29th July 2017
It's been a while since I've wrote one of these reviews of Stadia, and high time I got back to doing so! The reasons for a lack of writing? Various, some valid others not so much. Sadly, the not so much reasons dominate, but here I am again, with my back-pack and my camera, wandering Switzerland in search of football!
"Alli mit em Schiff uf Rappi" read the invitation in Winti's season opening program. Who can resist that? Where else in the world can you sail to a football match? In honesty, we've done this before, both in Lugano and Thun, but in those cases the sailing was more a case of arriving earlier for the match and having a sail on the beautiful lakes Thun and Lugano before making our way to the game. This was actually traveling the majority of the way to the match by ship, with our FC Winti friends.
And there she was, the beautiful MS Limmat! Well, fairly beautiful. For our tastes a little too much blue on that boat and certainly no red to speak of. Blue and white are the colours of the Canton of Zürich but every Winterthurer knows that really Züri isch Rot-Wiis! With 200 Winti fans and a few pots of paint, I think we would have had that blue trim looking much nicer in 20 minutes or so, but the ZSG wouldn't have been too happy with that. A compromise was needed, that flag would have to go!
Much better! OK, the flag was on its side, but the sentiment was there. The ZSG (well, the Limmat at least) was sailing under a different flag today.
I must have made the two-hour trip between Zurich and Rapperswil over 20 times in the past. Seona and I used to have a standard Sunday: a train into Zurich; pick up the Sunday Times; sail to Rapperswil on the boat while reading the paper. We'd then have a wander around this gorgeous town and perhaps a bite to eat before going home on the train. Switzerland. It's a hard life at times!
But of the many trips I have made on this lake, none has been as pleasurable or as much fun as this one. 200 football fans, many of whom are friends happily drinking beer and giving the tourists who happened to be on the same boat something different for their holiday diaries.
Any boat that came within earshot got a song, as did each of the towns we pulled into along the way. Wonderfully good-natured fun, which is what being a football fan is all about. The only brief bit of dischord came when the ship's crew decided our mutiny had gone on long enough. Choruses of boos as they replaced their flag then cheers when a compromise was reached and both flags were flown.
Once in Rappi, we formed up for the march to the ground. It was the normal thing, Winti fans walking together, singing our songs, and then "Ssshhhhh!". We were walking past the Knies Kinderzoo (Children's Zoo). Football is not about upsetting animals so nice and quiet as you go as you pass the zoo.
So a lovely day, a lovely trip with lovely people. All we needed was a lovely ground and a great game of football and it would have be great day.
Points time.
Getting there
8/10. We went on the boat then walked the 30 minutes or so to the ground. There are plenty of trains to Rapperswil from all over Switzerland, so if you don't want the lovely if somewhat impractical boat ride, that's easy too. Buses run from either Rapperswil or Jona stations to the Grünfeld. So not a problem at all, even if the stadium is a bit out of the way between Rapperswil and Jona.
Friendliness
4/10. Oh dear Rapperswil-Jona! I so wanted to like your ground. I love Rapperswil, loved the boat trip but reception of visitors just isn't up to Swiss Challenge League standards. To be clear, I am not talking about the FCRJ fans here. I didn't meet any of the home fans on the day. It's the facilities.
Having walked a 30 minutes after several cold beers, a visit to see a man about a dog was very necessary as soon as I got to the ground. Three "Toi-Toi" toilets (the kind you get on building sites) for a good 200 visiting fans just isn't good enough. The toilet facilities on the boat were far superior. Complete segregation from home fans, perhaps done at police or SFA request(?) completed any feeling of friendliness being difficult.
On the plus side, the program is free and similar in standard to FC Winterthur's, which is not anywhere near English standards, but English programs aren't free.
Refreshments
3/10. At the one refreshment stand, which was completely overwhelmed by the Winti fans on their arrival, there was sausage, sausage or sausage to eat, and beer or soft drinks. Tea/coffee, sandwiches, chips, hot-dogs were all crossed out. So waiting time and not much choice.
Fortunately, one of our friends had arranged a pizza delivery. The pizzas were lovely and delivered by 10-Dieci, a local Ice-Cream and Pizzeria who ironically are the main sponsors of FC Rapperswil-Jona. The owner of this company, a self-made man, is the president of FCRJ. He could improve things by bringing his catering expertise into the ground.Safety
5/10. The advertised capacity of the ground is 2500. I think if anything like that figure were there, safety could be a bit tricky. The all seater stand in the photo is obviously no problem but otherwise there's no terracing terracing at all. A bit of a crush in the away end should they have a lot of visitors, possibly.
In this case, the fences that I loath but the SFA love could be ripped down by fans within a minute. Happily, this would prevent a crush, but unhappily, if the wrong type of fans were there they would prove no obstacle to a pitch invasion. Then you would have hooligans running around armed with sharp bits of fencing. This defeats the object of the fences totally. Just saying, SFA,
View3/10. Excepting the stand for home fans, its pitch-level viewing all the way around the ground, so little 'uns at the front and big 'uns at the back!. At the away end, the crappy fences mean the leaning comfortably on a crush-barrier is a non-starter so it's unsupported standing I'm afraid.
Unsupported standing is tiring. Seona certainly wasn't happy having walked for 30 minutes. Her psoriatic arthritis, which precluded any away trips at all last season (the only good reason for the suspension of this Blog) requires her to have a nice long sit down after doing such things. Standing for a whole game is now not possible for her. So she sat on the grass for much of the match, unable to see a thing due to the advertising hoardings. 15 Francs for that! In the winter, sitting on the ground would be impossible, so we won't be visiting the Grünfeld in the winter months, unless they allow chairs to be taken into the away end!
Time for a rant. The SFA, the Swiss Football Association, who's acronym appropriately sums up what they understand about football fans impose standards on all Challenge League and Super League clubs. Not meeting such standards can result in the loss of a clubs license to play in a league. Such a fate has been met by FC Le Mont.
Le Mont already were playing their home games 30 minutes by road away from their true home due to their ground not being up to standard. The stadium they were using, in Baulmes, was perfectly adequate for their fanbase and the challenge league. Despite the obvious disadvantage of playing home games away in many senses, Le Mont had managed to hold their own in the second flight of Swiss Football.Sadly, this was ended last season by them refusing to meet the Improvement wishes of the SFA electing to be relegated 3 leagues. Why would they improve a stadium that was not their own?
Rapperswil-Jona were promoted to the Challenge League last season and gained a license with this ground. They replaced a team using far better facilities, who did not finish at the bottom of the challenge league. Some things just don't seem right in Swiss football.
Atmosphere
4/10. All the atmosphere for this game was kindly and predictably provided by the FC Winterthur Fans. One of their great choreos depicted our journey to Rapperswil complete with steam ship. Very cool.
Mumours from home fans were heard when they scored.
Overall 27/40 - Pretty poor, I'm afraid.
The Match
As I may have indicated, I didn't see much of the game. FC Rapperswil-Jona deservedly won 3:1, with a weak performance from the visitors. I got a good view of Winti's goal, a well taken strike from Gazeta into the bottom left corner right on half-time. That was in reply to Mychell and Kubli, giving the home team a two goal lead,
In the second half, Winti improved marginally but on 78 minutes Mychell's legs gave way under the pressure of three defenders near him and he got up to convert the penalty himself.
So in the end, the journey to Rapperswil was much better than both the stadium and the match. It is very pretty though!
