Swiss 36 No. 39: Sportanlage Buchlern - FC United Zürich

FC United Zürich v SC Cham

7^th October 2017

Whoopee! The international break.  The chance of a break from watching your team struggle on in a woeful season up until now, and instead you get to watch the stellar might of England toiling to beat Slovenia with a last minute goal at Wembley.  England are, of course the underachievers of International football.  In Euro 96, we sung of 30 years of hurt since our only international tournament success.  Who would have thought then that victory in Russia 2018 will break a 52 year drought of success.  Victory in Russia is of course about as likely as the simultaneous promotion of Donny Rovers and Winti this season (Donny are 17^th in league 1 while Winti are propping up the Swiss challenge league as I write).

Thankfully, I spared myself the second half of the England match, but that left me without my weekly infusion of football.  So a Swiss 36 trip was needed.

Conveniently, FC United Zürich have got themselves promoted and vying for the position of being Zürich’s third club with Juventus, meaning just a short trip was needed to tick off another stadium. So after filling up at our favorite restaurant in Winterthur (La Pergola, if you visit), we were off to enjoy football on a beautiful autumn afternoon.

Points Time.

Getting There.

7/10.  Step one was the S12 train to Zürich Altstetten.  Now I’ve been commuting on this train two stations down the line from Altstetten for over nine years but still nearly managed to miss the stop due to marveling at the Zürich Oberland mountains, which were as clearly visible as I’d ever seen them.  But we did get off the train to take a short bus trip on the No. 78 bus followed by a 10 minute walk to the ground.  Not too bad to find.  A train, a bus and a walk.

Friendliness.

5/10.  As usual, nice people on the ground staff but no fans said anything to us, apart from laughing at my “Fuck me!” exclamation on hearing people were being charged £9 for chips and gravy at the Super League grand final in Manchester.  

Safety.

2/10.  Ok for all normal purposes, but a big cup tie would be difficult to hold at Buchlern.  For a start it’s only possible to watch the match from one side of the pitch.  Segregation would be extremely difficult.  Players are separated from fans by temporary fencing as they make their way to the pitch, so United have a problem should they ever attain the next level of Swiss football.

View.

3/10.  Although the two goal ends of the pitch are hard up against the fences leaving nowhere for fans to stand, and only one of the “long” sides of the pitch is available for fans to watch the game, at least viewing at that side is reasonable.  The terraces are comfortable enough to sit on and the stand would probably provide United’s normal attendance with covered viewing were it to rain.  Sure, it’s small but reasonable.

Atomosphere.

2/10. As ever, really difficult for these small clubs.  No kop, no banners just some cheering and encouragement when anything reasonable happened on the pitch.

Refreshments.

5/10.  I had a feeling that United could do a lot more with these facilities.  Not a lot of choice available.  Even the sausage selection was limited to hot-dogs.  But it was very reasonably priced and there were two saving graces.  Firstly, little packets of popping candy with a lollipop inside.  Come on, we’re all big kids.  Popping candy and a lolly.  What else is needed to put a smile on your face?  The answer to that is slush puppies!  Could it get any better?  Of course!  Put a shot of vodka in the slush puppy.  In the end we were quite happy with the refreshments.

Overall

24 / 60.  A great community facility but a long way from being a proper home football ground.

The Match

Worth the 10 Franc entry price.  After just four minutes a good run down the right and a great through-ball from Jesy Nimi found Reto Scherer who made no mistake with just the ‘keeper to beat.  Rather embarrassingly, I thought United had scored, in fact it was Cham.  It was just everyone around me seemed so happy!  Lesson learned - trust your original judgement that a Zürich team will more likely play in blue and white as these are the colours of the canton.

Cham looked the better team but United did equalize with what proved to be the goal of the game.  From all of 40 yards, Lewis Tavares placed a free kick into the top left hand corner.  Cham hadn’t even bothered with a wall!  Fabulous - worth 10 francs on its own!

But Cham were quickly back in the lead.  Just 7 minutes later and Scherer had his second with a clever flick on a shot that sent the ‘keeper the wrong way.  Cham were back in control.

The second half saw the visitors extend their lead further.  An attack through the inside right channel, a square ball that took the advancing ‘keeper out of the game and an easy tap in for Cyril Gasser.  That was “game over” but on 90, Cham finished with ex-Winterthur midfielder Marco Trachsel heading home.  United kept the game entertaining but Cham were much the better team on the day.

Full Time: FC United Zürich 1 : 4 SC Cham.