A Hull Hoppers Foreign Jaunts #No 3 MSV Duisburg 2 – 1 FSV Mainz 05 Wedaustadion, Duisburg, Germany, 25 September 1992, Bundesliga 2. SG Wattenscheid 2 – 2 Hamburger SV Lőhrheidestadion, Wattenscheid, Germany, 26 September 1992, Bundesliga 1. Juventus 1 – 1 Roma Stadio Della Alpi, Turin, Italy, 27 September 1992, FIGC Serie A. The trip to Germany and Italy the previous April went so well that we thought why not have another go, with three different teams. So we duly booked our place on North Sea Ferries from Hull to Rotterdam Europort and enjoyed the bars, restaurants and other fine facilities on board. Arriving on the Friday morning we had a short coach transfer to Rotterdam station followed by a through train to Duisburg in Germany, where that evening’s match was to take place between MSV Duisburg and Mainz 05. We arrived in Duisburg early enough to have a decent look round the town, which was very nice and contained plenty of places to eat and drink, with some very interesting buildings contained in the centre of town. The early evening saw us take a steady walk to the tidy looking Wedaustadion. The ground itself, although not having a great capacity, produced a really lively atmosphere, which was once again a bit surprising, considering it had an athletics track around the pitch. A fairly decent match ensued as Duisburg ran out 2-1 winners against Mainz 05 and was a good advert for Bundesliga 2, my first game in this division. The following day saw us take the relatively short journey to the town of Wattenscheid to see their team take on Hamburger SV in one of the home sides few seasons in Bundesliga 1. A brilliant, sunny day enabled us to have a good look around the place which was, once again, a very pleasant and tidy town. Although not a huge place, it was well worth a look round and after some welcome refreshments we made our way to the small, modern looking Lőhrheidestadion, which again, as with many German grounds up until the late nineties, had an athletics track surrounding the pitch. A few funny looks headed my way as I was walking to the stadium and in the ground itself as I was wearing the unique tiger stripes Hull City shirt from that season, as can be seen in the photograph, which certainly turned a few heads! A really good ding – dong battle took place on the pitch with both sides really going for the win and a creditable 2 – 2 draw was the least that Wattenscheid deserved against a very good Hamburg side containing some top players including the Bulgarian international Lechkov. Another trip on the fabulous Holland – Italien Express from Bochum to Milan was undertaken on the Saturday evening and after a decent night’s sleep on the train we arrived in Milan in the early hours of Sunday morning. A further train journey from Milan saw us arrive in Turin on a rather misty, at times rainy morning. The weather didn’t dampen our spirits however and after sampling some of the famously tasty Italian ice cream we made our way to the Stadio Della Alpi, home of Juventus, for the fixture against Roma. Once again it was a dream come true as we watched a game containing names I had only ever seen on TV in the world cup such as Vialli, Ravanelli, Roberto Baggio, Dino Baggio, Platt and Mőller for Juventus and Cannigia, Piacentini, Giannini and Mijhailovic for Roma. A cagey affair, but nonetheless an excellent game between two evenly matched teams ended in a 1 – 1 draw, but one interesting aspect was the contest between the two sets of rival fans who, towards the end of the game started hurling a lit red magnesium flare across the segregated no-man’s land area between them. The home fans promptly threw it back and this happened several times until the officials intervened! The following day saw a visit to the old Via Filadelfia ground, the ex ground of Torino, now being used as their training ground, and a similar situation was also occurring at the Stadio Comunale, which was being used for trainng by Juventus. A return journey by train to Holland and ferry to Hull ended what had been a quite brilliant weekend.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 18:00:17 +0000
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