FC St.Pauli: Rebellion and Commercialization, Punk and Social Work

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

FC St. Pauli is a 2nd Bundesliga team from Hamburg. That’s one thing. It is also "Germany’s original cult club," an "antifascist pioneer," the "club of punk and techno, or a "swashbuckling left wing club." The history behind these labels begin in the late 1980s, when punks occupied houses around St. Pauli’s stadium and antiracists found out that football grounds didn't just belong to Neonazis. It continues today, in a club that has spoken out against the overcommercialization of football, or as an ally to refugees, and in a fan culture that defines and defends its antifascist ties between neighboring Bremen and faraway Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Fanladen St Pauli connects the then and now. It's a fan-run and, very uniquely, social-worker led project with deep ties of accountability and advocacy to the club, its fanculture and the public, and deep roots in the community.
Julian and Paul from the Fanladen offer the lens of activist fans and knowledgable social workers to discuss what works at FC St. Pauli, some history, but also the dangers of the internationalization and commercialization of St. Pauli’s rebellious image. This is also the first TAoF episode that dropped sociologist Benedict Anderson's name - and it wasn't me who dropped it!

HELPFUL LINKS:
Highlights, with English commentary, from GAK - Sturm (2-3) on 11/2
Fanladen/Fan Project St. Pauli, website in English

Charles Vinas and Natxo Parra, St. Pauli: Another Football is Possible (Pluto Press, 2020) - review by Jacobin Magazine
The Guardian (2018), "FC St Pauli: how it became the football team of punk and techno"

Die Sterne - Wenn Dir St. Pauli auf den Geist fällt (This music video was filmed at the Millerntor stadium, pre-renovation)

St. Pauli enters the field to AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” in the Hamburg derby

St. Pauli - goal and goal music

Nina Glick Schiller, "Long Distance Nationalism

Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.
If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please

• Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
• Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/