In England, it’s often said that rugby is a thug’s game played by gentleman, while football is a gentleman’s game played by thugs. This can be read literally, but it also has a deeper pertinence.
Despite being the world’s most loved sport, there is so much about the modern game that’s deeply unlovable: from the obscene sums spent on players that are funded, in part, by the financial exploitation of cash-strapped fans, to the nouveau riche ostentatiousness of footballers and their WAGs (wives and girlfriends) and an uneven distribution of wealth that’s making the upper levels of the sport thoroughly uncompetitive, taking an active interest in football often forces you to tolerate things that most people find utterly reprehensible. But there is one club that stands in direct contrast to all the malignancies of the modern game: FC St. Pauli.
Based in the German port city of Hamburg, St. Pauli is the physical manifestation of punk rock in football club form. Despite never having won a single trophy in its entire existence, this sporting minnow has developed a global reputation for its leftwing politics and social activism, an outsider status that has bizarrely made it the fourth-biggest brand in German football.
Situated in the working class quarter of St. Pauli, a mere stone's throw away from the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s much-renowned red light district, the club has spent most of its existence bobbing about in the lower divisions of German football, shivering in the shadow of its significantly more successful rival, Hamburger SV.
To put it bluntly, up until some 30 years ago there was little reason for anyone to have heard of FC St. Pauli, but at some point in the 1980s, the many anarchists, punks and squatters that lived in the local area began to attend the team’s matches, turning every game into the sporting equivalent of a political rally and bringing a boisterous atmosphere that is the envy of clubs many times its size.
These highly-politicized fans, many of whom were residents of the infamous Hafenstrasse squat and involved in the squatter's rights protests that saved Hafenstrasse residents from eviction by the state, shaped the club in their own image, imbuing it with a progressive, left-leaning political identity for which it is so famous for today.
Over the years the club has been involved in numerous campaigns against racism, sexism, and homophobia, long before it became fashionable – and business savvy – for sports teams to do so. St. Pauli even holds the distinction of being the first German football club to officially ban displays of rightwing nationalism from its stands – an age-old problem that many teams have struggled with all across Europe.
While tokenistic, socially-minded gestures have become commonplace in professional football, St. Pauli has consistently gone a step further by launching practical initiatives aimed at helping disadvantaged communities in both its home city as well as further afield. Last summer, the club organized a charity match against footballing giants, Borussia Dortmund, handing out 1,000 tickets to recently-arrived refugees to help welcome them into the local community.
The match raised some €45,000 that would be used to fund search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean sea, to save other refugees fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East and Africa. In 2005 the club helped one if its players launch Viva Con Agua, a brand of bottled water and social business enterprise that helps finance access to clean drinking water and sanitation across the developing world. From LGBT issues to mental health, the list of causes supported by the club is as extensive as it is admirable.
For its newest social venture, FC St. Pauli has teamed up with iconic American denim brand, Levi’s, to transform one of the VIP boxes at the club’s home ground into a music school for kids from the local community, who will be able to get free music lessons from qualified teachers using instruments supplied by Levi’s and the club.
Perched high up in the south stand of the Millerntor-Stadion, floor-to-ceiling windows offer sweeping views of both the pitch and the südkurve, where the most hardcore of St. Pauli’s fans gather during matches. Typically rented out for the duration of the season by the club’s corporate partners, Levi’s has converted one of these boxes into the sort of personal jamming room that you might see inside a rock star’s house on MTV Cribs: guitars hang from the walls alongside Blondie and Iggy Pop posters, a denim rug is sprawled out on the floor, while the ceiling is dotted with tom-toms that double up as the most rock ‘n roll light shades in the world.
The St. Pauli Music School is part of the Levi’s Music Project, a global initiative that seeks to give back to communities around the world through access to music education. Partnering up with FC St. Pauli makes perfect sense because music is a cornerstone of the club.
At the beginning of every match, the players walk out onto the Millerntor pitch to the sound of AC/DC’s “Hells Bells,” Blur’s “Song 2” plays out on the stadium loudspeaker every time the team scores a goal, while a sizable chunk of the global punk scene has adopted St. Pauli as its own unofficial football team.
As I mentioned earlier, FC St. Pauli is punk rock manifested in football form, and with its deep roots in the local community, Levi’s Music Project is able to tap into these ties and have a real effect on people’s lives.
Cynics might dismiss these sorts of corporate social responsibility initiatives as vanity projects designed to rake in good PR, but according to FC St. Pauli president, Oke Göttlich, a warm, personable bear of a man who looks like he gives great hugs, there’s a real need for music programs in the country.
“This is something that we’re lacking in Germany, generally – much more so than in other countries like Sweden, where music is already a much bigger part of the schooling program,” he tells me as we gaze out onto the neat green pitch of the Millerntor. “We really wanted to create something where kids that usually have no access to musical education can have the opportunity to get free lessons: there are three professional teachers here giving lessons on different instruments. At other times, people will have the opportunity to use it as a jamming room and as a production and recording studio.”
The music school launched recently with a summer camp for local youth led by professional musicians Axel Bosse (lead singer of Bosse), Bela B. (who played drums for Die Ärtze) and Dave Doughman (lead singer and guitarist for Swearing at Motorists) but will continue throughout the year.
Symbolically, this gesture fits with the DNA of the club: most teams are recognized by their jerseys or crest, but St. Pauli’s defining symbol is the skull-and-crossbones, which supporters have adopted as their own unofficial totem because they style themselves as the swashbuckling pirates of German football – the outsiders that represent the poor against richer clubs in this Champions League-era game of moneyball. The fact that one of the VIP boxes has literally been taken out of corporate usage and given to the people is deliciously congruent with that image.
Although, that being said, there is one glaringly awkward elephant in the room that I can’t possibly avoid addressing: how does St. Pauli, the anti-establishment club, reconcile working with a global brand such as Levi’s? Doesn’t that contradict its punk ethos?
“We always want to work with partners instead of sponsors,” Oke tells me, reflexively. “Yes, we are seen as this anti-commercial football club but of course we have commercial partnerships, because we play in the professional leagues. Our decision is very clear: we want to play in the professional leagues, so we have to bring together money and partnerships, because the more successful we are, the more we can project the values that we have. Every partner that we gain will be tested: we want to work with people that share similar ideas as us, which also resonates with the fans.”
In many ways, as a football club, St. Pauli is faced with the same eternal conundrum that has always plagued cult, underground bands: do they sign with a major label (or in this case, sponsor) and sacrifice their street cred for financial reward, or do they starve and hope while attempting to navigate the bumpy road to success under frugal constraint? So far, the club seems to be doing well in balancing along a thin middle ground between the two.
When St. Pauli switched kit suppliers at the end of last season, leaving its long-time partner for an American brand with some uncomfortable ties to guns and hunting, there was obvious concern amongst fans, as you’d expect. But Oke is a fan himself, having first attended matches as a teenager before becoming a club member and working his way up to boardroom level, so he intimately understands the importance of engaging in direct dialogue with supporters and maintaining the club’s values – after all, it is the club’s fans and principles that attract sponsors in the first place, not its football, and without them it would have little worth.
The new supplier was warned against employing the sort of macho posturing that might get a free pass in the States and was even talked into setting aside some money to build basketball courts in the local area. In this small corner of Hamburg, cash is a means to an end, rather than the ultimate goal, and if capitalism really does have a compassionate side, then FC St. Pauli seems to have found it through partners like Levi’s.
Levi's 511 are the ultimate going out jeans, let us explain why.
