Pirates punks and politics
FC St Pauli: falling in Love with a radical football club
Nick Davidson
Sb sports books
This is a cross between a diary of and history lesson in FC St Pauli. A story of how Davidson travelled to Hamburg to watch a football team and became wrapped up in something so much more that just a game.
This is a team that bonds with its fans. This is a team who’s fans are proudly anti fascist, anti sexist and left wing. The history lesson is the detail in how st Pauli evolved into this “kult”. They play their games in Hamburg near an area populated by squats and political activities. These activists like their football and brought a sense to the club which was more than happy to reciprocate.
There seems to be a culture of social activism in German football it is not yet the over priced and over hyped marketing machine that the premiership is. One example being Union Berlin, when told to rebuild their stadium, which they couldn’t afford to, their fans not only chipped in to pay but also provided the Labour for the task.
This is a love story but Davidson does say his lover isn’t perfect. There has been times when st Pauli has had to deal with their own racist contingent. Thankfully they tackled it head on and tried to eliminate it. This is a club that believes in inclusiveness and promotes it. Of course they do have finances to concern themselves with and at time the club b has made decisions not based on sport but on bills. The fans have ran campaigns against this and a pretty successful at them too.

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