Our derbyweekend - Mika from Finland

It was an early morning for us as we started our trip from Turku to Helsinki-Vantaa airport at 04.45 o'clock. It was going to be me and two other BVB-fans from Turku who were going to take the trip. One BVB-fan was going to come from Frankfurt where he is temporarily as an exchange-student. It takes about 1,5-2 hours to get by car to the airport so we had lots of time before our flight departed (08.10'clock). Our first flight was going to be to the Berlin Tegel-airport and from there we would fly to the Düsseldorf-airport. The flights and the 2 hour waiting time in Berlin went pretty smoothly, especially when you take into account that one of our fans has a small fear of flying.

There were a lot of smiling faces and thumbs up when we arrived at the Düsseldorf-airport. I would like to say that it wasn't the same for a Scheisse 04 fan who also traveled with us from Berlin, but I must admit that he also got a fair share of happy nods and good lucks. The train trip from Düsseldorf to Dortmund Hbf went well, the only negative thing was that they served Veltins at the train. We arrived at Dortmund Hbf at about 13.30 o'clock and the city was of course already packed with black and yellow colours. The first thing we did was that we took a taxi to our hotel because we wanted to leave our luggage there. We weren't able to get a hotel from the city center so we had to take a hotel that was about 12km towards Bochum. I don't remember the area where the hotel was but it's called Mark Commerz hotel and it was on Provinzialstraße. We tried to take a nap at the hotel but it was simply impossible to rest and hide our excitement before the game! We took the Stadtbahn to the city center at about 16.00 and the city was of course full of people at that point. It took us a little bit longer that we had expected to find the right railway but at the end we found ourselves at a fully packed train going towards Westfalenstadion.

There was lots of singing and jumping in the train, which is something we aren't used to here in Finland. We tried to move as fast as we could so that we would have catched the international fans meeting but I guess we were a little bit too late. We drank couple of beers and taking some pictures outside the stadium at the Beergarden. Our seats were located at the Nordwesttribüne so we were at the same end as the Schalke-fans. Our beer drinking and picture taking came to a stop when all the riotpolice troops etc. came out. The Scheisse-fans were coming. We were forced to get out of their way so that the police could escort them safely to the stands. That was a pretty intimidating situation and once again a kind of thing that you wouldn't see in our home back in Finland.

We went into the stands about 1,5 hours before the game and located our seats. Although it was still plenty of time before the kickoff the Südtribüne was of course packed with fans and the singing was loud. We drank a couple of beers as we waited for the kickoff and the atmosphere was getting better each second. The Schalke-fans tried to out sing the Südtribüne with their silly songs, which was waste of time. The waving of the scarves as the players arrive for warm-up and the You'll never walk alone were couple of the high points of the match experience. You don't even have to remind anyone that the atmosphere was completely amazing. One of the great things about BVB and generally in German football is that everyone is friends with each other. You can hug somebody sitting next to you or take a high five with "a stranger" at any point of the game. We are all like a big family and every BVB fan watches other BVB fans back.

The match was a great experience, although the result was unfair and a bit hard to swallow for us Dortmund fans. It is understandable that the excitement went down pretty quickly after the final whistle. We were all mentally and physically exhausted by the long day behind us. We went to the city center by train and grabbed a few drinks at the Restaurant Alex. By that time we were all thinking of going to the hotel and get some sleep. We were forced to get a taxi to the hotel little past midnight, there just wasn't any juice left in us. Of course I was the one that wanted to go all night but I must admit that it was a good decision to get some sleep. Our weekend continued with positive notes after that. We changed our hotel to the Mercure hotel right at the city center. Saturday was a strolling through the city day and we were able to experience the nightlife of Dortmund that evening. It wasn't hard to find friends when we told that we are Borussia Dortmund fans from Finland and started singing for instance Ale Ale Ale Ale oh BVB null-neeeun!

Our trip towards Finland started on Sunday morning with a traintrip to Düsseldorf airport. We flew via Copenhagen to Helsinki and we arrived in Finland at 22 o'clock. There was still the 2hour driving back to Turku, but it wasn't over yet. There was the Super Bowl of course! At that point I wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing. All in all it was one of the best weekends of my life! The Revierderby is just something you have to experience at least once. This will certainly not be my last Revierderby! The hospitality of Dortmunders towards us BVB fans from Finland was something close to amazing.

It is truly fantastic how well everybody blends in as a big family and how well Borussia Dortmund brings people together.

On the behalf of me and my three friends I would like to thank Borussia Dortmund and the city of Dortmund for one of the greatest trips of my life!

Thanks
Mika Lehtola

Guest authors express only their own opinions which mus not necessarily correspond to the views of the editors of schwatzgelb.com.

editors, 23.02.2011

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