Swiss 36 No. 26 - Paul Grüninger Stadion, SC Brühl

SC Brühl v FC Basel II

The Swiss FA should be pleased with the first season of the Erste Liga Promotion as it comes into it's final round of fixtures with three teams still in with shout of winning the title. The match of the day was at Schaffhausen where the league leaders were at home to the third placed club YF Juventus. Unfortunately, we've already visited Schaffhausen's Stadion Breite so we had to look elsewhere for our next Swiss 36 visit. We chose SC Brühl, where should Schaffhausen slip up, Basel II could nip in and steal the title.

 

But you don't want to know about that, you want to know who was Paul Grüninger. Well it's a good question and a nice story. Of course, he was an ex-Brühl player, playing for the team during their Swiss Championship-winning season in 1914-15. He later became president of the club, but this is not for what he is remembered.

 

Paul Grüninger

In 1938, he was serving as Canton St. Gallen's Chief of Police as Switzerland closed her borders with Austria after the Nazi annexation. With the border closed, Jewish refugees could no longer flee the Nazis by entering neutral Switzerland. Grüninger exploited his position by forging the registration documents of desperate fleeing Jews to indicate that they had entered Switzerland prior to the border closing so preventing their extradition as illegal immigrants. In this manner, some 3600 refugees were spared their lives and the horrors of being returned to the Nazis.

 

The Germans informed the Swiss of Grüninger's exploits and in 1939, he was brought to trial for the falsification of 3600 Jews' entry papers. He was dismissed from his high-ranking post in the Police Force, losing his pension rights in the process. In 1941 he was convicted of "breach of duty". Although his noble motives were recognized, the court nonetheless felt he had abused his position and should not have broken the law. Grüninger was fined and jailed.

 

The rest of Grüninger's life was difficult. His sacrifice was forgotten and as a felon, he found it difficult to get work. Despite this he never regretted his actions during the war saying in 1954 that it was a matter of saving Human lives and so how could he consider bureaucracy as important?

 

A media campaign in 1970 resulted in the Swiss government sending him a reserved apology without reinstating his pension rights or reopening his case. In 1972 Grüninger died in poverty.

 

But the campaign to exonerate Grüninger continued. Eventually, in 1995 Grüninger was rehabilitated by the Swiss Federal Government and his convictions were annulled. He is now remembered through various schools and a bridge in St. Gallen as well as a street in Jerusalem.

 

And then of course there's the Paul Grüninger Stadion, as it was re-named after renovation in 2006.

 

Points Time

Getting There

9 / 10. Just a bus ride from St. Gallen station to Krontal and then the stadium is signposted and less than five minutes from the bus stop.

 

Friendliness

6 / 10. No issues on the day. We didn't speak to any Brühl fans but they did win a couple of points by noticing we had visited the stadium from a posting on Twitter and asking us how it was. Nice of them to notice.

 

On the negative side of things, we weren't keen on the entry prices. Standing anywhere in the stadium is 15 SFr, which is on the steep side for this league. Under 9s get in free, which sounds great until you consider that at Winterthur, one league higher, it's free entry if you're under 16.

Safety.

8 / 10. Absolutely sufficient for the league they are in. Home and away fans do have different areas of the stadium and complete segregation of home and away fans would be an easy matter should it be necessary.

 

View

 

7 / 10. On the day absolutely fine and the main stand looks like it provides excellent seated viewing. Standing is available on all four sides so all well and good although there is very little terracing at the ground. With only 900 seats, you have to wonder how well fans toward the rear are going to see should Brühl ever sell out their 4400 capacity.

 

Still, that said, Brühl have some nice picnic style tables in the food-sales areas although we thought the really nice area on the decking outside the restaurant was for sponsors. Could be wrong though.

 

Atmosphere

4 / 10. Not much noise at all from the Brühl faithful. In fact they were generally out-sung by 3 or so Basel fans providing good support for the U21s. Then again, the visitors had a little more to shout about.

 

Refreshments

8 / 10. Apparently, Brühl is renowned for the perfect sausage according to Stadionwurst (stadium sausage) so we went for the acclaimed Kalbsbratwurst (Veal Sausage). A disappointment I'm afraid. I've eaten hundreds of these sausages since coming to Switzerland. They don't touch a good Cumberland sausage and this particular one was, for me just like the rest.

 

But having completely blown my chances of ever being welcomed back by Brühl, I'll try to make amends by commenting on the great selection of wines and what looked like excellent pasta dishes in the restaurant. Were these available during the game and at half time? I don't know, I didn't try due to being side-tracked by a sausage. I'll definitely give them a go next time!

 

 

Overall

41 / 60. Very reasonable.

The Match

Brühl looked a good team, though sadly only for 10 minutes after which their young opponents blew them away with a blistering 7 minute spell.

 

Norbert Frrokaj was the first to test Mirko Salvi in the Basel goal with a free header. Salvi dealt with it well and on 10 minutes needed to be sharp again, this time pushing away Giuseppe Coppola's shot from about 10 yards. With Dario Koller looking especially dangerous on the Brühl right, it looked like Basel's title chances were to be scuppered without having to look North at what was happening in Schaffhausen.

 

Straight after Coppola's effort, Boban Antic's punch wasn't anywhere near to reaching one of his defenders and Musa Araz made him pay for the error. One-nil, an unlucky mistake by the 'keeper but Brühl were still the better team. Just a setback? Well two minutes later, the Basel lead was doubled. Brühl lost the ball in midfield and Simone Rapp broke away to beat Antic without any defender getting near him. On 17 minutes the game was over. Thomas Inauen attempted to tackle a Basel forward in the clumsiest of fashions and the referee was rightly pointing to the penalty spot. Denis Simani took an excellent penalty and it was 3:0. 7 minutes of Brühl's season they will long to forget.

 

They didn't give up though. A corner caused a bit of panic in the Basel area and Brühl intelligently played the ball back and out of the area for Sebastian Van der Werff to curl a shot unfortunately just wide of Salvi's post. More sloppy defending from Basel, being dispossessed twice in their own half handed Brühl another decent chance. Coppola drove the resulting effort just wide of Salvi's left post.

 

Right on half time, Basel made in four with a good counter-attack that saw four passes move the ball from defence to attack and Florian Müller finished the move, injuring Antic in the process.

 

Into the second half and it took just 3 minutes for substitute 'keeper Arif Celebi to be welcomed into the game by the Basel attack. Simone Rapp made it five for the visitors.

 

That really was game over. Basel had done their job, Brühl had been hammered and now seemed to have lost their appetite for the game. They did get a consolation goal though, and it was the best of the game. Florian Steiger scoring with a great shot from range. But it wasn't a day Brühl will want to dwell on.

 

Despite their victory, Basel II did not take the Erste Liga Promotion title. That went to Schaffhausen who beat YF Juventus 2 : 1 so pipping the young Baselers to the title on goal-difference.

 

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Swiss 36 No. 25 - Sportplatz Spitalacker, FC Breitenrain

FC Breitenrain v FC Sion II

Largely through coincidence, we've already seen Breitenrain twice on our travels; at Schaffhausen and in St. Gallen. We were quite taken with the club's small but enthusiastic away following and so chose Sportplatz Spitalacker as our next visit to an erste Liga Promotion ground.

 

What we found at Spitalacker was another little treasure. The Spitalacker turns out to be a former international stadium. In 1922, Switzerland beat Holland 5 : 0 at this ground in front of 12000 people.

 

"The Spitz is our Home"

90 years on and the ground's new residents are FC Breitenrain, a club formed in 1994 through the merger of local rivals, FC Minerva Bern and FC Zaehringia Bern. Breitenrain are obviously proud of their ground as the photos in the club-house and the banner at the far end show.

 

Points Time

Getting there

7 / 10. Obviously no problem in getting to the Swiss capital. Once there, it's not totally clear. In any case, it's a bus ride to Spitzacker and then a 5 minute walk.

Friendliness

9 / 10. As I mentioned earlier, I had previously enjoyed Breitenrain's away following getting behind their team to help bring them back from 2-down to beat St. Gallen II 2 : 3. We recognized the guy with the megaphone from that game and bought him a beer. Very nice people eager to tell us about their club and interested in why two English people are bothered about Swiss football. Generous too as we both left with Breitenrain scarves compliments of the fans.

Safety

4 / 10. But for goodness sake don't go changing anything radically, Breitenrain. The all-wood main stand is beautiful. It may not get a safety certificate in a league above the erste Liga Promotion but will Breitenrain compete above this level? Even if they did, could you destroy such a thing?

 

Home and visiting fans are not segregated. It's a shame that this has to be a safety requirement but they are not segregated and nor do I see an easy way of segregating them at the Spitzacker.

 

View

Great casual seating facility

8 / 10. Unlike other grounds in this league, Breitenrain keep modest with their official capacity of 1500. The fans are right on pitch-side and there were no restricted views that I could see. The casual seating facility was great, even though it reminded me more of watching a Cricket Match on a village green rather than watching football. If Breitenrain filled the ground, I can't see a problem in 1500 people all managing to get a decent view.

 

But there isn't any terracing and one side of the ground, behind the goal on the far side as you enter is inaccessible.

 

Atmosphere

5 / 10. Great effort from the "singing section" of the fans, they kept going throughout the game. Unsurprisingly, nothing at all heard from Sion II. I can imagine the atmosphere being a little better when local rivals FC Tuggen come visiting.

 

Refreshments

9 / 10. Now we've been here before at FC Aarau (for example). We see things on menus and are sadly let down when we find they are not available. So when we saw Holzfäller Steak (lit. Lumberjack Steak, traditionally from Pork-shoulder) we thought "nahh...they won't have any"

 

But they asked us if we would like beef or lamb! OK, not a traditional Holzfäller, but bloody beautiful all the same. 8.50 SFr for a lump of rump steak in the Swiss capital? You won't do better anywhere else around there! Otherwise there was the traditional sausage and what looked like a well stocked bar in the clubhouse. Breitenrain look after their fans well!

 

Overall

42 / 60. Charming club with a charming ground.

 

The Match

Sadly, not a classic by any means and nowhere near the match we'd enjoyed the previous week in St. Gallen.

 

Sion II started marginally the brighter of the two sides and came close after 10 minutes when a corner was played cleverly to the near corner of the penalty area only for the shot to just miss the top corner of the Breitenrain goal. Just before half time, the visitors should have had the lead. Stefane Rauti found himself one-on-one with Portmann in the Breitenrain goal. The 'keeper stood up well but could only push the ball back to Rauti. This time he rounded Portmann only to place it wide of the open goal.

 

After the break and predictably Sion took the lead. Gaëtan Karlen was left unmarked in the area to head home a cross from the left wing. But Sion II only held their lead for 2 minutes as Breitenrain came back with the best moment of the game. Claudio Zenger scored the equalizer, swinging a free kick into the far corner of the goal from a tight angle.

 

Just two further chances before the end. Portmann earning his stripes with a fine save to keep a ferocious shot out of his top right hand corner and at the other end, Breitenrain flashed a cross through the Sion six-yard area that just needed somebody to stretch that bit more.

 

But it finished 1:1, probably a fair result in the end.

 

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Swiss 36 No. 24 - Stadion Espenmoos, FC St. Gallen II

Espenmoos as it was

FC St. Gallen II v FC Breitenrain

It's sad when a football club moves to a new stadium and the old ground is either torn down to make another shopping centre or worst still, is allowed to go derelict. Sadly, this is what has happened at Doncaster Rovers' old ground, Belle Vue and Swansea City's Vetch Field.

 

So it's good to see that when FC St. Gallen moved across the city to the AFG Arena in 2008, their Espenmoos stadium continued to be used as a sports facility.

Three of the four sides of the ground have had their terraces and stands demolished, obviously dropping the capacity of the stadium from 11300 to 5700, but with the AFG Arena across the city, St. Gallen simply does not need two large capacity sports venues. Instead, what remained after the demolition was fully renovated and a new, all-weather pitch was laid where one of the stands once stood. The result is a facility that is used for rugby and American football, as well as of course by St. Gallen for their u21s and women's teams. It's nice to see the ground continuing to be used and I think that keeping the unusual main stand is a great touch to keep everyone reminded of the Espenmoos' former glories.

Points time.

 

Getting There.

8 / 10. Easy on the train. From St. Gallen you just need to take a local train for one stop to St. Fiden and from there, the ground is a 15 minute walk. It's not signposted though, which is surprising considering its previous status of being St. Gallen's home.

 

Friendliness

 

5 / 10. No problems at all, but nobody spoke to us either. Home and away fans are allowed to mix freely.

Nice informal seating facility

Safety

5 / 10. Officially, the stadium can hold 5700 and I don't see how that could be done with opposing fans safely. You can walk unhindered the whole way around the pitch and there was absolutely no provision of facilities for away fans. Having said that, the ground certainly doesn't need any further safety measures, it just needs its official capacity to be reduced. It's obvious to me that there will never be a big game played at the ground with the 19700 AFG Arena at the other side of the city.

 

View.

8 / 10. The same arguments as with safety apply in assessing the view. With just that one stand and no terracing around three sides of the pitch, I cannot see any way a large crowd could all see.

But the Espenmoos will never see a large crowd so why provide for one? Because the Espenmoos is a pragmatic solution and because its so good that its still being used for the purpose for which it was intended when it was built in 1912, it's too harsh to penalize it twice.

 

For the small crowds that St. Gallen II get the view is fine with only one criticism. Behind one of the goals there's a very high fence which impairs viewing at that end.

 

Atmosphere.

5 / 10. Surprisingly good! 400 fans attended the game with about 20 or so making the trip from Bern. But they didn't come just to watch in silence as didn't the St. Gallen faithful. A good bit of noise from both plus the amusing sight of a very enthusiastic away fan who hurtled up the touchline with the siren on his megaphone blaring when Breitenrain scored.

 

 

Refreshments

7 / 10. Obviously, the obligatory sausage and bread was available but without any sauces, which was disappointing. The beer was the local brew, you've heard of Feldshitsschen, well this is Shitzengarten. So where are they picking up points?

 

First of all, you could by Ice Creams, which on the lovely day we had was very welcome. Then there's the drinking water fountain as you come into the ground. Drinking water fountains are found all over Switzerland but this is the first one I've seen in a football stadium. Finally, there's the Boccia Club, which provides a nice beer garden in which to consume your beer and sausage.

 

Overall

38 / 60.

The Match

Was also very enjoyable. Sure, there were plenty of improvement potential for both sides, who are in relegation trouble but still plenty of excitement.

 

It took St. Gallen's future stars just 20 seconds to have the ball in the net but the referee correctly rule the effort offside. It was pretty clear sign of what was to come though and within 14 minutes, Igor Tadic had a brace and the home side were 2 : 0 up. It looked ominous for the visitors with St. Gallen II dominating play and if anything looking like they were going to rout their visitors.

 

But despite struggling to get out of their half, Breitenrain began to defend a little better. On a rare foray into the St. Gallen half, a cross was headed back across goal for Dos Santos to have a tap in. However unlikely, the visitors were back in it and you started to see some belief in what they were doing.

 

As the game went on, you gradually got the impression only one team was going to win it. Breitenrain had obviously decided this was a winnable game and it was no surprise when Claudio Zenger shot in from just outside the area to make the match all square with 13 minutes remaining. On their second half display, they deserved the win and got it in the 89th minutes through substitute Stephan Frey with another finish from just outside of the area.

 

Well deserved for Breitenrain in the end and the win means five teams are now within 3 points of the relegation places.

 

 

 

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Swiss 36 No. 23 - Stadio Comunale, Chiasso - FC Chiasso

FC Chiasso v FC Winterthur

Snow! Bloody snow in mid-April! We'd got ideas about traveling early to this match early so we could have a look around Switzerland's southern-most town but snow in Winterthur plus a miserable forecast down South provoked a re-think. It was also the day that Donny were to confirm an immediate return to the Championship. Yeah...more about that later.

Strangely, Winterthur's "Fanatics" supporter's club published two sets of public transport instructions for this match; an easy way and a stressful way. A 5:45 pm kick-off meant, for us that there was little point in the stressful version so we kept things simple. But was there some coded message in that offering of a stressful means of getting to Chiasso?

Despite the awful weather, we enjoyed a stress-free, comfortable trip down to Chiasso, obviously tuning in to our respective English football games at the appropriate time. As we arrived in Chiasso, Donny went a goal down in their match against Notts County. Automatic promotion was very much in the balance again. Another message?

We had plenty of time to get to the game and so had a bite to eat while listening to the first halves of our respective matches. On half-time we still had an hour to get from the station to the stadium. Easy!

Points Time.

Getting There

1 / 10.

First of all, with the rain, there weren't too many people around.  One of the ones who was said that as it had been raining solidly for two days, he didn't think the game would be on. Nahh! No way would Chiasso have allowed Winterthur and their fans to travel. He didn't know where the Stadio Comunale was though and nor did anyone else. Obviously one of those Community Stadia that the community know nothing about.

Outside the station was a pretty major bus-stop, but we couldn't see which bus was going to take us to the stadium. In the end, we resorted to asking every bus that stopped if they were going anywhere near the football stadium. They weren't but did tell us the bus that did. For anyone needing the information, it's the 517, which we obviously couldn't find on the bus timetables.

Time to crack out Google Maps, our standby that had got us out of problems two weeks running. This annoyed me somewhat because it meant I was going to miss the remainder of Donny's match commentary. Google Maps promptly showed us that the stadium was five minutes away. We went where it said to go and it wasn't a stadium so it was back to the bus stop where buses were pulling in again (and the match had kicked off). Hallelujah! One of the buses was the mythical 517 and it dropped us right outside the stadium. Choice words were said about how well community facilities in Chiasso are signposted and how clear bus timetables are in this part of the world. Donny had also lost.

Friendliness

8 / 10. Yes, Chiasso are a friendly little club. They started a bit shakily though. We didn't like the 18 SFr admission price and the security guys were a bit funny when the missus dropped her hat over on the wrong side of the barrier and I wanted to hop over to retrieve it.  Seeing I wasn't trying to mount a one-man pitch invasion, they were OK once they'd understood and when I fell on my backside on my first attempt to vault the barrier, they had fully appreciated to lack of threat offered by these strange English guys.

But Chiasso did win me over after the match. We went over to the opposite side of the ground for a beer at the end and they were happy to allow the Winti faithful to sing a few songs. As it should be. They did burn a Lugano pennant though. They don't seem to like them very much!

Safety

7 / 10. No issues with the ground, no fences, terracing a reasonable height but the security was a bit slack, perhaps understandably. No bag-check on the gate and no control on leaving then coming back into the ground.

View

5 / 10. Stadio Comunale, Chiasso is the third of the four Stadia in Tessin we have to visit on the Swiss 36 and up until now, it's the best, although it doesn't have much competition.  The stadium has a covered, seated main stand and open terracing the rest of the way around the ground. Unfortunately, there's a six-lane athletics track between the fans and the action, which pretty much ruins the view from the ends. But at least, unlike the other two Tessin clubs I've seen (Lugano and Bellinzona), they don't have visiting supporters suffering this awful view. Instead, visitors are given half of the terrace opposite the main stand and so have a decent view.

Atmosphere

5 / 10. The 250 fans who braved the horrible weather gave a reasonable account of themselves. Obviously, we didn't hear a thing from the seated section but the 7 Winti fans (including us) on the terrace were loud and proud. Good effort also from the Chiasso Kop but something a bit silly from the club.

A big tarpaulin separates the home Kop from the away fans so that they can't see each other. Without the tarpaulin, there would be a great opportunity for some banter between fans, needed when the gates are so small. How silly is the tarpaulin? Read on!

Refreshments

7 / 10. Football is weird. As I've said, seven Winterthur fans made the trip and braved the elements on the open away terrace. Another 15 or so watched from the comfort of the main stand. Us seven obviously couldn't be separately catered for, catering for seven is a non-starter. We did have two security guards though! To get a beer and a bite, we were directed out of the stadium and around to the main stand. Our tickets weren't checked at either end and we walked, of course with the home fans who emerged from behind their tarpaulin. We weren't accompanied around and mixed with home fans freely before returning to our respective sides of the tarpaulin. Strange!

Heineken beer was available from a reasonably well stocked bar. Foodwise, there were various Italian things cooking on a barbecue. I asked about one and was told it was a "salmonella". A dubious name, I know but it looked good and tasted better.

Overall

33 / 60. Main issue is sorting out directions to and from the stadium. Other than that, it's OK.

The Match

Didn't really make up for the awful conditions if I'm honest, but Winterthur won, so what can you say?

Unfortunately, Chiasso's lack of ability in informing the community where the Community Stadium actually is caused us to arrive at the stadium after 20 minutes. By this time it had all happened. On 18 minutes, Marco Aratore hit a shot against the underside of the bar and the rebound was hit against the post by Kris Kuzmanovic. In the end, Chiasso managed to scramble the ball out for a corner. The corner was duly placed by Kuzmanovic onto the head of Patrick Bengondo and Winti had the lead. I bet it was good, that bit!

Sadly, the rest of the game wasn't but in conditions where playing the ball on the deck was risky due to it failing to cross the swamp between the passer and the intended target, what could we expect? Winterthur made by far the better of the conditions but not by really creating themselves. Chiasso were simply stifled by a solid defensive performance.

So for the rest of the match, neither 'keeper was particularly troubled. The only talking point was Chiasso finishing the match with 9-men. Both dismissals came due to two bookable offences, the first in the 79th minute. Dragan Mihajovic was about to leave the field anyway but changed the decision to substitute him by ill-advisedly going out of his way to have a chat with the referee on his way off. The referee clearly didn't enjoy the conversation and showed him his second yellow. Apparently, his first had been for another obscenity expressed to the referee, heard all around the ground. I didn't hear it, I hadn't arrived. Silly though!

Emiliano Dudar took a slightly early bath in the final minute of the match for a second foul judged to be bad enough to merit a yellow.

Solid from Winterthur - but nothing more.

As ever, after the match the Winti players came over to celebrate with all seven of us in the away end. We were offered a beer in the bar after the match, which was gratefully accepted. And that was our downfall really. A combination of the beer from the team and Google Maps trying to direct me to Milan central station resulted in our missing the last train back to Winterthur (which we would have been pushed to get anyway). Still, an overnight in Tessin isn't the worst thing that could happen!

Swiss 36 No. 23: Stadio Comunale, Chiasso - FC Chiasso

FC Chiasso v FC Winterthur

Snow! Bloody snow in mid-April! We'd got ideas about traveling early to this match early so we could have a look around Switzerland's southern-most town but snow in Winterthur plus a miserable forecast down South provoked a re-think. It was also the day that Donny were to confirm an immediate return to the Championship. Yeah...more about that later.

Strangely, Winterthur's "Fanatics" supporter's club published two sets of public transport instructions for this match; an easy way and a stressful way. A 5:45 pm kick-off meant, for us that there was little point in the stressful version so we kept things simple. But was there some coded message in that offering of a stressful means of getting to Chiasso?

Despite the awful weather, we enjoyed a stress-free, comfortable trip down to Chiasso, obviously tuning in to our respective English football games at the appropriate time. As we arrived in Chiasso, Donny went a goal down in their match against Notts County. Automatic promotion was very much in the balance again. Another message?

We had plenty of time to get to the game and so had a bite to eat while listening to the first halves of our respective matches. On half-time we still had an hour to get from the station to the stadium. Easy!

Points Time.

Getting There

1 / 10.

First of all, with the rain, there weren't too many people around.  One of the ones who was said that as it had been raining solidly for two days, he didn't think the game would be on. Nahh! No way would Chiasso have allowed Winterthur and their fans to travel. He didn't know where the Stadio Comunale was though and nor did anyone else. Obviously one of those Community Stadia that the community know nothing about.

Outside the station was a pretty major bus-stop, but we couldn't see which bus was going to take us to the stadium. In the end, we resorted to asking every bus that stopped if they were going anywhere near the football stadium. They weren't but did tell us the bus that did. For anyone needing the information, it's the 517, which we obviously couldn't find on the bus timetables.

Time to crack out Google Maps, our standby that had got us out of problems two weeks running. This annoyed me somewhat because it meant I was going to miss the remainder of Donny's match commentary. Google Maps promptly showed us that the stadium was five minutes away. We went where it said to go and it wasn't a stadium so it was back to the bus stop where buses were pulling in again (and the match had kicked off). Hallelujah! One of the buses was the mythical 517 and it dropped us right outside the stadium. Choice words were said about how well community facilities in Chiasso are signposted and how clear bus timetables are in this part of the world. Donny had also lost.

Friendliness

8 / 10. Yes, Chiasso are a friendly little club. They started a bit shakily though. We didn't like the 18 SFr admission price and the security guys were a bit funny when the missus dropped her hat over on the wrong side of the barrier and I wanted to hop over to retrieve it. Seeing I wasn't trying to mount a one-man pitch invasion, they were OK once they'd understood and when I fell on my backside on my first attempt to vault the barrier, they had fully appreciated to lack of threat offered by these strange English guys.

But Chiasso did win me over after the match. We went over to the opposite side of the ground for a beer at the end and they were happy to allow the Winti faithful to sing a few songs. As it should be. They did burn a Lugano pennant though. They don't seem to like them very much!

Safety

7 / 10. No issues with the ground, no fences, terracing a reasonable height but the security was a bit slack, perhaps understandably. No bag-check on the gate and no control on leaving then coming back into the ground.

View

5 / 10. Stadio Comunale, Chiasso is the third of the four Stadia in Tessin we have to visit on the Swiss 36 and up until now, it's the best, although it doesn't have much competition. The stadium has a covered, seated main stand and open terracing the rest of the way around the ground. Unfortunately, there's a six-lane athletics track between the fans and the action, which pretty much ruins the view from the ends. But at least, unlike the other two Tessin clubs I've seen (Lugano and Bellinzona), they don't have visiting supporters suffering this awful view. Instead, visitors are given half of the terrace opposite the main stand and so have a decent view.

Atmosphere

5 / 10. The 250 fans who braved the horrible weather gave a reasonable account of themselves. Obviously, we didn't hear a thing from the seated section but the 7 Winti fans (including us) on the terrace were loud and proud. Good effort also from the Chiasso Kop but something a bit silly from the club.

A big tarpaulin separates the home Kop from the away fans so that they can't see each other. Without the tarpaulin, there would be a great opportunity for some banter between fans, needed when the gates are so small. How silly is the tarpaulin? Read on!

Refreshments

7 / 10. Football is weird. As I've said, seven Winterthur fans made the trip and braved the elements on the open away terrace. Another 15 or so watched from the comfort of the main stand. Us seven obviously couldn't be separately catered for, catering for seven is a non-starter. We did have two security guards though! To get a beer and a bite, we were directed out of the stadium and around to the main stand. Our tickets weren't checked at either end and we walked, of course with the home fans who emerged from behind their tarpaulin. We weren't accompanied around and mixed with home fans freely before returning to our respective sides of the tarpaulin. Strange!

Heineken beer was available from a reasonably well stocked bar. Foodwise, there were various Italian things cooking on a barbecue. I asked about one and was told it was a "salmonella". A dubious name, I know but it looked good and tasted better.

Overall

33 / 60. Main issue is sorting out directions to and from the stadium. Other than that, it's OK.

The Match

Didn't really make up for the awful conditions if I'm honest, but Winterthur won, so what can you say?

Unfortunately, Chiasso's lack of ability in informing the community where the Community Stadium actually is caused us to arrive at the stadium after 20 minutes. By this time it had all happened. On 18 minutes, Marco Aratore hit a shot against the underside of the bar and the rebound was hit against the post by Kris Kuzmanovic. In the end, Chiasso managed to scramble the ball out for a corner. The corner was duly placed by Kuzmanovic onto the head of Patrick Bengondo and Winti had the lead. I bet it was good, that bit!

Sadly, the rest of the game wasn't but in conditions where playing the ball on the deck was risky due to it failing to cross the swamp between the passer and the intended target, what could we expect? Winterthur made by far the better of the conditions but not by really creating themselves. Chiasso were simply stifled by a solid defensive performance.

So for the rest of the match, neither 'keeper was particularly troubled. The only talking point was Chiasso finishing the match with 9-men. Both dismissals came due to two bookable offences, the first in the 79th minute. Dragan Mihajovic was about to leave the field anyway but changed the decision to substitute him by ill-advisedly going out of his way to have a chat with the referee on his way off. The referee clearly didn't enjoy the conversation and showed him his second yellow. Apparently, his first had been for another obscenity expressed to the referee, heard all around the ground. I didn't hear it, I hadn't arrived. Silly though!

Emiliano Dudar took a slightly early bath in the final minute of the match for a second foul judged to be bad enough to merit a yellow.

Solid from Winterthur - but nothing more.

As ever, after the match the Winti players came over to celebrate with all seven of us in the away end. We were offered a beer in the bar after the match, which was gratefully accepted. And that was our downfall really. A combination of the beer from the team and Google Maps trying to direct me to Milan central station resulted in our missing the last train back to Winterthur (which we would have been pushed to get anyway). Still, an overnight in Tessin isn't the worst thing that could happen!

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Swiss 36 No. 22: Stade de la Maladière - Neuchâtel Xamax 1912

FC Biel - Bienne v FC Winterthur

No, I haven't lost my marbles, FC Biel - Bienne, the only club I know with a hyphen in their name, are currently temporary tenants in Neuchâtel Xamax's Stade de la Maladière while their own stadium, the Gurzelen Stadion is renovated. Sadly, the renovations mean that we will not be visiting the Gurzelen on the Swiss 36 tour, well, at least not this season. On the plus side, Biel - Bienne's temporary move to Neuchâtel gives us a valid excuse to visit Stade de la Maladière.

Until January 2012, Xamax were a Swiss Super League side, but that status ended suddenly and in controversy. 12th May 2011, Chechen businessman, Bulat Chagaev took over the club. Immediately he demonstrated a strange motivational technique. Xamax had made it to the Swiss Cup final on 29th May but were trailing Sion 2 : 0. Chagaev reportedly entered the dressing room at half-time shouting "I'll kill you all" in an attempt to motivate the Xamax players. Xamax didn't concede any more goals but didn't score any either.

A day later and the coach, Bernhard Challendes was fired, the administrative staff resigned 3 days later. These were the first in quite a number of employees who became casualties during Chagaev's reign, including sporting director, ex Brazil ace Sonny Anderson. By the end of July, Chagaev was claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy against him (I struggle to think why such a nice guy could think such a thing!). August saw Chagaev fire his newly appointed chairman shortly before firing his second coach at the beginning of September. By the end of September, the supporter's club had been "dumped" and shortly after that the Swiss football league filed their first complaint against Chagaev and Xamax over "lack of information about the takeover".

October saw an agent file a bankruptcy case against the club; a strike by the players' union over non-payment of wages and the firing of a second sporting director. In November, the Bank of America confirmed that documents Chagaev had used to demonstrate how he had access to $35M were fake and he was formerly charged with forgery.

The inevitable eventually happened in January as somewhat predictably, the players returned from a Dubai training camp. They found out that the Swiss football league had withdrawn Xamax's licence due to suspected fraud and failure to demonstrate that they could meet their financial obligations. Chagaev was arrested in Geneva accused of fraud and financial mis-management. The debt of the club was estimated at at 30M Swiss Francs.

Xamax didn't play another match that season and their results were expunged from league records. The Swiss football league punished Xamax in a similar way to the punishment of Rangers in Scotland only Xamax were relegated four divisions as opposed to the three division relegation suffered by Rangers. In 2012 / 13, they play their football in the 2. Liga Interregional - Group 3, an amateur, regional league in the fifth tier of Swiss football.

And Chagaev? Well after serving 4 months in custody, he is now facing expulsion from Switzerland.

Time to talk about Biel - Bienne, and I should deal with that hyphen. Biel - Bienne, like Freiburg - Fribourg and Bern - Berne, sits on the Röstigraben (lit. Rösti-ditch), the boundary between French-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Switzerland. The name is a tongue-in-cheek term basically suggesting that you won't get anything as mundane as a Rösti (a very tasty German-Swiss dish with grated potato as its main ingredient) in the sophisticated French speaking bit. Biel - Bienne tend to make a bigger deal of sitting on this boundary than the other towns and cities on the line hence the name of the club being such that none of the local population is inadvertently insulted. But, for me, it's a pain in the bum, so they are plain Biel from now on!

3G, Streaming and a Phone - The answer to split loyalties

On the day of this match, I faced a big dilemma. My hometown club, Doncaster Rovers are leading English League 1 and were playing a crucial game against fourth placed Swindon Town. Very unusually for Doncaster, this match was being televised live. But then there was my adopted Swiss side, FC Winterthur visiting FC Biel and playing in a stadium that otherwise was not going to get a Swiss 36 visit due to the extreme naughtiness of the resident club. What to do?!

Obviously, I decided, as all should that watching football live in a stadium should take precedence over watching football on TV. So off we set, with me moaning just a little bit.

"I wish I could watch the Rovers AND go to to game" I complained.

Wait a minute. If this match was being streamed, surely I could stream it to my IPhone? It was a great plan and thanks to a great link supplied by my forum friends and Puffin Browser, I was able to watch the whole of the match from South Yorkshire mostly during the train journey to Neuchâtel.

Points Time.

Getting There.

9 / 10. Really easy on the train as Neuchâtel is on the main Zürich / Geneva line, and so it was a single train from Winterthur. From the station, the stadium was about 10 minutes walk. I didn't see any signposts, but I don't think I took my eyes off my phone screen long enough to see any!

Friendliness.

5 / 10. Just as we were climbing the stairs to go into the stadium, Jamie McCoombe scored for Donny and had me bouncing around like a loony. Naturally, I was keen to revel in this moment from every possible angle. While I was reveling, the security guard was wanting to check my rucksack. I unzipped everything and offered it up.

"Is there any food or drink in here?" he asked.

What is this, Swiss "I don't want to do my job" week! I said that I didn't think so.

"What's that?" he asked, gesturing towards the cup of enhanced lemonade that I was holding.

"Can I take it in?"

"No"

"Then I'll stand here and drink it" (there wasn't much left). "Sorry" I added. "This is a really important football match"

That got me a real look of disdain, which was fine because it allowed me to pointedly stand there ignoring him. He wanted the cup though, so I drank up and handed it over.

He then faffed about giving me a cloakroom ticket so the cup could be reclaimed and I went into the stadium to find a quiet corner of the concourse and watch the rest of the game.

Once the distraction of Donny extending their lead in league 1 was over, I was able to look around, and what a great little stadium the Maladière is!

Safety.

7 / 10. The stadium is a modern, 12000 capacity all-seater with a wide and smart concourse all the way

around. The only issues I had were a little fencing at the designated away end (closed for this fixture) and an error by the stewards.

Wearing full FC Winterthur regalia including shirts, scarves and a jacket with a huge FC Winterthur badge on the back, we walked into the home supporters area. We weren't the only ones to make this mistake either. We'd already hung our flags and had gone in search of refreshments when a steward decided to point out that we were in the home fans' area. Our tickets were valid in both the Winterthur and Biel areas, which is also stupid if you are bothering to segregate.

For us, it wouldn't have mattered but on a different game, with more volatile fans, that could have been a problem.

View.

9 / 10. Great all the way around. The only problem would be if you were behind that fenced area.

Atmosphere.

4 / 10. Only 580 attended in the 12000 capacity stadium. The club were sensible enough only to open two sides but its still a few people in amongst a lot of empty seats. All the atmosphere was provided by the 100 or so Winti fans who travelled and made the match a home fixture.

Refreshments.

5 / 10. Mrs Duck and I had quite a tasty burger, which was a welcome departure from the standard sausage. The beer was Heineken, which is bad enough but insisting on selling it in 330ml beakers was just annoying.

Overall.

39 / 60. The stadium is great. They just need to work on the peripherals.

The Match

Could I possibly get a great game to watch live after watching the main event in South Yorkshire ended in the way I wanted? You bet I could!

The opening exchanges were fairly even, an effort from Aratore going wide for the visitors while Biel did manage to bring a save from Leite through Charles Doudin. The game burst into life in the 34th minute. Marco Aratore got free on the right and his cross was clearly handled by Mehdi Challendes. Despite the Grobbelaar-like antics of Mossi, Biel's young 'keeper, Kristian Kuzmanovic made no mistake in hitting the bottom left-corner. A minute later and Winti were back again. This time Aratore didn't want the palaver of a penalty and so he hit an excellent shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the area. For Biel, it was now a case of holding on to half-time to re-group.

This they duly did and after the break they came out guns blazing. Four minutes into the second half, Giuseppe Morello pulled a goal back and four minutes after that he had a brace and it was game on. The home were pushing for a third but in doing so defence was being forgotten and Winterthur did take advantage, Jonas Elmer breaking through and finishing coolly. To finish the scoring, the two-goal lead was restored when Patrick Bengondo put his head where few would dare in making sure a goal-mouth scramble ended up with the ball where it should finish from a attacking side's point of view.

With three minutes to go, Christian Leite showed his opposite number in the Biel goal how a penalty should be handled from a goalkeeping point of view and it was a good afternoon's work for the visitors.