On The Ball | As Bundesliga restart provides bliss for starved football fans, Schalke executive says German utopia is no more
- As Bundesliga restarts, Schalke board member bemoans how uncompetitive the German league has become
- Schalke will meet Borussia Dortmund in Ruhr derby on Saturday
Uwe Kemmer, an elected board member at Bundesliga giants Schalke 04, was being shown around Old Trafford by Bobby Charlton before their 2011 Uefa Champions League semi-final against Manchester United.
“Can I just thank your club for the two best minutes in sports history when you beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League final,” he said to the United legend.
Schalke reached the semi-finals that season with Raul and Manuel Neuer in their team, but, despite their vast size and 61,000 average crowds (and 160,000 paid up members) which make them the third best-supported team in Germany and seventh in the world, they’re not a name you associate with success.
“When I started watching football in the ’70s, we were actually like Man United,” Kemmer tells The Post. “We never won the Bundesliga – we’ve been runners up six times – but we had huge crowds and would take 15,000 fans to away games. Along with Bayern we were the only club with a nationwide support. Dortmund has that now with their more recent success, but while Schalke still don’t win the league, we still take 15,000 to away games – and we definitely don’t sing You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
There’s a nice line in self-depreciation in Gelsenkirchen, where Schalke play. It’s not beautiful, moneyed Munich, but a former coal-mining town with blue collar support. Nearby Dortmund is the same, a small football city where vast crowds gather.
