STADIA: VOLKSPARKSTADION AND MILLERNTOR-STADION

Despite the fact that not a single stadium, other than the Parc des Princes, met the capacity requirements for hosting World Cup football, the refurbishments bequeathed upon the stadia France elected to use for the 1998 FIFA World Cup were modest in comparison to those implemented in Germany before the 2006 tournament, where there were already more than enough stadia capable of housing the requisite 40,000 spectators. This is not a dig at the Fédération Française de Football but more a pat on the back for the Deutscher Fußball-Bund.

Or is it? I was actually quite taken with the renovations on display in 1998: the two new goalmouth stands at Lyon’s Stade de Gerland, the three banks of elliptical terracing at Marseille’s Stade Vélodrome, the addition of a disproportionately large three-tiered stand at Montpellier’s Stade de la Mosson (although I was disappointed that Strasbourg’s semi-brutalist Stade de la Meinau was not involved). Nonetheless, the Germans embraced the opportunity to upgrade their stadia, and the 2006 FIFA World Cup would come to serve as a template for ground building not just in Europe but across the globe (rendering the new Wembley Stadium, once it had been completed in 2007, anachronistic by comparison).

Architectural success is implied but does not necessarily follow. Nuremburg’s Max-Morlock-Stadion, Hannover’s Niedersachsenstadion, Kaiserslautern’s Fritz-Walter-Stadion and Schalke’s Veltins-Arena are not pretty stadia. Conversely, Cologne’s RheinEnergieStadion, Munich’s Allianz Arena, Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion and Berlin’s Olympiastadion are – or are buildings harmonious in aspect and capable of generating an atmosphere. Others bid indifference. Enter the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg, which wasn’t rebuilt in anticipation of World Cup football at all – although it was known a tender was in the offing – but because the existing structure was in a bit of a state.

If cultural stereotypes are your thing, it might be said that the Volksparkstadion is an exercise in Teutonic efficiency. It is a very simple structure: two continuous tiers with the corners squared off at angles tracing the shape of a stretched octagon, although the sides are cambered slightly. The seats are mostly blue and some are red – mostly notably those in the corners of the upper tier. An area behind one of the goals is unseated, contributing 10,000 to an overall capacity of 57,000. The roof consists of a light membrane supported by 40 poles, like a huge circus tent turned in on itself. Little effort has been made to beautify the functional exterior: there’s a couple of storeys worth of glass covering the main entrance, some verdant banking around the steeper sides of the ground, stairwells shrouded in concrete, and the exposed underside of the second tier and its supporting framework.

Hamburger SV attract a large following, so who am I to complain, but unless you live in Altona, the most westward borough of Hamburg, then a trip to the Volksparkstadion must seem like quite some journey. Moreover, the ground feels cut off from the rest of the city, with woodland, a cemetery, an industrial estate and the Barclaycard Arena for company. On top of all that, the stadium is barely accessible on foot, and those that come by train are obliged to transfer from the nearest station by shuttlebus. It’s like the Nürburgring of football, although I suppose this arboreous setting is preferable to the suburban forms that more normally afflict the peripheries of large cities. Speak again? The Volksparkstadion does what is expected of it, no more nor less.

If I lived in Hamburg I’d offer my support to FC St. Pauli. This isn’t only because I might be able to walk to the Millerntor-Stadion, or that the surroundings are socially alive and provide amply for pre- and/or post-match beverages, but also because of the culture the club has embraced: a sort of quasi-socialist, community-based spirit that values its fans.

It was not always thus, and one should also bear in mind that the Deutsche Fußball Liga runs a tighter ship than most. Up until 1998 football clubs were classified as not-for-profit organisations run by members’ associations, and private ownership was strictly verboten. Clubs have since been allowed to exist as private, limited companies, but under the proviso that they retain the majority of their shares – what’s been termed the 50+1 rule.

In any case, in and around the 1980s FC St. Pauli began to foment something approaching a cult, thriving on its reputation as a place for down-and-outs, immigrants, squatters, students, outsiders. You can make any connections you see fit, but the upshot of all this was that the denizens of St. Pauli contrived to react against the right-wing hooliganism that prevailed throughout Europe at the time, campaigning on progressive issues and fostering inclusivity. Admirable, but for a while it seemed they might pay a price for being so resolutely out of step. The 1990s saw the club yo-yoing between Bundesligas 1 and 2, and in 2003 they were relegated to the Regionalliga Nord, which was at the time the third tier of football in Germany. Almost bankrupt, the outlook was bleak.

Depending on who you ask or what you read, the club was saved either by the intervention of a ‘theatre impresario’ named Corny Littmann or the efforts of the local community who persuaded the local bars to donate to the club 50 cents from every bottle of Astra beer sold, in a campaign that became known as ‘drinking for St. Pauli’. Whatever the reason, the team’s fortunes were revived, and by 2007 they’d been promoted back into the 2 Bundesliga. Perhaps more crucially, that same year FC St. Pauli embarked on the stalled redevelopment of their ground.

The South Stand was developed initially, perhaps because it wasn’t much of a stand in the first place. At a quick glance it still doesn’t look like much: a single-tiered structure built from terracotta red bricks with a glazed façade, like the sort of modest office block you might find around the back of your local high street. But take a closer look. Those bricks form three arched atriums, the ones to the left and the right set back beneath a glass-fronted gantry framed in a material the colour of copper carbonate (more than likely aluminium panels painted pistachio green, perhaps in homage to the metal roofs of the old warehouses that occupy Hamburg’s Speicherstadt district). This gantry is actually a corridor providing access to a row of executive boxes to the rear of the stand – private suites that have been decorated to the tastes of their individual leaseholders. The middle arch intervenes, rising above the rest of the ground, displaying the club’s crest and hoisting flags. Darker brown bricks run horizontally to join with the cladded material that demarcates the various floors. These same brown bricks alternate with red ones around the semi-circles of all three arches. The quality of the build appears to be of a very high standard.

Next up was the Main Stand, which was to be similar in style to the South except with two rows of executive boxes stacked on top of each other. Indeed, the two stands are conjoined. This was not part of the original plan but was insisted upon to keep the crowd noise from disturbing the residents living diametrically opposite. Rather than just add to the ground’s capacity, this space has been set aside as a family area with seats reserved exclusively for children, an area of decking above for their parents, and rooms behind for entertaining even younger fry – what’s effectively a kindergarten. As opposed to the South Stand, which is comprised of seating in the upper tier and standing room in a paddock beneath, the Main Stand is all-seated, although there is space for wheelchair users at its base.

Work began on the Gegengerade (the ‘againststraight’) in January 2012, approximately a year and half after completion of the Main Stand. An alternate, more elaborate design, dubbed The Wave, was considered but ultimately rejected on the grounds of cost, the time required to build it, and its potential incongruity. This was the correct decision. The Gegengerade is built of the same red brick and repeats the green cladding around edges of the roof, with plexiglass panels in between to protect from the elements. The rear of the stadium is mostly exposed, revealing the underside of the terracing, except at ground level where there are bars. These bars have been sold on to the local supporters’ association who invite local (graffiti) artists to decorate them prior to the start of each season. The Gegengerade can hold 13,199; 10,126 spectators in the paddock and 3,030 seats in the upper tier.

Finally the North Stand, which looks much as it did prior to redevelopment, only bigger. Like the Gegengerade it accommodates both seating and standing, as well as visiting supporters. Despite its simplicity, building it was a bit tricky due to the public football pitches pressed up behind, but they managed it. The stand is again finished in red brick, and the same pistachio green fasciae run around the side and rear edges of the roof. The imposing Flak Tower IV looms in the middle distance.

Flak Tower IV behind the North Stand

The seats, where they are present, are a combination of brown, white and red. Along the walls that demarcate the various paddocks, we have text writ large: VORAN SANKT PAULI (ahead Saint Pauli) KEIN FUSSBALL DEN FASCHISTEN (no football the fascists) and KEIN MENSCH IST ILLEGAL (no one is illegal). This really is no ordinary club, and the Millerntor is far from being an ordinary stadium, despite its simplistic array. The terracotta red bricks compliment the pistachio green of those roof fasciae and provide the stadium with a sort of architectural motif, while the clear plexiglass panels that close off the open sides of the stands – as well as those that wrap around the rear of the Gegengerade and North Stand – let in just the right amount of light. Random murals adorn many of the bricked walls. You wouldn’t know from looking at it that the ground had been redeveloped in phases over a 10 year period, yet each side of the Millerntor possesses its own identity, immune to the bland uniformity that so often blights contemporary stadia.

It goes to show that stadium architecture needn’t rely on costly gimmicks to make an impact, nor subscribe to the idea that a ground needs to be completely demolished and remodelled as a cohesive unit. The physical hinderances and limited budget have worked to the Millerntor’s advantage and have left St. Pauli with a stadium that they can be proud of and that still very much feels like home. British football clubs on a budget would do well to take note.

LINER NOTES: TAKE A RIDE [2013]

1.    Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark) – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

2.    Let England Shake – PJ Harvey

3.    Over the Ice – The Field

4.    Tugboat – Galaxie 500

5.    You Made Me Realise – My Bloody Valentine

6.    Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Hitler – Wild Billy Childish & The Blackhands

7.    Take a Ride – The Questions

8.    Damaged Goods – Gang of Four

9.    Stardust – Billy Ward and His Dominoes

10.  El Toro – Chico Hamilton

11.  I Put a Spell on You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

12.  Tramp – Lowell Fulson

13.  Come on In – The Music Machine

14.  Como El Agua – Camaron de la Isla y Paco de Lucia

15.  National Shite Day – Half Man Half Biscuit

16.  Ingenue – Atoms for Peace

17.  FFunny FFriends – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

18.  Flowers – Galaxie 500

19.  Swing Easy – The Soul Vendors

20.  Late in the Evening – Paul Simon

21.  Every Picture Tells a Story – Rod Stewart

Bouldering is indoor climbing utilising plastic holds, without ropes; you’re never so high off the ground that a deep crash mat won’t do should you fall. I bouldered at The Arch before they were kicked out of their premises by British Rail. They then moved to a warehouse in Bermondsey called The Biscuit Factory. This was a great shame, but London Bridge station was to be expanded, and now has been.

Contrary to the music the kids at Vauxhall Climbing Centre like to subject their clientele to, at The Biscuit Factory they normally do all right, and it was there that I came across Unknown Mortal Orchestra. They had released two albums at this point: an eponymously titled work and II. Both are represented here. 'Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)' is taken from their second record. It works well as an opening track, although it isn’t used as such on the album. The music has been deliberately recorded to sound like the psychedelic records it takes inspiration from. That is to say, it sounds like you’re listening to it through an old Dansette record player, even though you’re more than likely not.

When I first became interested in indie music, PJ Harvey was one of the artists introduced to me. She was, compared to now, relatively unknown – this was around the time of her second album, Rid of Me – and the approaching juggernaut that was Britpop suggested it might remain that way. Instead, as Britpop was nearing its critical mass – early 1995 – she released To Bring You My Love, which was a success critically and to some degree commercially. And while bands like Suede, Radiohead and The Verve would be conveniently co-opted into the Britpop movement, once it had established itself, PJ Harvey stood apart. She was succeeding on her own terms, and Britpop’s sustainability was not her concern.

I took note of all this but PJ Harvey’s next album, Is This Desire, released in 1998, eluded me. Her fifth, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, made more of an impact but not enough for me to go out and buy a copy. 2004’s Uh Huh Her barely even registered. White Chalk, forget it. I guess I had my ears pressed against other things: Latin jazz, funk, soul, ska, psychedelia, garage rock, new wave.

It was my partner who broke the embargo. In 2012, she bought for me Let England Shake, reinvigorating my appreciation of PJ Harvey’s oeuvre as whole. I especially appreciated the use of the autoharp and zither on many of the tracks. This is Polly Harvey’s great strength: an ear for euphonic textures, off-beat rhythms, sound collages.

Living alone and left to his own devices, my Cornish friend was listening to various electronic music. He played me From Here We Go Sublime by The Field. Billed as techno, it’s closer to trance, although not of the Goa kind. Perhaps it’s neither for it leans heavily on sampling, inhabiting a wistful sort of groove. That said, 'Over the' Ice is fairly upbeat, even if the tune it borrows from – Kate Bush’s 'Under Ice' – isn’t.

My nostalgia for late ‘80s/early ‘90s indie music, which had started with Sebadoh, led me back to Galaxie 500 (although it was Dean Wareham’s other band, Luna, that I was more familiar with). It seemed to me that Galaxie 500 held more in common with the more sixties’ influenced groups on Sarah Records than it did alternative indie American rock; dreampop, slowcore, shoegaze - whatever you want to call it. Wareham’s ostensibly simple guitar work is reminiscent of The Velvet Underground after John Cale was kicked out and their music became prettier. Except Wareham’s voice is far thinner than Lou Reed’s.

Up pops My Bloody Valentine on a second, consecutive compilation. This time around it’s one of their more conservative numbers, 'You Made Me Realise'. Conservative in the sense that it possesses a verse and a chorus, what passes for a riff, vaguely melodic harmonies, and an instrumental breakout about halfway through. It then descends into a mess of feedback, which has been known to last, in a live setting, for over half an hour.

Adolf Hitler. There’s a certain attitude towards this monomaniacal piece of work that’s distinctly British. In the lead up to the Second World War and during it, the Fuhrer was perceived as a figure of fun, a caricature to be ridiculed and laughed at. This attitude is manifest in Allied propaganda: in posters (American placards were very much more aggressive than their British equivalents), songs ('Hitler Has Only Got One Ball'), films (The Great Dictator), plays (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), even cartoons (the Bugs Bunny short 'Herr Meets Hare'). Charlie Chaplin said that had he been cognizant of the holocaust he would never have made The Great Dictator. After 1945, once the strange terror of the Third Reich had been revealed to all, portrayals of Hitler became more considered and generally light on laughs, which in itself became a source of amusement: 'Just don’t mention the war'. (I say strange because so inimical to the German war effort was the holocaust that early reports of it were dismissed as preposterous. Knowing that it did indeed take place does not render it any less so.)

But we do mention the war. I mentioned the war, albeit obliquely, on a friend’s stag-do in Berlin that I’d been called upon to organise. Somebody had got wind of this thing called the Berlin Beer Bike Tour, and I took it on board. A 'beer bike' is no such thing. Although it is pedal-powered, it has four wheels and can accommodate up to 16 persons. It also incorporates a sound system, and so I prepared a CD especially for the occasion. As well as some old Acid Jazz numbers to bring back memories of the Quay Club in Plymouth, and few Britpop favourites to evoke Saturday nights down at JFKs, I included Wild Billy Childish & The Blackhands’ cover of the Dad’s Army theme tune. Billy Childish’s tribute is recorded in the ska tradition, and recorded live. It’s actually quite difficult to catch the words, all the more so in an open-air, urban setting. Nonetheless, a song was played that asks of Mr Hitler who he thinks he might be kidding, in the very heart of the German capital. To add another layer of subversion, I was done up like a member of the Red Army Faction: khaki field jacket, black cords, burgundy cable-knit pullover, brown shoes. As Luke Haines opines in his book, Bad Vibes, 'Terrorist chic, you’ve gotta love it,' although I doubt anybody made the connection.

Berlin

The Questions were (Les) Lou’s by another name. In their incarnation as The Questions, they appeared briefly in the obscure French punk flick La Brune et Moi, performing 'Take a Ride'. This track can be found on the hard-to-find compilation entitled My Girlfriend Was A Punk! Rare Early Female Punkrockers. I suspect The Questions were formed for the purpose of the film, because I can find no trace of anything else recorded by them. Not that Lou’s were prolific either, but they did at least support The Clash on their 1977 ‘Get Out of Control Tour’ (playing under Richard Hell and The Voidoids).

With their choppy guitar parts and slinky bass lines, Gang of Four are sort of like England’s answer to Talking Heads. Their debut album, Entertainment! might be the best album released under the auspices of post-punk (unless of course you think The Fall were post-punk, which I don’t). Footage of Gang of Four playing 'To Hell with Poverty' on the Old Grey Whistle Test drew my curiosity. The song, taken from the EP Another Day/Another Dollar, is available as a bonus track on the re-issued version of their second album, Solid Gold. If I hadn’t quickly followed up with Gang of Four’s first LP, Entertainment! then it might have been that track, rather than 'Damaged Goods', that ended up on this compilation.

Sometimes a shift in style can be so pronounced that it somehow works. From post-punk to R&B with a doo-wop slant; you may be familiar with 'Stardust' from its inclusion in Martin Scorsese’s film Goodfellas. The tune itself dates back to 1927 but the Dominoes version was released in 1957, and it was a big hit. The lead vocal is sung by Eugene Mumford, who died in 1977, a month shy of his 52nd birthday.

I made the mistake of assuming that 'Conquistadors' was representative of Chico Hamilton’s output. The associated LP – El Chico – is an exercise in Latin influenced jazz that takes full advantage of Gábor Szabó’s underrated ability on guitar. The Dealer is not, although it is an interesting record in its own right. But a strange thing: reading up on where I went wrong, I discovered that the reissued CD of the album included another collaboration with Gábor Szabó, entitled 'El Toro', which had been recorded four years earlier for the album Passin’ Thru. It’s not as full-on bossa nova as 'Conquistadors' but there’s enough exoticism going on to fulfil my remit – a sort of North African, hard bop vibe – so I downloaded it.

In 1993 I became fascinated with a Levi’s advert that depicted an inevitably handsome man dazzling in a pair of pristine indigo 501s, laying to rest the jeans he’d replaced. This all plays out to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins singing 'Heartattack and Vine', which its author Tom Waits objected to. I’d been mesmerised by both the song and the jeans themselves, the iconic Red Tab looking almost violet beneath the colour-balancing filter. (If Levi Strauss had produced a limited edition 501 jean with a purple tab, I’d have bought them.) Anyway, I must have needed a new pair of jeans or something, because I looked up the commercial on YouTube and reacquainted myself with ‘Procession’ (did you even know Levi’s gave their adverts actual names?). This in turn prompted an investigation into Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. The rest is history. I was familiar with Nina Simone’s recording of 'I Put a Spell on You' but not Screamin’ Jay’s. I prefer Screamin’ Jay’s.

In April, before the stag-do in Berlin, I completed a three-month tenure working for an independent tour operator in Kingston, for peanuts, during what was a cold and protracted winter. In some ways this was a blessing, because I needed to get fit for the London to Brighton Bike Ride in June, which I was doing with my brother, neighbour, and a couple other guys. I'd started getting into cycling the previous year, and I was already on my third bike, but I'd never ridden any farther than 30 miles. And it was a good thing. Aside from the trip to Berlin, and a jaunt to Paris with my partner in August, 2013 was a dispiriting and financially challenging period of my life. Riding around London, and to Brighton itself, gave me respite and also provided a fascinating insight into how the city is geographically arranged.

I can pinpoint the precise moment I finally ‘got’ road cycling. It was during Stage 5 of the 2012 Vuelta a Espana, when Javier Chacón, racing for Team Andalucia, broke away from the rest of the field, built up a 12 minute lead before being chased down by the peloton approximately 30 km from the finish (in what was a 168 km stage). He was rewarded with the stage’s Combativity Award for his efforts, and deservedly so. Without anyone supporting him, Chacón had little chance of pulling off this audacious stab for victory, but he gave it a go anyway. What really left an impression was the instant he must have known it was all over, when Javier glanced back over his shoulder and saw the pack gradually bearing down on him. It was a singular spectacle that invoked both dread and excitement, like watching an explosion in slow-motion. Would he make it, or was the peloton going to swallow him up?

I have previously alluded to my quest to replace all my old hip hop cassettes with their vinyl counterpart – original pressings if at all possible – as and when I come across them. I was lucky enough to chance upon an immaculate copy of Cypress Hill’s first album for a very reasonable price, either in the Music & Video Exchange in Greenwich or Reckless Records on Berwick Street in Soho. (Whichever one it wasn’t may have been where I picked up an equally immaculate copy of Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk by Son Of Bazerk.) Released in the summer of 1991, 'How I Could Just Kill Man' was Cypress Hill’s first single. The eponymously titled record that followed teems with samples in the way It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back does: ambient noise and people talking buried in deep among horns and percussion to create a mise-en-scène that evokes the sounds of 1960s/70s Los Angeles. 'How I Could Just Kill Man' is built around a guitar riff employed by West Coast bluesman Lowell Fulson in his song 'Tramp', although Lowell regulates its intensity to create a very different effect.

Another song sampled in 'How I Could Just Kill Man' – and there are at least five – is less congruous. The Music Machine were a sort of psychedelic proto-punk outfit in keeping with the sort you’ll find on the Nuggets and Rubble anthologies I’d been buying ten years earlier. 'Come On In' represents one of their more delicate moments, almost worthy of The Left Banke. The Music Machine were visually ahead of their time. Dressed in black and wearing pudding bowl haircuts, the singer and guitarist sporting single black gloves, they surely inspired the way bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes or My Bloody Valentine presented themselves in the 1980s.

A bit of a jolt but I didn’t know where else to put it. 'Como El Agua' is sung by Camarón de la Isla, the definitive singer of the flamenco revival that occurred in Spain in the latter third of the 20th Century. Likewise, Paco de Lucia, with whom Camarón often collaborated, was a virtuoso flamenco guitarist at the forefront of the same movement. 'Como El Agua' was selected to round off an edition of the Vuelta a highlights. I was onto it, and downloaded it from somewhere or other. Camarón de la Isla was revered in Spain as a sort of gypsy take on Mick Jagger, although his recreational habits were apparently more in keeping with Keith Richards – hence is premature death at the age of just 41 from lung cancer.

Paris

Come June, I'd found temporary, part-time employment with a medical publishing company in Holborn – the sort of place that liked to jazz up their weekly meetings with hypothetical questions pulled out of a hat. For the first month I was there it seemed to do nothing but rain (although a heat wave was just around the corner). Prospective employers were rebuffing my solicitations. Half Man Half Biscuit captured the mood:

Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without due care or attention.

I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette:

i.e. sidle out of the store gingerly;

Embrace the margin.

The song 'National Shite Day' recounts a set of circumstances so infuriating that its protagonist is left to conclude that the day in question has been contrived to annoy. Really, it’s a frustrated rant offering up the sort of banal irritancies that afflict contemporary living. I could feel Nigel Blackwell’s pain.

Aside from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace is really the only current music included on this playlist. 'Ingenue' is mere filler, albeit of a pleasing kind, and not markedly different to anything Radiohead had been up to lately (which wasn’t much: 2011’s The King of Limbs had been their last release). 'FFunny FFriends' is the older of the two Unknown Mortal Orchestra tracks I've included, although there’s no way of telling that. 'Flowers' is off of 1988's Today, the same Galaxie 500 album that 'Tugboat' was taken from.

'Swing Easy' by The Soul Vendors is an instrumental rocksteady track, a hangover from my ska binge the previous year. The Soul Vendors were a band Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd threw together to tour England, comprised mostly of Studio One’s studio backing-band The Soul Brothers, who were in turn cobbled together after the dissolution of The Skatalites. Keyboard player Jackie Mittoo seems to be the guy who wrote most of the songs, and would continue to do so once The Soul Vendors mutated into Sound Dimension.

'Late in the Evening' by Paul Simon is pure whimsy on my part. It's a decent song but I have no idea why I have included it on this specific compilation. Not so Rod Stewart. I turned to my copy of Reason to Believe, a bizarre LP put together in 1978 to be sold exclusively through the retailer Marks & Spencer, inherited from my parents. The last track on side 1 is 'Every Picture Tells a Story', co-written with Ronnie Wood and originally the title track of Stewart's third solo album released in 1971 (with 'vocal abrasives' credited to Mateus Rose). The lyrical content is contemptible by today's standards, but what a tune!

[Listen to here.]