A day of rain and clouds and – for the record – Austria Salzburg won their last home game 3-0 against this season’s closest rivals, Grünau, in front of the expected full house of 2250 fans. For lovers of tautology that was the third consecutive promotion on the trot. Goals from Lubo Neubauer, Stefan Leitner and Xandi Seywald put the lid on a difficult and ultimately decisive season for the team and the supporters. After the first two seasons of thrashing hamlet teams and tractor boys, this year was the first time the side had really had to battle, and despite being up against it on a number of occasions, somehow – bar Bürmoos – there had always been a happy end. And that’s part of what Saturday was really all about.

At this point I have to remind the five people reading this abroad who aren’t familiar with the story just what this is all about; partly a question of sponsorship vs. ownership but above all a question of identity and pride. Three years ago Red Bull came in to buy a financially ailing Austria Salzburg, which at the time seemed OK; just that without asking the fans or taking the history of the club into consideration, the decision was taken to re-establish the club with a new name, Red Bull Salzburg, and to eradicate a long tradition of playing in purple and white in favour of introducing the corporate colours of the sticky drinks giant – red and white.

People who don’t go to football regularly and don’t sing the love songs devoted to their club on the terraces may not know that the name of the club appears in just about every song; the colours too. Add to that the fact that every collection of photos, memorabilia, videos, item of merchandise, old tickets, every sticker book, and every memory since you were old enough to understand what football is…appears in the colours of your club – and bears its name. Austria Salzburg play in purple and white. That is how an Austria Salzburg supporter sees the world.

Take that away and a whole complex construct of memories, nostalgia and social meaning is destroyed. Three years ago Austria Salzburg was refounded by fans and followers of Austria Salzburg who couldn’t bear the thought having a big chunk of their lives wiped out at the stroke of a pen. Three years later and three weeks ago Red Bull won the Austrian Bundesliga the same weekend the new/old Austria Salzburg won the Salzburg version of the Austrian fifth division.

One of Austria’s respectable daily papers, Der Standard , ran an article in the online version of the newspaper on Red Bull’s conquest of the Bundesliga and, somewhere in the nether regions of the webpages there was a story on Austria Salzburg’s fifth division championship and their fight back from the edge of oblivion. While the former struggled to attract 100 blog responses, the latter was inundated with over 500 contributions from all over Austria. As the Beatles once said ‘I don’t care that much for money, cos’ money can’t buy me love!’

The last game of the season and the subsequent promotion celebrations have already become a kind of ritual involving fan groups and sympathisers coming from far beyond the Austrian borders to share in the celebrations. Even if some of these faces couldn’t win a beauty contest in solitary confinement, they were still here and we were happy to see them.

The fact that the promotion party transcends the end in itself is reflected in the mood of the day. After a season of taking for granted the many services provided voluntarily, complaining at the inadequacies of the team, moaning about poor parking and catering at away pitches, bad signposting and poor facilities it’s a chance to enjoy the day and go with the flow.

And what a flow! Having got to the ground an hour before kick-off 3 beers in the first hour meant that I was already rocking and rolling midway through the first half. Fortunately everybody else was getting drunk too, so it was a win-win situation. The lads in front of me donated a surplus beer, although we’ve never talked before, so as a point of honour I bought them both one back. It was one of those afternoons when the match was exploited as an excuse to get together and have a good old sing-song and shout your head off. This is low-level psycho-hygiene at its best.

Just about everybody joined in every shout, every song and everybody was grinning at each other like silly horses. The crowd even got the Southern Italian lads from Barletta grinning, which is no mean feat. On 20 minutes the grinning got audible as Lubo banged in a free kick to make it 1-0 and demonstrate his value to the team. No clever chipped free kicks or tricks, or curling it round the wall – just bang into the top corner. Brilliant.

By half time a number of people had realised there were people wandering around at the bottom of the terraces with beer carriers and that there was also the possibility of getting beer at the beach bar on the tartan hard court, which as it was pissing it down looked as out of place as a poodle in a bear pit. The multiple access to beer had obvious consequences. As there was no problem getting hold of beer there was no need to savour it. Beer was no longer measured in units as everybody was sharing their beer with everybody else. Before anybody ran out somebody would come back with his or her hands full of beer and the drinking orgy continued.

Oh! The second half was 2 minutes old before I realised the players were on the pitch. At its best the singing and chanting uncouples itself from the game. The mood on the terraces was like a disco with the music turned off and the people still singing deliriously; the perfect timing for the second goal. Stefan Leitner has fought his way into the team this season and although he looks like George Best at the NASL end of his carrier, he’s like a mixture of a bull terrier and truffle swine and is not afraid to go in where it hurts to get the job done. On 60 minutes he buried a nod-on from Kopleder to shake the mood cocktail in the grandstand yet again. 2-0.

At all good parties when enough beer has been drunk the inhibitions dissolve into the spaces between your brain cells and the clothes start coming off, so someone had the bright idea of starting a 1-2-3 shirts off chant which inevitably ended in around 100 men baring all shapes and forms of untrained and unsightly torsos. There was more hair and fat on view than in a ton of pork scratchings. Yummy! Needles to say, at this point in time with enough space between my brain cells to build a row of houses, my hairy, naked upper body was as visible as the next.

On the continent there’s a tradition of organised chanting usually lead by fans with megaphones that spend the game with their backs to the action making sure the crowd are kept busy. On seeing the shirts come off up and down the stands our own Mr Cheerleader, Salva, knew what was coming. There was a concerted and protracted attempt by the entire grandstand to get Salva to join in the fun and pull off his top and it was the first time I have ever seen Salva at a loss for something to say as he began trying to gesticulate incommunicable messages like – ‘my shirt is glued on’, ‘in my family we have a rule that you don’t take off your shirt on Saturdays’, ‘shirt off – shirt off – shirt off’, but really not having drunk his weight in beer like the rest of us he was just shy and was fidgeting around like a dog with a wasp flying around his bum.

Anyway, on 72 minutes our own Harry Potter was again beneficiary of a tear in the time and space continuum. After a through pass from Mario Schleindl the whole of the game seemed to freeze frame for five seconds – and the only person able to move in this time was Xandi – I-don’t-believe-it he’s-frozen-the-time-space-continuum-again Seywald! Maybe everybody was waiting for an offside whistle, but it never came and with literally all the time in the world Mr Potter waved his little wand and the evil forces of Grünau were banned to languish in Landesliga 2 for forever and a day. 3-0 and a fitting rebuttal for a hapless team of pretenders to the throne from the richest town in Austria.

The final 18 minutes did nothing to suggest that the richest town in Austria had invested its riches in large amounts and as the ref blew up for full time the singing and chanting carried on as the Austria players came over to pay their dues. Several players knew they had just played or witnessed their last game for Austria and it was obvious that another chapter of a fantastic saga was coming to a close. Some have played a big role in the development of the team over the past two or three seasons such as Martin Ebner, Peter Weiss, Matthias Csenki, Michael Rehrl and Michi Geier. Others have been with the club right since its enforced rebirth such as Wolfgang Würnstl and Oliver Trappl. The fact that so many players are now leaving the club is tribute to the progress the team has made as a whole and I hope in twenty years they will still be greeted with the enthusiasm and gratitude they deserve.

Shame there was no tent for the award of the championship shield but I have to admit that, what with the wind, the rain, the pork scratchings and grinning horses, and the copious amounts of C2H5OH, the order of events from this point on became a little blurred and the fact of who was being awarded what became far less important than the fact that a team and a club that only existed in the hearts and minds of a few hundred people three years ago now boasts a several successful kids’ and youth teams, and a senior team ready to take the next step back towards involvement in nationwide football. Behind the scenes there are hundreds of volunteers ferrying kids to training, running the bars, setting up stalls, selling merchandise, clearing up after games, dismantling gear, collecting rubbish, reporting, blogging, running websites and generally spreading the word – and every one of them goes towards making Austria Salzburg what it is.

Perhaps the day was summed up best for me by an old bloke whose name I don’t even know because he played for Austria Salzburg long before I came to Austria; in fact long before I was born. Helped onto the stage on his crutches a small wizened man with a squeaky voice and a friendly smile said he wasn’t sure if he’d still be around at next year’s celebrations but he was very proud and happy to know his Austria Salzburg was still around.

Thanks to everybody involved and see you at the start of next season!

Roger Lord

Tags: austria salzburg, love for my team, modern football, passion, ultras
Posted in Articles|