.

While the match is raucous, hard fought and loud, it is enough to reduce the casual observer to stunned quiet.

Maybe its the sixth or seventh beer or the HSV Capo waving the flare or the Westkurve bouncing, or the lofty walkway between stands that is as high as the tower block opposite but there is the feeling of something bigger at Kaiserslautern, an occasion larger than us all but which includes everyone.

Footballing vertigo, eased pint by pint and with each sliding tackle.

The home side’s manager Dirk Schuster is cute with tactics and wouldn’t be perturbed that Kaiserslautern hadn’t brought much in the goalless first-half.

As minute 70 hit and the lactic acid built up in tired HSV legs, Kaiserslautern found something extra and poached two goals from their Hamburg visitors.

‘If you aren’t going to take the prize then we will take it from you’.

Jean Zimmer played genie, robbed the ball from his ponderous opponent, drove towards goal and passed for American serviceman’s son Terrence Boyd to flick home nonchalantly.

The finish summed up an occasion which was casually grander than its Bundesliga 2 billing and the reaction was a guttural roar from the Westkurve, the maniacal whirling of flags and the red and whites going absolutely nuts.

HSV, with all that weight of expectation and in search of automatic promotion to the top flight were flat-footed, punch-drunk and allowed Philipp Hercher to nip in behind and square for Aaron Opuku to angle the ball home for a decisive second.

Anyone stuck behind a banner or the shoulder of a jack-in-the-box supporter would have had to imagine it hitting the net but the ground rocked nonetheless.

Kaiserslautern had done what was needed on Tradition Day, kids and old ladies clutched their Red Devil teddy bears and were equally proud, despite the intervening years.

The HSV fans pondered a 600 km trip back North and a crunch clash against St Pauli to determine who gets to be Bundesliga and carry the bragging rights on the Elbe. They hadn’t stopped singing for a second, did their bit for the occasion and earned their hangovers.

“Kaiserslautern - best team in Germany” shouts a fan in English in those packed streets outside the Betze stadium and given everything that has gone on, it’s hard to argue.

The police hold the home fans in a road on a steep hill overlooking the city for a good 40 minutes to let the away fans leave.

Enough time to drink it all in, holding firm against the descent, hungry for Doner meat, and another beer in the city not known for its beauty but known for its football club.