Yesterday I went groundhopping once more. For those not familiar with the term: groundhopping means visiting as many grounds and stadiums of football teams and for most groundhopper it involves making photographs as well. I have been a groundhopper for 10 years now, unlike most groundhoppers I don't only visit real stadiums but also tiny grounds of amateur teams most people never heard of. In total I have seen over 1400 grounds by now, mostly in my native Belgium where I have visited almost all stadiums in the top-3 divisions plus hundreds of grounds of amateur teams, but I also did some extended groundhopping in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Holland, Denmark and now Germany.
After having already visited Union Berlin, Hertha Berlin, Hertha BSC Amateure, Turkiyemspor Berlin, A. Wacken and TB Berlin, the last remaining big stadium I haven't visited yet in this city was of course Dynamo Berlin.
Dynamo is a club with a long history but a very troubled one. Are they the most hated team in the world? Well, that would be exagerated. Are they the most hated team in Germany? Very likely!
Dynamo was one of the bigger teams in the old DDR (Eastern Germany) league but never had too much success until the government wanted a Berlin club to be the dominant force in the country. Dynamo was then linked to the Stazi, the secret police in the communist-lead DDR. The consequences were dramatic: in the end of the seventies they won their first league after the best players of other clubs were obliged to sign for Dynamo.
Dynamo went on to win the league 10 times in a row. Impressive? Well, not really, because they won it through a lot of bribing. If things were going wrong for Dynamo, the government and Stazi made sure the referee would help them a hand. If another club had a great player, he was forced to sign for Dynamo. This constant cheating went on for 10 years but it did lead the club to a German record of 10 titles in a row. The club meanwhile was hated by a lot of people in the country, especially with Union Berlin the rivalry was fierce: Union was known as the people's club, the working class club. They of course were extraordinary angry with the police-controlled team bribing its way to lot of trophies.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain and unification of Germany, things went downhill for Dynamo. The club slipped to 5th division and even had to face bankruptcy. During that season, Dynamo was removed out of the league tables but was forced to play the remaining games as obligatory friendlies. The Dynamo team was a reserves team and lost all games 10-0 or more, giving the former DDR clubs that hated Dynamo so much a chance to get some revenge. Dynamo by this time had broken all ties with the police and changed its name to FC Berlin, however the club never managed to truly get rid of its image of cheaters. By the end of the nineties and after having made a fresh start (the bankruptcy meant relegation of 1 series but the club could then move on with a new start) the club adopted the name Dynamo again. According to some opponents because the new name didn't really make anyone forget the corrupt past, according to club officials itself because the name Dynamo would bring back the true tradition and former glories of the club. Dynamo is currently playing in the Oberliga, 4th division. They have lost many of their fans but still have a small yet die-hard following of just over 500 fans. The club has been often linked to violent and fascist movements or to strongly communist groups, though I guess most of those are rumours?
There was no game going on yesterday but the stadium gates were open so this allowed me to go in and make the pictures I was after. Dynamo currently plays its home games in the Sportforum, next to the Eisbaeren Berlin icehockey hall and very close to the famous Landsberger Allee in northeast Berlin. The Sportforum is an old but pleasant stadium with tradition terraces on 3 sides (the ones behind the goals still have crash barriers!). Only on 1 side there are seated stands, strangely enough only the VIP stand (with more luxurious seats) is covered by a roof while the other parts of the seated part of the stands is uncovered. The field is very decent and the old terraces create a really nice sight. I definitely should come here again for a game. The only bad remark I can give is that the field is too far from the stands (even though there is no athletics track around the field, but I have the impression there used to be one...).
On my way back to my Wedding home I passed the old Dynamo stadium, currently an athletics stadium and still used for football occasionally (like for the Berlin Cup final). The stadium is bigger than the new Dynamo stadium, it was used by Dynamo for their European games as well. Due to an event in the basketball hall next door the entrance to the stadium was locked for those without a ticket for the basket event. Thus I could not see anything apart from the impressive floodlights rising high above the stadium. But I will come here again when it is Berlin Cup final.
To complete the day I also took pictures of the small ground of amateur team Corso Vineta, located one street away from my home. Just an artificial grass pitch without any real stands or features, so nothing special really. Decent enough for an 8th division amateur team though.
More groundhopping and music reports will come up both in my blog and website. The APC fan forum is being launched the coming days, the short delay was caused by difficulties with domain registration. With that problem solved though, I am ready to launch the board. It will be only in less than a few days, the only thing left to do is configuring the domain and creating the logo for the forum. Check back my blog soon and find the address to the A Perfect Circle forum here soon!
Speaking of A Perfect Circle, I will close down with a bit of music here. APC's "Diary of a Lovesong": two covers mixed into 1 song, being Lovesong (The Cure) and Diary Of A Madman (Ozzy Osbourne). The two songs are mixed wonderfully well together, and Maynard looks so charismatic in his underpants on stage :) And for the record, NO, Paz Lenchantin's breast is not showing, she was wearing a silk top under the dress. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyo9TAOuetk
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