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St.Pauli

Amandus Vierth, originator of the club’s brown and white colours, played in the fourth team (top row, second from right). Photo taken from ‘Wunder gibt es immer wieder’ [‘Wonders Never Cease’] by René Martens.

From the start of ‘footy’ to the foundation of FC St. Pauli

The prehistory of FC St. Pauli

“The prehistory of the football club ‘FC St. Pauli of 1910’ does not start in the year 1910, as the name would seem to indicate, but actually goes back at least three years earlier. Its origins are inextricably linked with those of the ‘Hamburg - St. Pauli Turnverein von 1862’ [‘Hamburg - St. Pauli Gymnastics Club of 1862’], which incidentally still exists today. There football was being played as early as 1907, though not yet as an organised and regulated sport.
It was not until 1910 that the club’s footballers joined the Norddeutscher Fussball-Verband [North German Football Association]. In 1911 they contested their first professional games, and in 1924 they finally split off from the Gymnastics Club and founded FC St. Pauli.” So writes René Martens in his book published in 1997, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

First steps in brown and white

It was a hazy evening in the August Tenne pub. Some football enthusiasts from the sports and leisure association, recently founded by Franz Reese as a follow-on from the gymnastics festival on the Heiligengeistfeld, happened to meet there and resolved to make their sport of choice an independent sector in its own right.

1907 saw the first games played, against teams from the Aegir Swimming Club. The first financial problems also made themselves felt: “In 1908, for example, the club accounts showed a deficit of 79 deutschmarks,” Martens reports.

In 1909 Amandus Vierth succeeded in establishing a unified colour scheme for the team, which has lasted to the present day. Brown and white were from this time on the team’s official colours.
In 1919 St. Pauli achieved promotion for the first time to what was then the premier league, but was at once relegated again. In the twenties the St. Pauli team had a real switchback ride, or as Martens puts it, ‘the elevator years’.

Not until 1930 did the team establish itself in the top league, with the help of players like Giza, Klages, Wolf, Stamer, Salz, Wrede, Wulf, Kracht, Borgwardt and Schmidt.
In 1931 St. Pauli qualified for the first time to play in the North German Championship, but lost in the round of sixteen to Phoenix Lübeck, of all places at HSV’s home ground at Rothenbaum. In 1933 the brown-and-whites were relegated again, as they proved unable to qualify for the recently founded Nordmark Gauliga [Gau League]. In 1936 they again achieved promotion, only to be relegated yet again at the start of the war.

In the war years, FC St. Pauli kept shuttling back and forth Gauliga Nordmark and Gauliga Hamburg.

St. Pauli’s Magical Eleven of 1947. From the left: trainer Sauerwein, Dzur, Miller, Köpping, Börner, Lehmann, Schaffer, Bielstein, Sump, Koch. Front row: Böhme, Hempel, Delewski, Appel, Stender. Photo taken from ‘75 Jahre FC St. Pauli’ [’75 Years of the St. Pauli Football Club’].

The war was over, but reconstruction was going to take a little time – at any rate as far as the destroyed buildings were concerned. Karl Miller however saw to it that reconstruction in football terms moved on a good deal quicker.

With the help of his parents’ already almost legendary butchery business in Wexstrasse, not far from the Millerntor stadium, and the consequent availability of liberal supplies of meat, Miller succeeded in attracting many top-class players to FC St. Pauli after the war. Most commonly players came up the Elbe from Dresden to join the brown-and-whites – these included Heinz Hempel, Heinz Köpping and Walter Dzur. For a very short time the future national trainer, Helmut Schön, played for St. Pauli as well.

To begin with, the club had to play its matches on hostile or neutral territory, seeing that the stadium had been completely destroyed. Altogether the entire St. Pauli district had been badly damaged. In the first year after the war, members of FC St. Pauli created a new football ground on the Heiligengeistfeld, directly opposite the old fire station. This was christened on 17 November 1946 with a match against FC Schalke 04. For a long time St. Pauli were in the lead in what was then the Stadtliga [City League] and looked sure of achieving victory, but on the last day of play they were pipped at the post by the Hamburger SV team.

But in the very next season of 1946/47 the football heroes of the red light district pulled out all the stops: “You almost felt you had been transported to Brazil, when you saw how the St. Pauli team chased after the ball and made the opposing team run,” as it states in the Yearbook to mark the club’s 75th anniversary. At the end of this season they finally outstripped the red-shorted HSV team to achieve victory in the City League.

In its first Oberliga [First Division] season 1947/48, St. Pauli lost just three games in the championship, only suffering their first defeat in the semi-final of the German Championship at the hands of FC Nürnberg. In the following year St. Pauli could “only” reach the quarter-finals. Up to the 1953/54 season the club had to be satisfied with finishing just behind local rivals HSV. This year however Hannover 96 became champions of the Oberliga-Nord [Northern First Division], with St. Pauli coming second, and HSV trailing behind in 11th place. In the years that followed, St. Pauli’s main rivals were Altona 93 as the two battled for second place after the red-shorts.
In all three seasons from 1955 and 1958 the Millerntor team was fighting to avoid relegation. Many members of the Magical Eleven had transferred to other clubs, or decided to call it a day. A new generation of younger players had arrived. These were trained by Heinz Hempel, a St. Pauli veteran, and had to consider themselves lucky if they finished somewhere between ninth and thirteenth on the table.

Just 14 years later, the stadium built by the club in 1946 was forced to make way for the International Garden Festival, leading to the construction of today’s stadium (the Millerntor) in 1960. St. Pauli would have to wait until the second half of the 1961/62 season, however, before they could play their home games at the new stadium.

Hempel continued as trainer of the Millerntor team for almost eleven years, until President Wilhelm Koch let him go in 1962. His successors Otto Westphal, Otto Coors and Kurt Krause did not last long, Westphal and Coors remaining for just one year and Krause for two. So Hempel again took control from autumn 1968 through to the end of the season. When the Bundesliga [Federal League] was founded at the end of the 1962/63 season, the DFB [German Football Association] refused to let St. Pauli play in Germany’s new top division; the team had to resign themselves to playing in the Regionalliga-Nord [Northern Regional League], where they immediately brought home the bacon.

The 1964 champion team – from the left, standing: trainer Westphal, Deininger, Hehl, Acolatse, Pokrop, Osterhoff, Danjus, Gieseler, Haecks, Stülcken, goalie Thoms, Porges; sitting: Kokoska, Bergmann, Stothfang, Bergeest, Eppel, Wunstorf, Lombard, Gehrke. Photo taken from “75 Jahre FC St. Pauli” [“75 Years of the St. Pauli Football Club”].

Over ten years FC St. Pauli played six times in the promotion round for the recently created Bundesliga [Federal League]. But the club did not manage to rise into the ranks of ‘paid football’ until the DFB [German Football Association] introduced a new substructure – the Second Bundesliga. In the World Cup year 1974 the brown-and-whites achieved promotion along with Eintracht Braunschweig.

For eleven years the five-track Regionalliga served as the next highest competitive class, after the Bundesliga, which was created in 1963. The ‘new’ Millerntor stadium was christened a second time on 10 November 1963, with a 4-1 victory over VfL Wolfsburg. Under their new trainer Otto Westphal, FC St. Pauli won the championship of the Northern Division in the very first season. In the following year it only managed second place behind Holstein Kiel, but recovered the championship in the following season of 1965/66, ahead of Kiel and Göttingen 05.

In the years from 1966 to 1969 the club started in fifth place, and proceeded to move up one place each year. Under trainer Erwin “Ata” Türk the breakthrough started in summer 1968. Older players like Ingo Porges were ending their careers, and new younger players were coming to the Millerntor. In the following season still more young talents joined the club. Alfred Hussner (19), Horst Wohlers (20) and Herbert Liedtke (18) rapidly became major pillars of the team.

And yet the start of the season was overshadowed by an internal ‘scandal’: as early as the end of July, Türk’s eleven was knocked out of the DFB Cup by its own amateur team. The only goal of the match was scored by Peter Darsow, and the professional team actually raised objection to its being counted, on the grounds that three players on the amateur team were not qualified to play.

Nonetheless FC St. Pauli had a great season, even if its fourth place at the end of the 1969/70 season was a disappointment. In the following years the brown-and-whites played in the promotion round three times in succession, but had to yield precedence to 70/71 Neunkirchen and Düsseldorf. In 1971/72 St. Pauli achieved first place, but finished the promotion round behind RWE and Kickers Offenbach. Again champions in 1972/73, yet again they came to grief in the promotion round – this time it was Fortuna Köln that managed the leap into the Second Bundesliga.

In 1973/74 the Millerntor eleven came second, behind Braunschweig, and qualified for the recently founded 2.Bundesliga Nord [Second Federal League North]. St. Pauli scored 113 goals in 36 games – which remains a club record to this day! Decisive victories over Phoenix Lübeck and Heide (each 8:0) and Bremerhaven (9:0) contributed to this, as did Franz Gerber – who scored 33 goals in 31 matches, then moving to Wuppertaler SV before the start of St. Pauli’s first season in the Second League.

The team that achieved promotion in 1977. From left to right: Höfert, Rynio, Rosenfeld, Gerber, Mannebach, Frosch, Neumann, Tune-Hansen, Oswald, Ferrin, Demuth. Photo taken from “Wunder gibt es immer wieder” [“Wonders Never Cease”], by René Martens.

Promotion, staying in the league, promotion, relegation, loss of licence...
After eleven years in the Regionalliga [Regional League], the team finally managed to join the ranks of ‘paid football’ in 1974, and in 1977 actually achieved promotion to the Bundesliga [Federal League]. It was promptly relegated again, and just a year later had its licence withdrawn.

Niels Tune-Hansen shoots St. Pauli into the Bundesliga (photo taken from “Wunder gibt es immer wieder” [“Wonders Never Cease”], by René Martens)

1974/75
Shortly before the start of the World Cup, which was held in Germany in 1974, St. Pauli and Eintracht Braunschweig together achieved promotion from the Regionalliga Nord [Regional League North].
Three days before Christmas, VfL Wolfsburg was dispatched at the Millerntor stadium with a score of 10:2 – the biggest home victory in a competitive fixture in the club’s history since 1945. Having been promoted, FC St. Pauli surprisingly finished the 74/75 season in third place behind Meister Hannover 96 and Uerdingen. A little more, and they would have been just passing through.

1975/76
Yet again the saying that the second year is always the toughest proved pertinent. It was only with blood, sweat and tears that the team escaped relegation in the following season. At the end of the 1975/76 playing season St. Pauli could only manage a disappointing fourteenth place (the Second League had 20 teams), but at least the club’s most important target had been achieved – to stay in the league.
Clubs like Spandauer SV, DJK Gütersloh, Wacker 04 Berlin and even SpVgg Erkenschwick were among the opposite sides that St. Pauli outstripped in those days. Although the Millerntor eleven had scored 70 goals, almost as many as the teams in the top third of the table, unfortunately they had also had 82 goals clocked up against them. Among the teams that achieved promotion at that time were two Borussen teams, TeBe Berlin and Dortmund. Both battled successfully with 1FC Nuremberg to avoid relegation.

1976/77
That summer Uli Hoeness had made his crucial eleven metre shot into the Belgrade night sky, missing the decisive penalty. After that it was time for the third Second League season of the Millerntor eleven, and they had high hopes: their aim was no less than to win the championship, and so achieve promotion into the top league!
What they had to show for it in the end was 19 wins, 16 drawn matches and only 3 defeats. Notable for the team’s top place, however, was a series of 27 (!) games without a single loss. The start, it must be said was less auspicious – a 0:1 defeat in Wuppertal was immediately followed by four drawn games, until finally at the start of September Alemannia Aachen was defeated at the Millerntor stadium with a score of 3:1. After that the team, under their new trainer Diethelm Ferner, won all their home games, up to their encounter with Wuppertal (yet again) on the second day of the Christmas holiday season. This time the match with WSV ended in a 2:2 draw. That season St. Pauli only lost two more away matches, to Bielefeld and Herne; and on 7 May 1977 Niels Tune-Hansen scored his winning goal against SC Herford, catapulting the heroes of the red light district, for the first time in club history, into the Bundesliga.

1977/78
The expectations were great, but not altogether realistic, and when the first match resulted in a 3:1 victory over Werder Bremen (with one goal by Gerber and two by Demuth), this yielded a fertile breeding ground for further fantasies. Ferner’s team was soon brought down to earth, however, when in its second match with FC Bayern the Bavarians proved impossible to crack. The match was a 4:2 defeat, with Tune-Hansen and Gerber scoring for St. Pauli.
A home game against Braunschweig ended in a narrow defeat (0:1). The away match against Saarbrücken was still worse, with a result of 0:4. Finally the team at least managed to get a draw against Schalke (1:1, with Neumann scoring). This was followed by the absolute highlight of the season, which is still remembered today. On 3 September the team achieved its legendary victory over HSV in an away game. Franz Gerber and Wolfgang Kulka, with their winning goals, went down in the annals of the brown-and-white team, and an eleven-year-old lad went on record as saying to his father, “But Dad, next week I want to go to the brown-and-whites”, leading to some small family differences in consequence...

A week later the team blew its home game against Dortmund in a perfectly grotesque manner. At the break St. Pauli was already down 3:0. But then in the second half Erwin Kostedde immediately scored two more goals for the black-and-yellows in the space of 50 seconds. Neumann, Höfert and Kulka scored goals to reduce the odds to 3:5, but Vöge’s final goal clinched the match..
An away match against Gladbach ended in a narrow defeat with a score of 1:2, Gerber scoring for St. Pauli. The ninth match of the season ended in a ‘perfect hat trick’: three goals by Franz Gerber made it a clear 3:0 victory. ), Kulka scored two goals and Feilzer one in a 3:4 defeat, played away against MSV Duisburg; then finally the match against 1860 gave cause for celebration. Neumann, Gerber and Höfert (twice) scored goals, to make it a 4:1 victory.

In the remaining matches of the first round, there was just one victory (2:1 against Düsseldorf, with Oswald and Sturz scoring) and a single draw (1:1, with Gerber scoring) against VfL Bochum. The matches against Frankfurt, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart and Cologne were all lost.

The return round started in December with a notable defeat in Bremen (0:4), but the Bavarians at least were held to a draw with no score. January 1978 was marked by further losses: 0:2 in Braunschweig, 1:3 against Saarbrücken, 1:4 away to Schalke, and the match with St. Pauli’s rivals HSV also went to the enemy with a score of 2:3. In the second month of the year the team first managed a 1:1 draw in Dortmund, with Gerber scoring; then the negative sequence continued. Hertha got its revenge for its defeat in the first round with a substantial 5:0 victory, against MSV a 2:2 draw was the best that could be managed (Demuth and Beverungen scoring) and the team lost its away match to 1860 1:4 (the goal scored by Frosch).

In the remaining six games of the season, apart from a fabulous 5:3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt (Beverungen, Oswald, Gerber and Sturz – twice – scored the goals), the only cause for satisfaction was a 1:1 draw against VfB Stuttgart. All the other games went down the river. In Kaiserslautern it was a 1:2 defeat (Milardovic scoring), 0:4 in Bochum, and 1:3 at Fortuna Düsseldorf. A final 0:5 loss at home to Meister 1.FC Cologne marked the end of the ‘Bundesliga adventure’ for the Millerntor eleven after just one season.

1978/79
Following its relegation from the Bundesliga, at the end of its season in the Second League St. Pauli did at least achieve sixth place. But when their licence was withdrawn the brown-and-whites were forced to compete in the Amateur-Oberliga-Nord [Amateur Upper League North].

Andre Golke, fan and Ralf Sievers Photo taken from “Wunder gibt es immer wieder” [“Wonders Never Cease”] by Rene Martens

After the withdrawal of the team’s licence, something just had to happen at the Millerntor. First of all Ernst Schacht and Max Uhlig stood down, and Wolfgang Kreikenbohm became President of the club, with Otto Paulick and Hans-Georg Rektor as his deputies. The work of reconstruction could begin.

Football legend at the Millerntor: Sonny Wenzel Photo taken from “Wunder gibt es immer wieder” [“Wonders Never Cease”] by Rene Martens
1979/80
At this time there was a lot at St. Pauli that was provisional: a hastily assembled bunch of A-class youngsters and amateur players made up the team to begin with, which was trained by league manager Werner Prokopp. They travelled to away games in rattling minibuses which were often driven by the players themselves. Fans frequently helped finance the trip by paying for the privilege of travelling in the ‘team bus’.
In the autumn of 1979 Kuno Böge took over from Prokopp as trainer. Böge had previously coached Holstein Kiel, getting them into the Second League. A few defeats made the season a bit stressful, however, and it was not until mid-April that the team was safe from relegation. The towering new acquisition Uwe Mackensen contributed to the 4:2 victory over Salzgitter, ensuring that the team stayed in the Upper League for another year.

1980/81
Joachim Philpkowski transferred to the Millerntor from Barmbek-Uhlenhorst. As left wing forward he made an explosive impact. Volker Ippig joined Karp and Rietzke as a third goalie, and organised a friendly game at the Millerntor with the A-class youngsters. Their opponents were the national team trained by Jupp Derwall.
Having been placed tenth in the previous year, the team now secured the championship with 68:28 goals and 50:18 points, ahead of Werder Bremen. But promotion remained barred to St. Pauli as a result of the introduction of a one-track Second League.
All the same the Millerntor team managed to reach the final of the German Amateur Championship – only to lose the deciding match in Cologne against the local amateur team 1.FC Cologne with a score of 0:2.

1981/82
With Holstein Kiel, Göttingen 05, VFB Oldenburg and OSV Hannover getting demoted from the Second League, St. Pauli had to face stiff competition. Trainer Böge left the club after the winter break, and reserve keeper Michael Lorkowski took over as trainer. Under his direction the club reached sixth place at the end of the season.

1982/83
Another breakthrough was imminent. Players who were getting on, like Walter Frosch, moved to Altona 93 and other clubs. New young players like Stefan Studer and Michael Dahms joined the team. Lorkowski built up a new team around veterans Jens-Peter Box and Uwe Mackensen, which in coming years would make a sensational impact.
To compensate the team for its failure to achieve promotion, in spite of its having won the Upper League in 1981, the DFB [German Football Association] sponsored St. Pauli for a trip to Africa. As a result the brown-and-whites played matches in Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia. At the end of the season the surprise team of youngsters won the championship convincingly by a distance of 12 points, but in the promotion round it became evident that the young players (the average age of the team was only 22.3) were out of their depth. All three away matches went down the river. So the team had to look forward to another year in the Oberliga Nord [Upper League North].

1983/84
In home games St. Pauli celebrated heady victories. But in away matches they always proved to have inexplicable weaknesses. Only in the return round did they succeed in beating the later champions, Werder Bremen, in an away match with a sensational score of 7:0. Having come second, FC St. Pauli qualified for the forthcoming promotion round along with SV Lurup. The outcome was that Lorkowski’s team achieved promotion to the Second League.

1984/85
Following an embarrassing 1:5 washout at the Millerntor , when it came to the fifth round St. Pauli was at a depressing eighteenth place in the table. And after a 3:1 loss to Homburg it actually sank to the bottom position but one in the league (the Second League had 20 clubs). So there was nothing for it but to draft in Didi Demuth and Peter Nogly to the Millerntor team. Both played outstandingly in their first match, together with Matthias Ruländer who had come from Werder, and St. Pauli won 3:0 against Darmstadt 98. Five days earlier the Members’ Assembly had just elected Heinz Weisener as Vice-President of the club.
Match after match went by, but the red light district heroes were still hovering at the bottom of the table. In the end all their efforts proved unavailing. One point and ten goals stood between the brown-and-whites and the safe sixteenth place. After just one year, FC St. Pauli was again demoted to the Upper League.

1985/86
In spite of the team’s relegation from the Second League, the fans continued loyal. The number of spectators – 4000 on average in the past season – stayed almost constant. After the first round the team was right at the top, just behind Oldenburg, and that was how it stayed until just before the end of the season. Then with a 1:0 victory over their ancient rivals Altona 93, St. Pauli sailed into first place and won the championship in style.
In the promotion round, clubs like Charlottenburg and Schöppingen were not able to offer serious opposition. The last but one group match against Rot-Weiss Essen was already decisive: Didi Demuth, Andre Golke and Jürgen Gronau scored the goals to yield a convincing 3:0 victory. Having triumphed in the North Group, the club was back in the Second League again.

1986/87
Michael Lorkowski switched to Holstein Kiel, and his successor was Willi Reimann – hitherto the trainer of Altona 93. Already in the first game of the season, a 4:2 victory over the championship favourites from Saarbrücken made it clear that the newly promoted team was well capable of holding its own. Franz Gerber came back to the Millerntor for a second time, and notwithstanding his age of 33 was able to prove his worth.
In the first round of the DFB Cup, the Reimann eleven had a sensational victory away to VfL Bochum, with a score of 2:1. After it was knocked out by Hamburg SV in the third round, the saying was proved true that “Now the team can put all its efforts into the League.” For after this there followed a series of twelve matches without a single defeat. In the end a surprising third place made an entry in the annals of football statistics. But then, sadly, the relegation contest against the third last of the First League, Homburg, was a loss, with scores of 1:3 and 2:1, so that the team was faced with yet another season in the Second League. It must be said however that promotion would have been completely surprising, and perhaps too it would have been too early.

1987/88
“29 May 1988. It’s 3.30 pm. The decisive day. The decisive minute. St. Pauli is playing the 38th and last match of the season in Ulm. Schulte’s lads need just one point to achieve promotion. But they want to get two to make it absolutely certain. So they attack. As Helmut Schulte said, at the Hotel Stern – ‘Look, lads, don’t hide your heads. Attack! Shoot! Dare all! I just know – we really are going to get promoted!’
So it’s 3.30. One of the team got the message – Dirk Zander. Now at 3.30 pm, this is his minute. Andre Golke gives him an opening, Zander shoots through the midfield, sees the best position to shoot, sees the gap in the defence, lets off a volley from a distance of 25 metres. What a shot, what a feat, what a goal! The ball goes into the top corner of the goal – and the team goes into the lead. It means victory and certain promotion!”.

That is what Uwe Dulias and Michael Schickel wrote in their book published in 1989, “1:0 am Millerntor – Der FC St. Pauli: Die Fans und ihre Mannschaft” [“1:0 at the Millerntor – the St. Pauli Football Club: the Fans and their Team”], describing the second promotion of the red light district heroes to the top German professional league. After the relegation of 1978, and the subsequent withdrawal of their licence – not to speak of all the years hovering between the Upper League and the Second League, and all those lost promotion games – at long last the god of football shows understanding and lets the Millerntor lads play with the big boys once more. Coming in second, the team achieved promotion along with the Stuttgart Kickers, and the orgies of jubilation lasted a good few days.

There isn’t actually a lot to say about the season after that...
In mid-November 1988, coach Reimann left St. Pauli, switching to the local rivals in the Volkspark. Helmut Schulte, who had been co-trainer in the past, replaced him.
Already in the last match but one the team was certain of promotion. Goals by Dirk Zander and Hansi Bargfrede yielded a 2:0 victory over Rot-Weiss Oberhausen. Just one point in the last match in Ulm, and that would be done and dusted. This prospect proved the occasion for St. Pauli fans to organise an automobile procession with a concert of car horns, along with a number of other improvised celebrations to mark the victory in various pubs and bars around the Millerntor. The rest, as they say, is history.

Franz Gerber, Sonny Wenzel and Andre Golke in the League’s house of pleasure Photo taken from “1:0 am Millerntor” [“1:0 at the Millerntor”] by Dulias and Schickel)

“29 May 1988. It’s 3.30 pm. The decisive day. The decisive minute. St. Pauli is playing the 38th and last match of the season in Ulm. Schulte’s lads need just one point to achieve promotion. But they want to get two to make it absolutely certain. So they attack. As Helmut Schulte said, at the Hotel Stern – ‘Look, lads, don’t hide your heads. Attack! Shoot! Dare all! I just know – we really are going to get promoted!’
So it’s 3.30. One of the team got the message – Dirk Zander. Now at 3.30 pm, this is his minute. Andre Golke gives him an opening, Zander shoots through the midfield, sees the best position to shoot, sees the gap in the defence, lets off a volley from a distance of 25 metres. What a shot, what a feat, what a goal! The ball goes into the top corner of the goal – and the team goes into the lead. It means victory and certain promotion!”.

1988/89 - The promoted team holds its own in the top division

We quote above what Uwe Dulias and Michael Schickel wrote in their book published in 1989, “1:0 am Millerntor – Der FC St. Pauli: Die Fans und ihre Mannschaft” [“1:0 at the Millerntor – the St. Pauli Football Club: the Fans and their Team”], describing the second promotion of the red light district heroes to the top German professional league. After the relegation of 1978, and the subsequent withdrawal of their licence – not to speak of all the years hovering between the Upper League and the Second League, and all those lost promotion games – at long last the god of football shows understanding and lets the Millerntor lads play with the big boys once more. Coming in second, the team achieved promotion along with the Stuttgart Kickers, and the orgies of jubilation lasted a good few days.

But having arrived in the First League, the Schulte eleven found straight away in their first match that it was going to be rather tougher playing in the elite class. The home game ended in a 0:1 defeat to 1.FC Nuremberg. A week later the team got their first match point with a no score draw in Bochum; the second home game gave them their first victory, against Eintracht Frankfurt (2:0, with Flad and Kocian scoring). “We played for our President Otto Paulick!”, was the team’s unanimous comment, which went down in the club records. In the weeks preceding Paulick had been subjected to severe criticisms from Vice-President Hellmut Johannsen: “Unreliable budget management” was the main thing laid to his charge, as well as the club’s excessive level of debt.

Gronau, Zander, Golke and the rest of the team put a brave face on their 1:3 loss away to KSC (with Steubing scoring the only goal), going on to score 2:1 in their home game against VfB Stuttgart (with Golke and Gronau scoring) and defied HSV at the Volksparkstadion, holding them to a 1:1 draw (Kocian scoring).
There followed four draws: 1:1 against Kaiserslautern (Duve scoring), 2:2 in Leverkusen (Steubing and Ottens scoring), 0:0 away to Werder und 1:1 against Gladbach (Gronau scoring). After this Dortmund was finally beaten at the Millerntor (1:0, with Golke scoring).
Again there was a short series of drawn games: first an almost unlucky 2:2 in Hanover (Bargfrede and Gronau scored), then the remarkable no score draw against the great Bavarians, finishing with 2:2 against the Stuttgart Kickers 2:2 (Olck and Gronau scoring).

After a 2:1 result against Waldhof Mannheim (Bockenfeld scoring, with an own goal by Wenzel), the second defeat of the season followed with 0:1 against 1.FC Cologne. With a no score draw away to Bayer Uerdingen the Millerntor team finished the first round at tenth place in the table.
The return round was a continual alternation of light and shadow. The team lost to opponents that it had beaten in the first round – and vice versa. But the round started as before – with a defeat, against Nuremberg. Goals at the Frankenstadion were scored by Golke and Flad, with an own goal by Brunner. St. Pauli led 3:2 at half time, but finally went down 3:5.

1:0 (Zander scoring) in the home game against Bochum, 1:1 (Flad scoring) in Frankfurt. Then again a 1:0 victory (Zander scoring) at the Millerntor against KSC, followed by a 1:2 loss away to VfB Stuttgart (Golke scoring). The Millerntor team lost its ‘home’ game against HSV by the same margin (Wenzel scoring), and in Lautern Schulte’s lads again messed up their chances, before finally celebrating another victory in a home game against Leverkusen (2:0, with Zander and Dahms scoring).
Again just a draw against Gladbach (2:2, Golke and Wenzel scoring), and a 1:3 loss (Flad scoring) in a home game against Werder, followed by two more draws in Dortmund (0:0) and against Hanover (1:1, Zander scoring). The next match was at Munich’s Olympic Stadium, but the Bavarians won 2:1 (Duve scoring the only goal).
In the next home game the Stuttgart Kickers were beaten by a narrow but convincing margin (1:0, with Zander scoring), after which two defeats followed in Mannheim (1:2, Zander scoring) and Cologne (2:4, Golke and Grosskopf scoring).
In the last match of the season the team once more gave its all, playing in front of more than 16,000 spectators, and thanked the fans for their support by winning a fabulous 5:1 victory against Uerdingen. Andre Golke sent the ball into the net three times, Jens Duve and Dirk Zander scored the remaining goals, which left FC St. Pauli at tenth place in the table (its best result so far). The Stuttgart Kickers were relegated again. So the heroes of the red light district looked forward to another season in the top league. If they had done it once, they could do it again....

1989/90 – The second year is always the hardest
Two losses to the Bavarians, two no score draws against HSV and the worst defeat of all time – 0:7 in the last match of the season, away to Fortuna Düsseldorf (this was also Rüdiger "Sonny" Wenzel’s farewell game).
The season started with three defeats and three draws, before the team finally achieved a victory in its eighth match : 1:0 away to Waldhof Mannheim. Undoubted highlights of the year were the wins against Dortmund and Gladbach (2:1 in each case) and Bayer Leverkusen, who were actually dispatched home with a humiliating 3:0.
At the end of the season St. Pauli was in thirteenth place, ahead of Uerdingen, Gladbach and Bochum, while Mannheim and Homburg faced relegation.

1990/91 – victory over the Bavarians and tears at the Schalke stadium
Even if it ended in inevitable relegation, this season remains an unforgettable one for St. Pauli fans – just for the heroic matches against the Bavarians. In its first match the team beat Berlin Hertha 2:1 in an away game, and then in the very next round the Bavarians were held to a no score draw after great play at the Millerntor.
On 2 March 1991 it came at last: in the 43rd minute of play Ivo Knoflicek passed the ball to his teammate Ralf "Colt" Sievers, he powered his way through the Munich defenders and his straight shot left the Bavarian goalie Raimond Aumann not the shadow of a chance – it was a historic victory!

Only six wins to set against 13 losses and 15 draws – that was only good enough for sixteenth place, which meant the team had to play in the relegation round. Who should their first opponents be but the Stuttgart Kickers – and after a slender 1:1 draw at the Millerntor, a week later more than 3000 St. Pauli fans followed the team down to Swabia. Once again neither of the teams was able to secure promotion – the match again ended in a 1:1 draw.
In the final, decisive match at the Schalke stadium, an estimated 15,000 fans experienced their team’s tearful farewell from the top league. The 1:3 loss almost led to flood warnings being issued in Gelsenkirchen...
Together with Uerdingen and Hertha BSC, St. Pauli descended, after three years of glory, to the lower house of football. But already on the return journey new plans were being made for a special train to Meppen....

After three years in the upper house, here we were once more: it was “Bonjour tristesse, hello Second League.” It would take four years before the Sleaze Street team could once again prove an ornament to the premier league. For two seasons they continued measuring their strength against the Bavarians and their local rivals from Stellingen.

1991/92 - The team falls far short of promotion

“We are not just the pike in the fishpond, we are the piranhas. We will eat anything,” declared St. Pauli’s Manager Herbert Liedtke at the start of the season, but the team was to be devoured itself on a number of occasions. Following political reunification, German football had also been reformed. The Second League was now divided into a northern and a southern group, in each of which twelve teams played a preliminary round. This was a six team event to determine promotion or relegation. In the northern section Stahl Brandenburg was the only team from former Eastern Germany; also present were St. Pauli, Hertha and Uerdingen, all three of them recently relegated from the Bundesliga.
At the end of the preliminary round, in mid-December, FC St. Pauli was in third place behind Uerdingen and Hannover 96. This meant they were sure of being able to play in the promotion round. The matches that followed were like a roller-coaster: glorious victories, surprising draws and defeats that could have been avoided. To begin with St. Pauli lost away to Hertha with a score of 1:2; this was followed by a 1:0 victory over SV Meppen, but the away game against VfB Oldenburg was lost 0:2. The first low point of the season was on 28 March, with a 0:3 debacle in a home game against Hannover 96. A 1:1 result in Uerdingen booked another match point for the team, but the 0:3 loss at home to Hertha on 11 April made promotion seem almost like a lost cause.
Then suddenly came another win, 2:0 away against Meppen, and a home victory (3:2) against Oldenburg. With another away victory (2:0) over Hanover there was again just a shadow of hope – after all, the team was now back in fourth place. But after a disappointing draw with no score against Uerdingen, that was where St. Pauli stayed, and it was Uerdingen that got promoted.

1992/93 - A mammoth season

After a one-year intermezzo with two sections, the north group and the south group came together to form a league of 24 teams. This meant that 46 games had to be got through in the course of the season, so the season started just two weeks after the European Cup final in Gothenburg on 11 July. Almost eleven months later, this unprecedentedly long season came to an end. Trainer Michael Lorkowski had been replaced, back in September, by his former assistant Seppo Eichkorn, who now led St. Pauli through just 12 victories, 19 draws and 15 defeats – all the same finishing in seventeenth place, the last place to be safe from relegation. Freiburg, Duisburg and Leipzig were the teams that earned promotion to the Bundesliga.

1993/94 - A miss is as good as a mile

In mid-October FC St. Pauli was disappointingly placed fifteenth in the table, but then there came a series of 18 games without a single defeat – and by the 32nd game the team had risen to second place. But in the remaining seven matches the team threw away their chance of promotion, just when it was within their grasp. Two wins were outweighed by five defeats – the bitterest of these in Wolfsburg in the last round, where more than 10,000 St. Pauli fans saw their team lose 1:4. Falling just two match points short, St. Pauli dropped back into a disappointing fourth place, and missed promotion yet again.

1994/95 - Masloism at the Millerntor

In the summer Eichkorn had to leave, and Uli Maslo came to the Millerntor. In this season the team did not lose a single home game! In his first year as a professional, Jens “Gerdl” Scharping scored twelve goals to reach a place in the Top Ten of attacking forwards; another ten goals were achieved by Juri Sawitchew. At last the club had something like a serial production facility. And yet the season started off on the wrong foot, in classic style, with no wins and just a miserable 3:7 points. Then came the first victory of the season at the end of September, away to Düsseldorf. Another away match against Saarbrücken, two weeks later, proved equally successful, and on 14 October there finally came the first win at home – 4:1 against Wattenscheid. Martin Driller, Oliver Schweissing, Bernd Hollerbach and Juri Sawitschew scored the goals. Suddenly the spell seemed to have lifted. After further victories against Mainz, FSV Frankfurt and Homburg, at the end of the first round Maslo’s team was in second place behind VfLWolfsburg, followed by Düsseldorf Fortuna.
In the German Football Association Cup, too, the club was more successful than ever before. After beating Union Berlin (3:2), TeBe Berlin (4:3) and Saarbrücken (4:1), it was not until the semifinal that Uli Maslo’s side was knocked out in an away game by 1.FC Kaiserslautern (2:4).
In the first match of the return round of the league, against the leaders, the game ended in a draw as in their previous encounter. Only the matches in Mannheim, Leipzig and Chemnitz were lost, and then came a series of five consecutive draws. St. Pauli seemed well on the way to achieving promotion to the Bundesliga for the third time. In the remaining three games the team scored a fabulous 13:1! – 5:0 against FSV Zwickau, 3:1 away to Frankfurt and again 5:0 against Homburg. But this last game of the season remains unforgettable for the 21,000 spectators – and not just because of the high score. A whistle by referee Bodo Brandt-Cholle in the 88th minute of play was interpreted by the fans, who were already celebrating imminent victory, as the close of play, and they swarmed onto the sacrosanct Millerntor field. For some minutes all was uncertainty, after stadium spokesman Rainer Wulff made his announcement “The match is not yet over”, plunging the crowds into confusion. What if their invading the pitch should lead to a reversal of the result – would it mean the loss of the promotion that had been deemed a certainty? The fans were depressed and appalled – until they were happily reassured by the clarifying explanation from the non-partisan referee, who stated: “My gestures may have been subject to misinterpretation. All the same, my whistle was the proper signal for the end of the game.” All’s well that ends well! It took a while before the victory celebration became a typical St. Pauli over-the-top occasion. Around 50,000 people let their hair down on the Spielbudenplatz to celebrate their team’s departure from the despised ‘DSF League’.

1995/96 - Back to the Bundesliga

With the 3-3-3-1 system advocated by Maslo, the team’s play reached a new level of quality – which proved its worth, most impressively, in the away games against Gladbach (a 4:2 win) and Uerdingen (5:2). But right at the start of the season the team’s results created a euphoria that had not been seen since the years between 1988 and 1990. The lions of Munich were defeated at the Millerntor with a score of 4:2, and just six days later SC Freiburg went down 2:0 at the Dreisam stadium – which meant that St. Pauli was now in second place in the league, after the great Bavarians!
At the end of the return round, however – after five victories, five draws and seven defeats – the brown-and-whites had reached a modest but acceptable ninth place in the table. Manager Jürgen Wähling had difficulties with Maslo, and Wähling had to go. Ex-trainer Helmut Schulte was engaged as his successor, but too late – on the transfer market there was already a yawning void, the necessary reinforcements could not be found.
So it was almost a miracle that St. Pauli managed to stay in the league. At the end of the season the team was placed fifteenth – just safe from relegation, and ahead of Kaiserslautern, Frankfurt and Uerdingen. This meant the team could happily look forward to another year of top league football at the Millerntor.

1996/97 - Catastrophe strikes

Only seven victories (five of them at home) and six drawn games, to be set against twenty-one defeats. Come the end of the season, it was nothing like enough. St. Pauli was last in the table, and had to descend to the Second League again, in the company of SC Freiburg and Fortuna Düsseldorf.
In the very first match the visiting team at the Millerntor stadium was FC Bayern. This ended in a narrow defeat to the Munich team, with a score of 1:2. Four days later, on a Tuesday evening, the team achieved its first victory away against Arminia Bielefeld – and for some weeks it was to be the last. But three days later Maslo’s team again put in a star performance against Schalke 04. Though lagging 1:3 at half time, the Millerntor lads fought their way back into the match, which ended in a respectable 4:4 draw.
Up to the start of November the team lost all its games, except for those against clubs that were also fated for relegation – like the 1:1 result against 1.FC Cologne at the end of September. Home games against VfB Stuttgart and Bayer Leverkusen, on the other hand, were convincing in tactical and combative terms – with winning scores of 2:1 and 3:1 respectively. In the return round the team scored 9 goals but conceded 39 (!), resulting in a miserable six match points. Its only victory was achieved away against 1.FC Cologne, and then there was a lucky 2:2 draw away to HSV – with the generous support of the red-shorts’ goalkeeper Richard Golz, who presented Nikolai Pisarew with the ball on a plate, just a few minutes short of the end of the match. He passed it to Jens Scharping, who sent it into the undefended net.
The last seven matches of the season were all lost. After a 0:4 debacle in Freiburg, the decision was taken to let Uli Maslo go. His former co-trainer and future successor Ka-Pe Nemet was unable to improve the situation. In the remaining six games the team scored just one goal and conceded eighteen, achieving zero match points. “A new league is like a new life,” sang the fans after the 0:6 defeat in Bochum, ironically looking forward to the coming season in the Second League...

1997/98 - A new start?

Two drawn games with no score (away to Fürth and at home against Gütersloh) marked the start of the season. In the German Football Association Cup the team exited abruptly in the first round, with a 2:4 defeat in an eleven metre shoot-out in Jena. The first home victory in the league was a 2:0 result against Mainz, but the following match, away to FSV Zwickau, resulted in a miserable 0:4. This switchback ride continued for the entire season. At the end of the season, trainer Eckhardt Krautzun had to leave; he was replaced by his assistant Gerhard Kleppinger.
A certain Ivan Klasnic now moved from the amateurs to St. Pauli’s top team. The Croatian, just 18 years of age, played in eight games, but failed to achieve a single goal.
With fourteen victories, fourteen drawn games and six defeats, at the end of the season it was still not quite enough. Frankfurt, Freiburg and Nuremberg achieved promotion. St. Pauli fell just short, in fourth place. Three match points and five goals more, and they would have made it back into the premier league.

1998/99 - The return of Reimann

A season that we would like to put behind us as quickly as possible. Just four wins and four draws in the first round, as against eight defeats. In the Cup it was a close win against SV Meppen (1:0), but in the second round the team was knocked out by KFC Uerdingen, with a final 4:5 score as the result of an eleven metre goal.
After the winter break Willi Reimann returned to the Millerntor as trainer, replacing ‘Kleppo’. The next two games, both away, were won – and in all there were seven victories under Reimann’s direction. But it was only in the last two home games that the team really made a convincing impression, beating Düsseldorf (5:0) and the Stuttgart Kickers (6:2). All the same, the best that could be achieved in this season was a disappointing ninth place. The team remained a whole 13 match points away from promotion.

1999/2000 - Salvation at the eleventh hour

In the first five games there were just two draws with no score, and the rest of the matches were lost. At the end of September the Demuth eleven were victorious in Mannheim, the next win was not until mid-November with a 2:1 result away to Hannover 96. And yet again the brown-and-whites exited in the second round of the German Football Association Cup.
In mid-March the coach Willi Reimann’s term of service came to an end. As his successor, the club again brought forward the former co-trainer, Didi Demuth. In the remaining twelve games the team managed to achieve fifteen match points, with three victories and six draws.
In the last round the one-time house of pleasure was more like a house of mourning. Faced with Rot-Weiss Oberhausen, the team just had to achieve a draw. After 23 minutes of play the visiting team went into the lead, but with a last minute goal Marcus Marin took FC St. Pauli to a 1:1 score, saving it from relegation to the Regional League. The final result just about made up for a miserable season.

Referred to as ‘Relegated Team No.1’, the Kiez kickers were promoted to the 1st Bundesliga [1st German Federal League] for the fourth time in 2001. But for no more than one season: this success was followed by a free fall all the way down to the Regionalliga [Regional League]

FC St. Pauli’s history 2000 to 2008

2000/2001 – sensational promotion

FC St. Pauli was regarded as relegated team number 1 before this season. But a joint team effort resulted in a completely surprising promotion to the 1st Bundesliga. Thomas Meggle, Marcel Rath and Ivan Klasnic in particular played outstandingly, each of them scoring over 10 goals.

The beginning of the season was already promising, as after 2 matches St. Pauli headed the table with 6 points and, believe it or not, 11 to 3 goals. On the 32nd match day promotion was almost certain, with a 1-0 victory in an away game against Aachen. A victory against Hannover on the second to last match day would have made the promotion a fait accompli. But FC St. Pauli wouldn’t be FC St. Pauli if it didn’t keep up the suspense until the last moment. On the 33rd match day St. Pauli came away from Hannover with a 2-2 draw, and thus had to hope for a win against Nuremberg, who headed the table and who were the other team to be promoted. Nuremberg quickly took the lead, but the ‘Magic FC’ never gave up and scored the equalising 1-1 shortly before the halftime break. 76 minutes into the match, it was heroic Denis Baris who head-scored FC St. Pauli into the 1st Bundesliga with a 2-1 result. Thousands of St. Pauli fans who had travelled to Nuremberg acclaimed their heroes in the stadium, and tens of thousands of fans on the Heiligengeistfeld feted them on return from Nuremberg.

2001/2002 – disillusionment

St. Pauli’s fourth promotion to the 1st Bundesliga was followed by a catastrophic year. Only four games were won during the entire season. At the end of the season, the club was 12 points short of safe ground. One historic success was achieved, however. On 6 February 2002 the current champion, FC Bayern München, was defeated at the Millerntor with a 2-1 result. Thomas Meggle and Nico Patschinski were the golden scorers. Unfortunately this was the only highlight in a messed-up season. At the very least, FC St. Pauli was now an official ‘Defeater of the World Cup Winner’.

2002/2003 – Free fall

Having been relegated from the top division, the club had to cope with the loss of the distinguished players Thomas Meggle, Zlatan Bajramovic and Marcel Rath. But it was too much to expect. After a dismal season starting with two resounding defeats against Frankfurt and Ahlen, coach Didi Demuth had to resign. Joachim Philipkowski took over the post. But he couldn’t prevent the club from falling into the third league. Apart from three clear victories (7-1 against Braunschweig, 5-2 in Mannheim and 4-0 against Duisburg), the season was no laughing matter for FC St. Pauli, and so the club sank to the Regionalliga Nord [Northern Regional League]. But to begin with it was not clear whether the club was going to be able to play at all. At the end of the season the club had a liquidity deficit of € 1.90 million. In order to get the licence for the Regional League and not be transferred even further down to the Oberliga [Upper League], the club had to show the DFB [German Football Association] that it had liquidity reserves of € 1.95 million. Two measures were taken to avert downfall. First the Jugendleistungszentrum am Brummerskamp [Brummerskamp Centre for Young Excellence] was sold to the City of Hamburg for € 720,000, and secondly, the ‘Retter’ campaign [‘Rescuer’ campaign] was launched. On 11 July 2003, the HSH Nordbank provided a 1.95 million euro guarantee for these two initiatives, so the club just managed to meet DFB’s requirements in time. The ‘Retter’ campaign consisted of selling ‘Retter’ T-shirts, a benefit match against Bayern München, donations, the bar initiative ‘Saufen für St. Pauli’ [‘Booze for St. Pauli’] and cultural events at the Millerntor. Tireless dedication on the part of the club, the fans, sponsors and other helpers prevented the club’s falling to the Oberliga at the very last minute.

2003/2004 – a new beginning in the Regional League

Sales of season tickets for the first season in the Regionalliga in a long time were a gratifying demonstration that FC St. Pauli can count on its fans. 11,700 season tickets were sold – an optimistic beginning. After almost the entire team had been replaced, new coach Franz Gerber first had to train a team of young and inexperienced players. In the end, FC St. Pauli played a rather variable season. Morad Bounoua was FC St. Pauli’s star player this time. His record held 11 goals scored, four of which he was able to score in the 4-0 victory in the home game against the second team of 1. FC Köln alone. After coming alarmingly close to relegation with three losses in a row, coach Franz Gerber resigned and amateur coach Andreas Bergmann took over the team. A disappointing 8th place was the final outcome, so the club had another year in the Regional League to look forward to.

2004/2005 – another year without a promotion

Neither did the second year bring about the desired promotion. Another variable season resulted in St. Pauli’s coming seventh in the table. In this season Sebastian Wojcik stood out with his 10 goals; and the defence players Ralph Gunesch, Florian Lechner and Fabio Morena had also matured and were now firmly established members of the team. Despite missing promotion once more, St. Pauli fans feted their team on the last match day in Berlin at the game against Hertha BSC II just as if it had been promoted. The unwavering solidarity of the fans heartened the team as they looked forward to the forthcoming season.

2005/2006 – DFB Cup

After prodigal son Thomas Meggle returned from Rostock to the Millerntor, there were high expectations. With him on board, surely the long-awaited for promotion was achievable. But even after a relatively strong season the best the club could do was to make sixth place. Still, the good news about this season was that FC St. Pauli was able to remain consistently in the upper third of the table and that it was always one of the six best teams. Three players – Thomas Meggle, Michél Mazingu-Dinzey and Felix Luz – managed to score at least 8 goals each. In the DFB Cup, FC St. Pauli even succeeded in reaching the semifinals. This was the start of their legendary ‘B series’, in which all opponents played started with the letter B (Burghausen, Bochum, Berlin, Bremen, Bayern). After narrowly succeeding in eliminating second league club Wacker Burghausen in the first round with 3-2 (the last goal scored in overtime), St. Pauli sent first league team VfL Bochum packing with a 4-0 defeat.

In the round of sixteen FC St. Pauli faced Berlin Hertha at the Millerntor. When the Berlin team reached a 2-0 lead by half time, no one believed St. Pauli had a hope. But the Cup has always had its own rules. Shortly before the end Felix Luz was able to score the levelling 2-2, warranting an overtime. FC St. Pauli battled its way back into the game after Hertha BSC had taken the lead again with 2-3, and just before the overtime break made it 3-3. Robert Palikuca finally headed the Kiez kickers into the quarter finals with his 4-3 in the 109th minute.

The opponent to be defeated in the quarter-finals was then Werden Bremen. Heavy snow made rough playing conditions for both teams. St. Pauli managed better on the unfavourable ground. Though Bremen managed to draw level with Mazingu-Dinzey’s early goal, the Kiez kickers were able to outmanoeuvre the team from Bremen so effectively that Schultz and Boll made it a comfortable 3-1 by the end. Now FC St. Pauli was to play FC Bayern München in the semifinals. While the Bavarians took the lead with 1-0, St. Pauli was able to dominate the game and set the dynamics of the match. But many fantastic chances were missed, and so FC Bayern confirmed their lead shortly before the end with a final 3-0 score. Despite being defeated, St. Pauli forced the Bavarians to give their very best and proved it was able to keep up with the ‘big teams’.

2006/2007 – we’re back! Return to the 2nd League

FC St. Pauli made a rather patchy start in its fourth season in the Regional League. After 17 match days, the best the club could do was 12th place, and it looked unlikely that promotion was a prospect. At least there was another fight with FC Bayern for the DFB Cup, sadly lost with a 1-2 score after overtime. The team from Munich had been played to the brink of defeat, but in the end the match was lost by a final own goal.

There was a change of coach at the end of November, in hope that promotion might yet be achieved. Holger Stanislawski took over responsibility for the team from Andreas Bergmann. And indeed this change marked the turning point, with FC St. Pauli winning four times within a fortnight and reaching the top of the table of the Regionalliga Nord [Northern Regional League] in a joint team effort. At the end of April 2007 around 8,000 brown-and-white fans celebrated in Bremen, after the postponed game against the standby team of SV Werder in the Weser stadium ended in a 2-0 victory, putting St. Pauli into first place for the first time. On the third to last match day in Erfurt the Kiez kickers achieved a formidable 3-0, moving themselves into a perfect starting position for a final sprint – 6 points ahead of the teams that would fall short of promotion. One single point in the last two matches would thus be enough to secure return to the 2nd Bundesliga. In the last home game of the season, the time had come. After four years in the Regionalliga, FC St. Pauli finally achieved promotion with a 2-2 against Dynamo Dresden. The triumph was celebrated raucously in the stadium, while thousands of fans were lying in each other’s arms at the outdoor screening on the Schiessbudenplatz. The party continued on the Kiez and the Schanze all through the night. Even in bursting FC Magdeburg’s dream bubble of a promotion on the last match day, the Kiez kickers were fair and sportsmanlike and gave their best, keeping their grip in spite of the excesses of celebration. The return to the 2nd Bundesliga was accomplished.

Beside promotion, there was another important project underway at FC St. Pauli: the reconstruction of the stadium! Long awaited by club and fans, it was announced officially in November 2006 that the Millerntor stadium was to be reconstructed. The South Grandstand was to be the first part. There was a big demolition party in December 2006 to mark the start of the project. In April 2007 the club was given the green light to start building. Owing to unexpected delays in the building work, however, the new South Grandstand could not be completed before the beginning of the new playing season.

2007/2008 – confidently holding its position in the 2nd league / the South Grandstand is finished

FC St. Pauli began the new season with some sensational transfers. Filip Trojan was contracted from VfL Bochum, Ralph Gunsch returned from Mainz and Alexander Ludwig came from Dresden. The season’s first match was at the same time the first test of strength. In the first round the brown-and-white Kiez kickers met the team of Bayer 04 Leverkusen. FC St. Pauli took its chances and won the game with a late 1-0 by Fabian Boll. Unfortunately, the second match against the Werder Bremen’s standby team was lost in the penalty shoot-out. St. Pauli’s first season after promotion showed sound play. The club maintained a distance of four points from the relegated ranks, and reached a position among the top 9 after 34 match days of the strongest 2nd Bundesliga of all times. With a row of victories between the 25th and 31st match days, the team managed to remain in the league. In these seven games FC St. Pauli pulled off a three point win five times. The last three points needed came with the 4-2 victory against Erzgebirge Aue on the 31st match day. After being behind twice, FC St. Pauli battled its way back into the game, and Carsten Rothenbach made the crowd cheer when he scored the final goal in the 72nd minute. The construction of the stadium also came along nicely during this season. The new South Grandstand’s topping out ceremony was celebrated in November 2007 and the spectators could hardly wait to ‘board’ the stands. The new stands were opened for partial use on the 13th match day, when some fans were able to watch the 2-0 victory over FC Augsburg from the standing area.

Ian Joy scored the first goal with the new South Grandstand in use. At the next home game against Kaiserslautern, almost the entire standing area could be used. A month later the old club lounge was demolished – not without some nostalgia. Reconstruction of the stadium meant that a beloved venue for FC St. Pauli and its fans had to be sacrificed. The South Grandstand was first in almost complete use for the game against Carl-Zeiss Jena in February 2008. In March 2008 the time-honoured scoreboard was replaced by a new screen. But as no one really wanted to lose the old scoreboard, it is now projected onto the screen. At the end of the season the South Grandstand was completely operational, and the office rooms and club lounge moved into the building in the Budapester Strasse, soon to be followed by the fanshop.

2008/2009 - The second season after promotion began with the official inauguration of the South Grandstand. It was officially opened with a big celebration and a friendly game against the Cuban national team. And after Charles Takyi leaving, new contestants Marius Ebbers, Mathias Hain, Rouwen Hennings and Benjamin Weigelt introduced themselves to the audience at home. After the unlucky loss of the penalty shoot-out during the DFB Cup, we are putting all our efforts into the league right now…

The skull and crossbones has become a symbol of the fans of the St. Pauli Football Club – if not of the club as a whole – that is known throughout the length and breadth of Germany