Paul McCartney famously remarked that Hamburg “nearly wrecked” the Beatles. An early line-up of the ‘Fab Four’ – featuring Pete Best on drums instead of Ringo Starr – arrived on the city’s infamous Reeperbahn in 1960 in a bid to launch their fledgling project, and returned to Merseyside two years later, “looking like skeletons”.
After screeching into Hamburg’s central train station on a teeth-chattering December evening, it doesn’t take FourFourTwo long to see what all the fuss was about. Germany’s largest port city, dubbed the “Gateway to the World” by the hardy locals, is connected to the North Sea by the icy river Elbe. More than 7,000 container ships visit here annually and, as FFT watches cranes load giant, barnacle-ridden ships in the harbour for a minute, the thought of shuffling into the nearest pub for a quick rendition of Love Me Do soon appeals.
Alas, we’re not here for era-defining pop hits, but for one of European football’s more curious city derbies: St Pauli against Hamburg. The ‘Stadtderby’ isn’t your typical cross-town rivalry, given its participants have rarely found themselves in the same division. While the former have spent the majority of their 114 years in the second and third tiers, Hamburg, a founding member of the Bundesliga in 1963, have hoovered up half a dozen German championships and three DFB-Pokals, as well as the 1983 European Cup.
While few outside Germany could name a single player in St Pauli’s history, Hamburg’s roll off the tongue. There’s Kevin Keegan, who won the Ballon d’Or twice during a sparkling three-year spell with ‘Die Rothosen’ (‘The Red Shorts’) at the end of the ’70s, or Uwe Seeler, whose blistering right foot, chiefly responsible for 490 goals in 580 games from 1954-72, has been immortalised in a colossal statue at their Volksparkstadion home.
“Historically speaking, we’re one of German football’s biggest and most successful clubs,” insists Football Fanatics Hamburg fan group member Julius Hillebrand prior to tonight’s clash. “St Pauli fans themselves would admit they haven’t enjoyed much on-field success. We’ve spent most of our histories in different leagues, with most
