The third and final day of our German football tour of North-Rhine Westphalia came to a head with a rather tasty fixture in the border town of Aachen, right on the tip of the region. Aachen didn't appear in the same vogue as the previous teams that we had the pleasure of watching, the small matter of only finding the net once in their opening 10 matches of the season and flirting with the foot of the Bundesliga 2 were contributing factors, however, this was a local(ish) derby and Alemannia's 1000th game in the division, which was worthy of a party.
2 hours and 30 minutes on the train from Dortmund we finally pitched up at a rather misty Aachen central station to be greeted by 6 police vans and around 30 officers keeping a watchful eye over the fans as both the blue and white of visitors Duisburg filtered through the exit's alongside the yellow and black of the home supporters. Luckily the local plod had a relatively easy Sunday shift as the two sets of fans headed for the ground, passing the old Tivoli ground which Aachen vacated in 2009 to move little over a goal kick away to a brand new stadium imaginatively named....New Tivoli.
New Tivoli appears very similar in design to stadiums such as St Mary's in Southampton or The King Power Stadium in my native Leicester. The subtle difference being that its painted bright yellow and black and comprises a large standing terrace behind the goal known as the Bitburger Wall, which was where yours truly would be situated for the 90. The only downside to New Tivoli is the system many clubs seem to be adopting nowadays by issuing a 'Tivoli Karte' which is a card similar to a mobile phone top-up card that can be used to purchase food and drink within the stadium, quicker perhaps but an inconvenience to recoup unused money. On the plus side the toilets within the stadium are some of the largest and most plentiful that I have ever come across.
Duisburg had brought a large travelling contingent for this one and duly filled the far corner of the stadium plus their allocated seating, Aachen's turn out was equally impressive with the prestige of the game drawing in a crowd of over 30,000, a great effort for a 1:30pm kick off on a Sunday. The noise soon began to build as the kick off drew ever closer, bizarrely the tunes selected pre-match included Neil Diamond's 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Three Lion's' by Baddiel,Skinner and the Lightening Seed's. The star in the DJ's set-list however was Gloria Gaynor's classic 'I will survive' which received a hearty rendition as the teams entered the pitch. On the way into the ground we were presented with large pieces of yellow paper which would be used in a display which covered the entire end in yellow and black, very impressive.
Considering Aachen's woeful scoring record at home, they wasted no time in finding the net through Radu's impressive far post header sending the Aachener's wild to the tune of 'I will survive', one of those moments that feels so wrong yet feels so right. Duisburg attempted to match the voice of the Aachen faithful and soon got their reward, Valeri Domovchyski bagging the leveller for the visitors. Despite some fantastic goalkeeping from Alemannia stopper Boy Waterman it wasn't enough to keep Duisburg out, and early in the second period a cross to the far post found an unmarked Andre Hoffman to silence the home support.
As they say here though, cometh the Auer, cometh the goal, and star striker Beni Auer, doing his best up front alone, managed to spring the offside trap and to have his shot rebound off the Duisburg goalkeeper onto unfortunate defender Branimir Bajic who could only watch on as Aachen levelled the match. Aachen were indeed going to survive. Despite both teams pressing late on for a goal it finished deservedly level at 2-2 and all in all was a really good advert for Bundesliga 2. Aachen in summary is a fantastic city, with a cathedral to be proud of, however it's the black and yellow cathedral that will stay in my mind.
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