Thought some of you might be interested to hear about my vacation last week. Sunday I went to the derby in Hütteldorf with some friends. Rapid was lucky to escape with a point, as Austria had a goal disallowed unfairly. Also the Austria fans, proles that they are, tried to break out of their section and brawl with the coppers. So on Wednesday I drove over to Salzburg with a buddy of mine who is a Salzburg fan. This was my first time seeing the new Euro 08 stadium at Wals-Siezenheim. Pretty cool little place. They have these nice wide concourses (is that the word?) above the seats. Nice roomy stadium, crappy artificial pitch. I wonder if that's why the game sucked so badly. The level of play was atrocious, but Rapid escaped with the 1-0 road victory on a header by Korsos. Nice passion by both sets of fans though. I liked the stadium, and they played a lot of 70s classic rock before the game! Also Salzburg is a beautiful little city, for those who have never been there. It is very quiet - nice place to visit if you're looking for a low-key, relaxing few days off in beautiful surroundings. So then on Saturday we drove over to Innsbruck to see my favorite local band (www.lizardbeauty.com - I linked them once in the music forum, but they got torn to shreds). Since we had a couple of hours to spare, we headed over to the new Tivoli Stadium to watch FC Wacker Innsbruck (formerly known as FC Tirol) play Austria Wien (die Scheiße von Wien). This game was also pretty bad, and Austria won 2-0 on a couple of textbook counters. The atmosphere at Tivoli Neu is terrible - but the scenery is great! The Nordkette (the mountain range in the background of this picture: http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.photo.data.image.fw10/fw02549h.jpg) looms up behind the home fans end of the stadium. Absolutely breathtaking. Also they played a lot of keyboard-oriented 80s metal before the game! So then on Sunday we drove back to Vienna, arriving just in time for Rapid-Sturm Graz at Hanappi! Decided not to go that one however, as I was pretty tired and didn't feel like subjecting myself to the Austrian Bundesliga's sub-par level-of-play for the fourth time in a week! This turned out to be a mistake, as Rapid by all accounts played brilliantly in a 2-0 win. Of all people, Roman Kienast (the worst player on the pitch during Wednesday's game in Salzburg) scored a nifty goal from close range, wrong-footing the gk in traffic. I'd still like to see a game at Ahnold Stadium in Graz, as well as maybe Admira-Rapid in the Südstadt. By the way, I couldn't help thinking that a lot of the Austrian stadia would be perfect for MLS.
Nice little vacation you had there... FC Thun has a similar breathtaking scenery around their stadium. Was it your first visit to Salzburg? I spent a night there once on my way to Budapest and absolutely loved it.
Basically, yeah. I've driven through a couple of times, but it's the first time I stopped and hung out there. You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of FC Thun's stadium, would you?
Yep, here you go (can't really see the Alps too well though): http://www.swissgrounds.ch/Swiss_Grounds/thunfc/Index.html What you can't see is that the stadium is also right next to a beautiful lake, the Thuner See...
Well the scenery is certainly much nicer than the stadium. Anyway, it's pictures like those that make me wish for the Alpenliga.
You bet, FC Thun is our Dorfclub - our Pasching. A new stadium is in the works (but not close to realization yet...) Anyway, I found a good pic: So did you check out Mozart's house?
wild horses couldn't have dragged me to sit in the home sector of salzburg vs rapid!! (although on second thought, i did once have to endure the torture the last time i watched rapid in salzburg - the away sector was already full. nonetheless, shame upon you! we had to wait for half an hour (!) after the end of the match behind barricades of busses and cops protecting us from the few salzburg ultras - fortunately, not anything like the last "riots" we had here in salzburg the last time rapid visited. funny enough, i remember watching the game thinking i surely was the only bs poster at that game
Haha, nope! Actually we weren't in the "home" sector per se, but right next to the Rapid sector, as my friend is a Salzburg fan and didn't want to be in there. You're right though, there were a LOT of "Kiwerer" there, escpecially compared to Innsbruck or even to the matches in Vienna. In fact, there were more cops at Salzburg-Rapid then I've ever even seen at games in Germany.
Thanks for the accounts, Mattbro. I lived in Südstadt and neighboring Wiener Neudorf as a kid and used to bike to watch Admira play. (I even played on an Admira youth squad for a season or two in elementary school.) The only time there was much passion at the stadium was when Rapid or Austria were visiting. Otherwise attendance was (and by all accounts continues to be) quite meager. Still, it's so close to Vienna that you should definitely make the trek sometime.