Image Is Everything

Like every other team, Hertha has a spate of friendlies lined up, to fine-tune the team before the season gets underway. Among the 8th-division teams and other assorted opponents scheduled, there are two that, to me, stand out.

The first is right upon us- this Wednesday, in fact. It’s the opening game of the revamped stadium for the other main team in Berlin, Union Berlin. You may remember the Alte Försterei as being renovated by the fans of the team- with hundreds pitching in to revamp the place to get it up to code so it could host 2. Bundesliga football. After Union won the 3. Liga at a canter, it was no moment too soon. They’ve got it finished, though, and we’ll be helping them start it off.

It’s always seemed to me that Union has what Hertha wants. They have the attitude, the sense of being a ‘Kult’ club, and a Berlin identity. Nina Hagen wrote their theme song, after all. They’ve got a working-class identity, of being “a family.” When I talked about going to see football in Berlin, it was Union that was recommended, over Hertha, because they had the atmosphere. My perception has always been that they’re cool, while Hertha is not.

I think it’s a case of history. Union were the worker’s club of east Berlin, with a reputation for being against the regime, or at least the sworn rivals of the Stasi’s preferred club. Hertha, the west Berlin club, tumbled through a series of financial scandals – bribing players to come, implication in a match-fixing scandal, often finding itself in debt – and didn’t much manage to gain the sort of goodwill from the city that Union managed to achieve. While Hertha is certainly the best-supported club in Berlin, perception and reality don’t always match up.

I could totally be wrong on that, of course. But that’s the impression that I get from over here.

The other interesting friendly is against the premier cult club in Germany, if not the world, the FC St. Pauli. Based in Hamburg’s well-known Reeperbahn area, they’ve embraced the aesthetic of their neighborhood and thrown themselves into being the anti-racist, anti-facist, anti-sexist, irreverent punks of the Bundesliga. If you’re me, it’s hard not to be drawn in, and I’m far from the only one. They’ve got thousands of supporters around the world, musician fans both German and non-German, and that kick-ass skull and crossbones logo. They’re the definition of a cool football club. We face them at their Millerntor stadium July 25, the last of the friendlies scheduled so far.

Is this a sign as to Hertha’s direction under the new management? Last year’s big-name friendly was against Liverpool- a glamor friendly against one of the world’s biggest teams, and certainly nothing to sneeze at, but a conventional choice. This year, the Union and St. Pauli matches are the standouts (so far, anyway). While Hertha has been more successful on the pitch than either one, we’re not thought of in the same way. Would association with these sorts of teams make us more like them?

I’ve talked about Hertha’s image issues a lot, and I probably will more. I find it fascinating. (Generally, I find questions of identity fascinating, be it among football clubs or countries.) If the point of these friendlies is what I think it is, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next. It’s hard to become like Liverpool, but St. Pauli…

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

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