Our trip to North Rhine-Westphalia was motivated by football, or Fußball as the Germans call it. Myself and 6 of my friends from what was then my workplace, and a friend of one of my colleagues from their year abroad in Spain decided to travel to Germany to catch a Bundesliga game.
The organiser of the group (or papa as we affectionately called him for our trip) had a Twitter conversation with a football journalist about where would be best to visit – and then the trip to Germany began gathering traction.
We were staying in an AirBnB in the middle of Düsseldorf old town, next to a pizzeria and a dingy looking nightclub called the Cube. One of our group Luke had joked that we had to go to the Cube that night and funnily enough we did.
Our first day was spent exploring the old town – having a few beers and testing our luck to see if we could get tickets to the Fortuna Düsseldorf game the following day. Tickets were easily acquired, next up was some customary drinking.
The Cube was a typical student bar, with an underground nightclub below it. Upon descending below we were greeted by a dancefloor that after a while reached levels of stickiness akin to as if our feet were velcro’d to the floor. Although smoking was banned in the nightclub it was openly tolerated to our amusement and of course we had to have a novelty cigarette (or a few) whilst the chance arose. Outside at the end of the night we befriended 2 students who were studying in the nearby university. We made a run to the nearby shop and stocked up on €1 Dortmund Export beers for a bit of an after party at the AirBnB with our new friends.
The next day came around and we were sleep deprived. A trip up the TV Tower before venturing out to the Esprit Arena to watch the Düsseldorf game was all that was on our Day 2 itinerary.
Before kick off we had a look in the gift shop where one of the lads, Lee – a keen Düsseldorf fan purchased a full training tracksuit.
The game was a poor display from the home team who lost 1-2 to visitors Bochum. Although they went on to win the 2nd division that year – we sadly didn’t see them win. The atmosphere was amazing though. The home fans sang clapped and cheered the whole way through the game – a theme that’s common through German football. Although I forgot to mention the fact drinking and smoking are openly allowed in the stand during games. The quality of the football then becomes a little less important.
When we arrived back in Düsseldorf old town we were tired and opted for some beers in the AirBnB rather than another night out. Not that it saved us from exhaustion come our big day out to Köln.
We arrived in Köln early the next day via train. When you emerge from the Hauptbanhof (central train station in German – and such a fun word to say) in Köln, you’re immediately in the shadow of the cathedral (I will ALWAYS visit a cathedral if I see one when away).
We explored a bit of Köln, grabbed some food – where I had a schnitzel for the first time, and found a pub for one of the guys to watch the Arsenal match in.
We then began our journey outside the city to the football grounds, where we had an uncomfortable interaction with an American trying to Amerisplain ‘soccer’ to us before offering to buy our tickets and asking us to guess which of the children with his wife wasn’t his biologically.
We arrived at the RheinEnergieStadion, where Polizei on horseback was a common sight. The match was a tense one with Köln and FC Mainz both fighting relegation at the bottom of the Bundesliga.
The full time score was 1-1, a result which all but condemned Köln to playing second division football the following season. At the full time whistle some Köln fans proceeded to spit down on the travelling Mainz fans who were below them. After the eerie scenes at full time and us witnessing a scuffle on our way back to Köln city centre we learned that Germans REALLY take their football seriously. After maybe 15 minutes of walking from the stadium I finally had some signal on my phone, and came across messaged from my worried Dad as there had been a van attack in Münster, Western Germany during the game – thankfully we were safe (relatively speaking) in Köln.
Some more pubbing followed afterwards when we watched Manchester United overcome a 2-0 deficit in the Manchester derby; there were mixed reactions to that result in the group. 
We lost Jonnie in the Hauptbanhof before our return train to Düsseldorf – finding him panicked mere minutes before the scheduled departure. We returned to Düsseldorf, and as previously mentioned – Germans take their football seriously, the guys in Köln attire were aggressively spoken to by locals once we’d returned to Düsseldorf due to the rivalry between both teams.
We gathered ourselves up and changed before heading to a different nightclub which had nothing on the Cube.
The last morning came round with sore heads aplenty. Myself and 2 of the other lads decided to sacrifice the lie in for a glimpse of the long Rhineside walkway.
A coffee perked me up enough to get to the airport, but all in all I was exhausted heading home. I had as much sleep over the 3 nights as I’m used to having each night.
As I was sad in the airport leaving, I thought this image of the sun setting beyond the plane was very sombre.
All in all, it was a great trip. The zombie-like state my body was in on my way back to the airport was definitely worth it. Even if you’re not a football fan, if you ever have the chance to go to a German game, snap it up. The atmosphere and ability to drink in the stand more than make up for it. Germany has a charm that is seldom spoke of, and that’s a pity.
