The Swiss 36 No. 14 Kleinfeld Stadion - SC Kriens

SC Kriens v SC YF Juventus

Another member of the Swiss first promotion league and another one of the victims of the season of death last season.   While I'm on the subject of the Swiss first promotion league, I'd like to point out how initially, it is looking like a good initiative for the regional clubs who became national clubs.  At the moment, the highest-placed club that was relegated from the Challenge League is Kriens, and they sit in 6th position.  I think that very statement is a wake-up call for any Swiss Challenge League side finding themselves visiting a first league promotion team in the cup. 

Mount Pilatus  - The Normal Reason to go to Kriens

Kriens is a small town, not far from Luzern.  The normal reason for visiting Kriens is to get on a cable car that takes you up the magnificent Mount Pilatus where the views over the Vierwaldstätter See (Lake Lucerne) are breathtaking.  

So when in Kriens, should you go up the mountain or go to the match?

After a single bus ride from Luzern station and a short walk we found ourselves at the Kleinfeld Stadion.

Getting tickets and entrance were no problem at all with no intrusive security.  

Just inside the gate and there's a pleasant area for socializing.  Here you find food stalls, drinks and nice places to consume them, including Stehtische (Standing Tables) right at the side of the pitch.  These tables are by no means rare at Swiss grounds and do provide a very pleasent way to watch the game.

But like the football fans we are, Mrs. Duck and I made our way around to the Kriens Kop behind the goal.

Points Time.

Getting There

7 / 10.  A single bus ride from Luzern station takes you to within 10 minutes walk of the ground.  It is signposted, though not from all directions, so we did have a little guess work.

Friendliness

12  / 10.  Friendly catering staff and we had a chat with the Kriens faithful after the game.  Good guys who even invited us to go to the local Kriens Town Festival that was going on that weekend.  We thought better of it, only because Kriens gave us the rare opportunity of getting home early after a Swiss 36 visit.

Stop press:  We met those guys in Friburg a couple of weeks later.  We enjoyed the second half with them, they gave us a lift to the station and even got us in first class for the trip home.  3 more points to Kriens!

View

Executive Areas

9 / 10.  Kleinfeld means "Small Field"  and that is quite apt.  But it is a proper football ground so there's good viewing to be had all the way around the ground.  Kriens, although a small club, seem to cater for all pockets and there is even what looks like an executive area.

Safety

7 / 10.  Nothing, like fences to get really upset about.  Very relaxed security.  The only issue would be that the terrace steps are a touch high for my taste.

Atmosphere

5 / 10.  Only 400 spectators in the stadium, but at least about 20 of them behind the goal were giving it a go!

Refreshments

7 / 10.  Sausages and Burgers - standard fare.  But everything was barbecued and I did like the way they did the burgers (you paid your money, received a burger in a bun and then added the additional stuff like onions, garlic etc. yourself).  Very tasty too.

Ice Cream was also available and made a welcome desert.  Despite the game being in late October, the weather was gorgeous.  We actually attended the game in shorts and T-Shirts.  I mention this because now, one week later, I am looking out of my window at about 9" of snow.

Nice Kit!

Overall 47 / 60

Redeeming Feature

Now there's something about that Kriens home kit that I likle (for Swiss readers, it's identical to my home town team of Doncaster Rovers' away kit).

The Match

Absolutely no classic I'm afraid.  The highlight came with the Visitors first attempt at goal in the 16th minute.  And a successful attempt it was too.

Ndoy Balu received the ball from a poor Kriens headed clearance on the edge of the 18 yard area.  He picked his spot perfectly and the visitors had the lead.

The rest of the game saw Kriens try and fail to get back from that strike.  Juventus did a very good job in limiting Kriens time and space in midfield.  For the rest of the game, both sides limited each other to half-chances, which neither were capable of converting.

A typical lower flight game, where defences dominated and there wasn't much to get excitided about.

To answer the earlier question that I posed.  If you're in Kriens, and you have never done it before.  Go up Pilatus on the Cable Car.  If you have done it before, go up again if the weather is nice.  But if the weather is not so good, there are far worse ways to spend and afternoon than watching a game of football.

The Swiss 36 No. 13 La Blancherie - SR Delémont

SR Delémont v BSC Old Boys

Our first journey to a Swiss third -flight ground took us to the Canton of Jura and the town of Delémont.   The Swiss 3rd flight, Erste Liga Promotion as it is called, is having its inaugural season.  Five sides relegated from the Challenge league have been joined by 11 teams promoted from various regional leagues to form the third national league in Switzerland.

We took the train over to the French bit of Switzerland not knowing quite where the stadium was.  Out of the station we came, and started peering at one of those town-maps looking for something vaguely stadium-like.  As we were looking, a yellow and black clad gentleman asked if we were looking for the football ground.  He then gave us directions.  Unfortunately, he gave us the directions in French and my French is embarrassingly bad but with his pointing we got the gist.  Friendly!  Good start.

La Blancherie from the Flyover

The stadium actually turned out to be about a 10 minute walk away, just on the edge of town.  We paused on the flyover.  We had a good view of the pitch, and probably were no further away than fans who pay silly money to sit at the back of the Emirates stadium.  Could we just stay here?

Absolutely not!  This is simply outside of the spirit of our tour.

Heading towards the ground, and we had our normal debate about how we were going to get our "orange juice" inside.  It was complicated this time, but we just about managed to get all the orange juice enhancer shared between two plastic cups and a burger king cup.  There was just about enough orange juice to take the edge off the enhancer.  The plastic cups were carefully stashed in the side-pockets of my rucksack and with my innocent looking, Burger King Coke, we headed for the stadium.

A friendly bunch of kids gave us a program.  Its actually a leaflet but its free and has the team information and we bought our tickets, using our atrocious French.  The lady on the ticket desk responded with vastly better German and in we went.  No security whatsoever.  After all the skill and guile we'd applied, I was kinda disappointed!

Points Time

Getting There

7 / 10.  It's easy to get to Delémont as there are regular trains from Basel.  The town map just outside the station is very clear so I'm confident we would have found the stadium.  After 5 minutes walking in  the right direction, you see the floodlights so no real problem at all.

Friendliness

10 / 10.  See what happens when you start to visit the smaller clubs!  

First of all, we have the helpful fan doing his best to explain how to get to the ground.  No issues getting in and in the ground it got better. 

As ever, we wanted our mini-pennants, but we couldn't see a club shop.  So we asked (remember, we do not speak the language) and were pointed to a gentleman who spoke German.  This guy went into the offices and brought back two lovely pennants and some stickers.  He wanted 10 Sfr for the lot.   Wow!  

At half time, the local fans chatted with us about our tour and it was thoroughly enjoyable.  The lad who had directed us to the stadium wanted to buy me a beer.  I insisted on getting him one and we were invited back for Delémont's cup clash with Super-League Lausanne.

Clear 10 / 10 and we are going to do our best with that game against Lausanne.

View

View: Sadly poor from behind the goal

6 /10.   Absolutely fine at the sides of the ground, but sadly, due to it being an athletics stadium, behind the goals its a dead loss.

Safety

8/10.  Security was non existent but it would also have been completely unnecessary.  I just hope they get it right when the larger teams visit.  No fences for me to get upset about and the terraces were fine in terms of height.

Atmosphere

4 / 10.  Very tough.  There were just 480 spectators in the 5263 capacity stadium so it was never going to be a surround-sound roar.  

Refreshments

7 / 10.  Sausages again but it was nice to see them barbecued.  Sadly, the Veal Bratwurst that I tried was very mushy (they are normally, quite mushy, but this was very mushy).  The beer was Heineken which is also something that we should hold against them!

Pluses.  There looked to be some nice wines available.  At 25 SFr a bottle, it wasn't that badly priced either if you consider restaurant prices.

Overall

42 / 60


The Match

 A first comment I'll make is how well Swiss ball-boys manage the multi-ball system.  I know its not rocket science but I've seen lads older than this kid mess it up enough times in England.

The match wasn't bad although it was characterized by the lack of ability to cut through defences you often see at lower levels.

Decent enough though with the home side always the stronger. Early on, Delémont pressed and eventually Badara Sene burst through into the 6 yard box forcing the Old Boys 'keeper to bravely save at his feet.  The best moment of the half came when Delémont broke up an Old Boys break and attacked themselves.  A shot from 30 yards plus from Tomi Saarelma brought a great save from Florian Stocker.  Other than that, much probing by Delémont, but little from the visitors.

More of the same in the second half.  Sene was played in perfectly with the goal at his mercy but scooped it high over the bar,.  but on 55 minutes, he made a mends, powerfully heading home a corner.

If Delémont were dominating up to now, it was only going to get worse for the Old Boys.  A horribly late challenge by Claudio Zenger resulted in his dismissal.  From now on it was chance after chance for Delémont but they only managed one more goal.  On 71 minutes a good run from Enès Morina was spotted and the striker made no mistake with his one-on-one with Stocker.  Delémont pressed for the third goal their dominance deserved but it was not to be.

The Swiss 36 No. 12 Rheinpark Stadion - FC Vaduz

FC Vaduz  v  FC Winterthur

The Rheinpark Stadion - Very much in the distance

The day before this match, we were walking back towards Winterthur station when a voice yelled "Hey!  English!".  

We turned around and saw that none other than Winterthur centre-forward, Patrick Bengondo had stopped his car in the middle of the road to say hello.  He asked us if we were going to the match and we confirmed.  So that was us...committed!

The next day saw driving wind and rain for the trip to Liechtenstein.

Now, I've been to Vaduz before and enjoyed the experience.  As you would imagine, Liechtenstein is quite like Switzerland, only even cleaner!  Anyway, the last visit certinaly wasn't unpleasant and I was quite looking forward to this trip.

The last time I was in Vaduz, I drove there but this time public transport was the order of the day.  The first thing I noticed was that on a Sunday, I couldn't find any train and bus combinations that were going to get us to Vaduz at a reasonable time before kick-off.  That's an unusual thing in Switzerland but then again, its NOT Switzerland is it?  So we took the FC Winterthur-faithfulls' recommendations on how to get to the Rheinpark Stadion.

Three trains later and we were at Sevelen, a small town not far from the Liechtenstein border with a group of about 20 or so Winterthur fans.  We jumped off the train into the rain for the walk to the stadium.  

Jazzy Electronic sign

Say what?  walk?  It was along a fairly major and featureless road and it took us across a motorway and over the Rhein into Liechtenstein. In the weather we had, not very pleasant.  There are mountains around there, of course, you just couldn't see them that well.  35 minutes later and, my word, was this a professional outfit we were visiting?  A very jazzy electronic signing announcing the game to everyone heading that way.  Somehow, I think the sign is for when the likes of England or Germany visit, as Rheinpark is also of course the national stadium of Liechtenstein. 

A Better View of Rheinpark Stadium

Now it would be silly to have a Wembley as the national stadium of Liechtenstein.  Wembley would actually seat the entire population of the principality twice over.  The capacity is 7789  so its by no means a colosseum. 

No problems at all buying tickets on the day (15 SFr each, very fair) or getting into the stadium.  Security correctly saw fit to take custody of our umbrellas as they do not allow Wallies with Brollies.  Besides, there were plenty of covered places from where to watch the game.

Points Time.

Getting There

2 / 10.  The longest walk so far and not a particularly pleasant one especially in the wind and the rain (no, I didn't deduct points for the weather).  It was also a shame that the route to the stadium did not take us through Vaduz.  It would have been nice to see the place.

Friendliness

8 / 10.  I don't think I spoke to a Vaduzian (I will call them Vaduzians, it makes them sound like they feature in Star Trek) other than staff or ball boys at the ground but those who I did talk too were fine.  Always courteous and polite even when telling us off!

Safety

Rheinpark Stadion

9 / 10.  Not a nasty fence or net in sight.  The stadium is mostly seated and the stewards had no problem with people standing in the seated area.

View

9 / 10.  No matter what the attendance, I couldn't see how you would fail to have a decent view in this ground.  No nets or fences in the way, no pillars.  It's fine.  

Whats this empty area all about?

So why the lost point.  Well its a minor issue and I think its some kind of safety ruling.  Mrs. Duck and I are "standers".  We also like to be right next to the action if possible.  Somewhat bizarrely, on three sides of the ground they haven't bothered with terracing or seats at the lower levels.   

Now Mrs. Duck and I wanted to let our team know we were there, so we stood in this area right on the fence.  The local steward insisted we went up the steps into the seated area.  Why?  I can only guess that they were worried about our getting a football in the face.  

Anyway, they were very polite about asking us to go into the stand....and its their rules.  But it has cost them two points so he who laughs last...!

Atmosphere

3 / 10.  Vaduzians!  I was disappointed so here's a tip for next time.  There's a ball-boy who stands to the right of the goal in the photo above.  Have a chat with him about getting behind your team and engaging in banter with opposition fans.  We got into a bit of a banter-battle with him but I decided to give it up.  In a banter-battler with an 11-year old, there can be only one winner and that wouldn't be me.  I settled for shaking his hand at the end of the game.

The 150 or so Winterthur fans were as noisy and colourful as ever.

Refreshments

4 / 10.  Not good.  The sausages we had were OK but the burger was very dry.  That was about that for the selection available.  

Overall

35 / 60

Redeeming Feature

Difficult to find one to be honest.

The Match

Matched the weather I'm afraid.  Winterthur lost by a single goal to nil and were probably lucky to get away with that!  Vaduz always had the upper hand and Winterthur never really got into their game.

At the start Winterthur were allowing far too much space in front of their defence and Vaduz nearly made them pay early on with a long range lob that fortunately cleared the goal with Leite, uncharacteristically in completely the wrong place.  

That video represents the first time I saw the goal, and its not nice viewing.  At the time, I was answering a call of nature and admiring the absolutely spotless toilets when suddenly I was hit by goal-music piped into the toilets.  Vaduz - please see the point on atmosphere.  Your fans should not need music to tell them when to cheer.  This is something Americans need, not us cultured Europeans.  Oh, and PLEASE tell me what piping the music into the toilet is going to achieve, apart from an embarrassing drip or two (I didn't but I hope you understand the point).

Anyway, the video shows Vladan Milosovic strolling through the left hand side of the Winterthur defence before crossing for Stefan Iten to unfortunately play into his own net.  16 minutes, 1 : 0.

For the rest of the half, the Vaduzians looked like doubling their lead more than Winti looked like equalizing and Christian Leite pulled off a couple of saves that are much more characteristic of him.

The second half and it really should have been two nil.  Tripodi crossed for Hasler to shoot from around the penalty spot and I think Leite did not know too much about the hand that got in the ball's way.  Tripodi had a chance himself to make the score sheet but was denied by a great tackle from Savvas Exouzidis.

Winterthur's best moment?  a speculative effort from Kuzmanovic that brought a reasonable save.

Poor from Winterthur.  And now I had that bloody walk back to the station.

The Swiss 36 No. 11 Stade Tourbillion - FC Sion

FC Sion  v  FC Zürich

Sion's two Castles.  Do they mean Sion must fight everyone?

For our penultimate review of a Swiss Super League stadium, we made the long journey to Sion for a visit to a team that, in my opinion does remarkably well.  Sion is the 20th largest city in Switzerland with a population of just 27600 and so is the smallest city with representation in the Super League.  To put that more into context, the next smallest city represented in the Super League is Thun with 40000 inhabitants although 95000 are declared in the Thun agglomeration.  If the agglomerations are taken into account, St. Gallen has the next smallest target population in the Super League with 70000.

What I'm making a mess of saying is that the city of Sion has far less people in the area to attract to the football stadium.  In Premier League terms (though absolutely no other) they could be twinned with Wigan.  But they don't perform like Wigan.  They have two league titles and 12 Swiss cup wins to their name, the last being in 2011. 

They are no strangers to controversy.  In 2008, they signed Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadarey.  Unfortunately, there was a dispute regarding the ending of his previous playing contract and Sion were accused and found guilty of fielding a player who was registered for another club.  As a result, they were banned for two years from registering players.  Sion appealed but the verdict and sentence were upheld, becoming effective in the winter transfer window of 2010/11.

Now things really got complicated.  Sion sued UEFA and the Swiss Football league in the Swiss courts.  In the course of these civil actions, the SFL had provisionally allowed the registration of 6 players in the summer of 2011 to comply with the ongoing legal process.  At least some of these players were fielded in Sion's Europa League tie with Celtic, which they won, 3:1 on aggregate.  Celtic appealed the result on the grounds that Sion had fielded ineligible players and UEFA ruled for the Scottish club.  Sion were forced to forfeit the tie, a decision that they naturally took to the Court of arbitration in Sport (CAS). They lost again and so took CAS to the Swiss civil court.

By this time, everyone was thoroughly fed up with Sion's courtroom antics and UEFA got tough.   They and FIFA threatened to suspend all Swiss teams including the national team from international competition unless Sion were appropriately punished by the SFA for their continued rules violations.  Although originally reluctant to do this due to pending civil actions against them, the SFA eventually succumbed to the considerable pressure and Sion were deducted 36 league points (3 points for every game where an ineligible player was fielded).  

As a result, they finished last season in 9th place but maintained Super League status by beating FC Aarau in a play-off game (I really wish they hadn't done that - the reasons for which will become apparent in a future article).

Is this the end of the Sion saga?  I certainly hope so!

Looks alright - at first sight!

Back to our day, and its was quite a journey down to Sion but, as ever on trains that connected uncannily.  At Sion and Mrs. Duck demonstrated her opinion of the place by throwing her Coke all over MacDonalds.  

We then had a 20 minute not unpleasant walk to a stadium that looked quite good.  From the outside, whilst its not beautiful, it does show more character than St. Jakobspark or Stade de Suisse.  

Are they trying to keep people out or in?

As we got closer, I began to get less keen.  The height of the fences around the stadium started to give me my first feelings of trepidation.

But no problem in purchasing tickets and at 25 SFr for a standing ticket, quite reasonable for the Super League.  Security was very thorough but polite.  It is the only stadium so far where I have been asked to empty my rucksack.

I did this and my emergency corkscrew was confiscated and I was informed where it could be collected after the game.

I'm in two minds about this confiscation.  On the one hand, the corkscrew has a blade for foil-cutting so could be classed as a knife.  Fair confiscation.  On the other hand, the corkscrew has also been discovered as I have boarded planes in the past and was not confiscated.  Anyway, it cost 5 Francs and I couldn't be bothered to argue about it or retrieve it.

Go into the stadium and it looks like a great place to watch football.  And then it hits you!

Points time.

Getting There

4 / 10.  No problem on the train but in Sion, it wasn't clear how to get to the stadium.  We ended up following fans, which of course works fine, but a little help wouldn't go amiss.

Friendliness 

8 / 10. Nice people wherever we went.  The local fans seemed interested in our Swiss 36 quest and this was the first stadium where a fan said "well welcome to the Tourbillion".  Security, although thorough, weren't in any way rude or overly officious.  

Nice Touch - Topping the high fence barbed wire

Safety

2 / 10.  What a shame!  The terrace height is fine but for me, more crush barriers are needed.  But the real issue is the fences.

At both ends, they are topped with barbed-wire just to make sure nobody can escape a crush on the terraces should they have to do so.  Again, no fences around the posh seats down the sides.  There is a bit of a moat at the sides, but its massively better than the fences.  

I bet they didn't empty their rucksacks

Then close to full time, in a stadium that looks to have a fair bit of wood in the structure, the Züri fans did this.  

Nice!  Please remember that Sion are a team capable of challenging for European competition places.  Without their huge points deduction last season, they would have finished second.

I saw an article on a Swiss magazine program stating that the Kanton of Zürich were adopting a zero tolerance attitude to flares in stadia (which are, incidentally very precisely banned by law).  So where do the SFA and other cantons stand on this point?

View

6 / 10.  Weakened only by the obvious issue of having to be so far up the terrace to see past those fences.  Fine from where I stood on the day.

Make some noise!

Atmosphere

9 / 10.  Loved it!  Fan-cheerleaders with megaphones encouraging the Sion fans plus an intelligently used big screen scoreboard worked well.  

Apart from being prats with flares, well done to Zürich too for playing their part.

Refreshments

1 / 10.  Bloody rubbish.  Where I was, there was only one food stall offering hot-dogs and other sausages.  The poor guy in there deserves an award as he was ridiculously overworked.  So I didn't sample the quality of the food as I gave up, returning to the terrace having already missed the first goal of the second half due to Sion's incompetence in staffing their stadium adequately.  Yes, I was pissed!

Cold drinks seemed only available in 33cl.  The beer was Calendar, which is an improvement on Feldshitschen.  The water was sparkling.  More bitching from Mrs. Duck!

Now that is beautiful!

Overall

30 / 60.

Redeeming Feature

Look at that home shirt!  For some reason I find it exceedingly attractive and wonder why a certain national side doesn't have such good taste!

I'd nearly give them an extra 10 for that.  Nearly but not quite!

The Match

Really good, in fact probably the best I've seen on the tour so far.  

Sion raced to a two goal lead in the first half.  Former Rangers' star Kyle Lafferty headed home Die Serey's cross after just 7 minutes to give Sion the lead.  The advantage was doubled on 26 minutes as  Manset found Xavier Magairaz who fired home.  Zürich had their chances going forwards, but were naive to say the least at the back.  Sion were taking full advantage.

While I was attempting to sample the Hot Dogs, Zürich pulled one back.  No idea what the goal was like but it was scored by Mario Gavranovic.  Now we had a game!  Züri pressed for the rest of the game with Sion reduced to countering.  The ending was very predictable.  On 94 minutes a corner was played into the middle of the Sion area and Jorge Teixeira headed in unchallenged.  Zürich went wild.  Sion's heads went in their hands!

The Swiss 36 No. 10 Stadion Niedermatten, FC Wohlen

FC Wohlen v  FC Winterthur

A rare Thursday night fixture found us taking a trip to FC Wohlen on this occasion in support of the real FCW, FC Winterthur.

Wohlen are perennial strugglers at this level, but they did survive the "Todessaison" (season of death).  Last season, the SFL decided on a restructuring.  The Super League was unaffected (of course) but the Challenge league was reduced from 16 teams to 10 meaning 6 teams were effectively relegated.  You could really see the top flight of any league system agreeing to that!

In the event, the disqualification of Neuchatel Xamax from the Super League meant no team was automatically relegated into the Challenge League.  So to keep 10 sides in the Challenge League, only 5 needed to be relegated.  Wohlen finished 11th, so Xamax's demise was their saviour and they claimed the last place in the Challenge league instead of the last relegation spot to the First Promotion League.  

So Wohlen do well to stay in the Challenge League but after visiting them, I couldn't help thinking they may have an uphill struggle to continue doing so.

Getting to Wohlen is about a two-hour train journey from where I live.  Its not that its particularly far, more that its not on the mainline links but is on the commuter train network.  So its 3 trains all with lots of stops. Fortunately, its much easier to get to from my work so I met up with the Winti fans, and Mrs. Duck at Dietikon, just one train-stop up the line from my work and so just had the final 1/2 hour of this trip to negotiate.

Once in Wohlen came the million dollar question.  Where is the stadium?  An initial enquiry by one of the Winti fans had us heading off in completely the wrong direction, but fortunately, one of the away-day veterans corrected us.  First concern there, the locals didn't seem to know where the stadium was!

Go yonder young man, seek and ye shall find.  So I went yonder.  And a bit more yonder.  When I was seeing corn fields on my left, I was glad I was seeing stadium lights in front of me.

First sight of the Niedermatten Stadium

Five minutes later and we were there.

Curiously, there's a kids slide directly outside the ground.  Nothing else, just a wooden fancy slide like those you see at service stations.  This is a mistake.  Wohlen should be getting the kids in the stadium to watch the football because an over-riding impression I had about their support was that they were aging.

The ground itself doesn't look much from the outside, but nor do many Swiss stadia.

Small - but clean

Inside and the stadium is quite like FC Winti's Schützenwiese, but much smaller.  There's a covered seating area and then open terraces around the other 3 sides of the ground.  

When I say terraces, it would be more correct to say terrace.  Just one step so you either stand on the top step, or the bottom step.

Another first impression was how clean everything was!  Cleanliness is very Swiss, but this place looked new.  Its actually only been open since 2004 but you wouldn't think it was that long.  Everything looks like new showing that FC Wohlen are obviously very proud of this little stadium.

Points Time

Getting There

3 / 10.  Its a bit of a palaver getting to Wohlen.  No mainline trains so you have to find your way on S-Bahns (commuter trains) from either Zürich or Baden.  It was also quite a walk from the station without any signage.  I was wondering at time just where we were going.  A signpost here and there would have been reassuring.

I've since found out that there's a regular taxi service (?) from the station.  I've seen something like this before but haven't used it so can't be sure what it is.  I think its a bus that everyone gets on.  The driver then asks what stops everyone wants and you pay your fares accordingly but I'm not sure.

Friendliness

9/10.  Lovely people.  The staff of the refreshment stand were chatty and happy.  A strange thing was that when we asked for the club shop, Wohlen fans looked at us quizzically.  They don't exactly have a club shop.  There's sometimes a stand just to the front of the ground but that night, it wasn't there.

We asked at the counter of the restaurant if there were any souvenirs available.  The lady asked what we wanted and, bless her, she went racing upstairs to check if they had the little car-pennants we were after!  Sadly, they didn't but very nice people all the same.

Safety

3 / 10.  First point - No bloody high fences!  In many ways I'd give them a big 10 just for that, but there are short-comings especially for a modern stadium.

One step on the terrace yes, but what a step! That step is 2 feet.  Now think about quite a lot of elderly fans going around on crutches or walking sticks and someone could have a nasty fall.  Forget the elderly, I felt it, bumping down that step.  Also, the stadium does serve alcohol.

Finally, stadium capacity is quoted at 3734.  With that number of fans present, as could be against a Super-League side in the cup and there could be crowd surges at worst and at least a little overcrowding that may cause people to fall down that step.  It's far from good!

From a playing point of view, the edge of the playing field is too close to the fans.  Great being right on top of the action, but at some point, a player will crash into the edge fences because there is practically no run-off.

View

6/10.  Great from where I was, right at the edge of the pitch to one side of the goal but with 3500 in the stadium, I wonder how good those standing at the back would see with only two tiers of terracing?  

Atmosphere

3 /10.  But this is tough for Wohlen.  The attendance for the game was 920, 120 of whom were visiting fans.  Wohlen has a population of 14600 but has the only side in the Challenge League or above in the district of Bremgarten (population 70232).  More of these people need to be attracted to football, though its difficult to see how.  At 20 SFr (£13.25) for a standing ticket, its hardly breaking the bank so I doubt that cost stops the fans from coming.

So its must be simply absence of fans.  Plus as I said, the fans they have seem to be aging.  Wohlen have work to do!

On the night, as ever, the 120 Winti fans gave a good account of themselves.  Plenty of flags and noise and there was this English guy giving sage advice to the referee from time to time!  Sadly, I heard Wohlen fans twice, and one of those times was when they scored.

Refreshments

6/10  Feldshitschen beer again at 5 SFr for 4dl (just shy of a pint) seems standard for the Challenge League.  Mrs Duck refuses to drink Feldshitschen, which is a big indication of just how bad it is.  Instead she went for a fruit punch (apple flavour).  She ended up binning this after describing it as "sweet as buggery" (just how sweet is that?)

The standard 3 types of sausage, were tasty enough and again reasonably priced.   For variation, a pork-steak sandwich was offered but sadly, they were all sold out before we arrived.  Big shame.

The club do have a restaurant but unfortunately it looks like a works canteen (a very clean work's canteen).  It really needs to have a pub atmosphere but doesn't come close.  The refreshment stands and tents outside are better, but still missing that that feeling of a pub.  I think trying to develop something like this will help the club on increasing the gates.

On my way out, I noticed some kind of crustacean was being served with pasta in the restaurant. I'm guessing shrimp or possibly even crayfish.  It looked interesting and I may have been tempted had the time been on my side.  Hardly football food though.

Redeeming Feature

Has to be the cleanliness everywhere.  Its very impressive and pleasant.

Overall

30 / 60.

The Match

Hmmm.  Spoken as Winti fan frustrating.  I'm sure Wohlen loved it!  It was a Carbon copy of the game at the Schützenwiese earlier in the season.  Winterthur had the possession and proved themselves the better footballing side but Wohlen defended well and showed some quality on the break.  

After just 9 minutes, the ball was poorly cleared by Winterthur and Freddy Mveng hit a low side-footed shot.  From the moment he hit it I knew where it was going and despite the best efforts of Stefan Iten, I was right.  Somewhat embarrassingly, that was Wohlen's first home goal of the season.

Winterthur pressed, but although you couldn't fault the effort, or the play, there was a spark that was missing.  The ball was moving, but always that little bit too slowly.    Patrick Bengondo came closest to equalizing but Gio Proietti saved well.

In the second half it continued with Winterthur playing the football, Wohlen defending well and at times looking dangerous when breaking.  Fortunately, Winti prevented Wohlen from recording a memorable double when they equalized in the 77th minute.  Loan signing Maurice Brunner managed to scramble the ball home saving Winti's blushes to an extent.

So 1:1, Wohlen moved onto 9 points, 4 of them won at the expense of Winterthur.  Bogey team?  Nah - the bogey team thread has yet to come, and you won't believe it!