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Tuesday 16 July 2024
Played at Sportplatz an der Rudolf Breitscheid Strasse
Ground Tick #501
German Beer Ticks FINISH on this trip at #161
My 501st Ground Tick was out in Babelsberg.
“You'll be familiar with Babelsberg of course.”
“Whaaaaat? You're not.”
“Well please fucking tell me you've heard of Steinstücken. Just across the railway from the ground.”
“No. Never. Strap yourself in…”
We're pre programmed I feel to think of the Berlin wall as a wall snaking through the city centre of Berlin. A grim, urban setting. But of course, there was mile after mile of East Germany to the West of West Berlin. And to the North. And to the South of course.
Essentially, the whole of West Berlin was surrounded by a wall. It didn't just cut through the City Centre.
On our trip out to FSV Babelsberg 74, the Carrier Bag Firm visited Schloss Cecilienhof. The mad Tudor Manor House style gaff outside Potsdam. Cecilienhof was where Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Uncle Jo Stalin met in July/August 1945 to carve up Europe at the end of the Second World War.
I weren't there. But you can imagine. We'll have this bit. You can have this bit. I've no fucking clue what this bit is. Fuck it, you have it. It was ever thus. For, earlier, in 1920, when Greater Berlin was formed, there were ten exclaves. Ten bits of land, villages which administratively belonged to Greater Berlin. But which were geographically in Brandenburg, the neighbouring Province. The result, maybe, of the - fuck it, we'll have it - school of map making.
I'm going to keep recapping. These are places which administratively belong to one region. But are actually located in another region. These are oddities. These are exclaves. These are the places Winston, Harry & Josef put in the too hard, leave well alone, chapter of The Potsdam Agreement.
And. I'm happy to report. They are fucking barmy.
Erlengrund. A bit of West Berlin surrounded by East Germany. One point three acres. Allotments. Allotments tended by West Berliners. But in East Germany. When you wanted to prune yer Roses, or dig up your spuds, you had to have an armed East German Border Guard!!!
Basically, only one exclave had people permanently living there. Steinstücken. A bit of West Berlin completely surrounded by East Germany. And just across the way there from this football ground I'm sitting in.
151 acres of land. Approximately 300 breathing humans. East Germany even invaded it in 1951. Fuck Sake. The US threatened a Big Dooo unless they fucked off sharpish. Which they did. But, petty doesn't cover it, the East Germans decided the Steinstückenites could no longer do their shopping in the next town, and certainly couldn't go for a bevvy at Brauerei Meierei. For owt they had to do, the villagers of Steinstücken had to go through two East German Border Checkpoints, along a 1.1k road into “true West Berlin”.
Work, school, shopping, ground hopping, the lot. Two Checkpoints.
Of course, this mad bit of West Berlin in East Germany also attracted a lot of people trying to defect to The West and Freedom. Twenty East German Border Guards escaped to the West through Steinstücken. Twenty. Piece of piss this way was the word on the streets. The East Germans beefed it all up. Bigger wall. That sort of caper.
Things got so tasty that the US established a military base in Steinstücken. With all personnel coming in and out by helicopter.
I'm pleased to say that diplomacy and jaw jaw eventually found a way. The Four Power Agreement was signed in 1971. That resolved a number of border irregularities. West Berlin ceded enough land to East Germany to allow a pukka, West Berlin controlled, road corridor between Steinstücken and West Berlin proper.
Oh. And East Germany were paid four million Deutsche Marks.
Congratulations You Have Just Been Informed By The Carrier Bag Firm.
Throughout the dark days of the Cold War, the people of Steinstücken were not able to visit;
Brauerei Meierei
Im Neuen Garten 10, 14469 Potsdam
They couldn't. So we did. A superb biergarten setting on the Jungfernsee. Three of their own beers on.
Brauerei Meierei Potsdam, Weizen on Keg at 5.3%
There was a beer tick in the ground. I reckon I'm “benefitting” from a bit of regional beer rivalry. That's the third Berliner Kindl Schultheiss Brauerei beer I've ticked in a German ground in just four days. There ain't much difference between them. But, you've got to call ‘em the name the drinkers will recall.
Berliner Kindl Schultheiss Brauerei, Jubiläums Pilsener at 5.1%
It took an age to get served at the hatch. As I was making my way back around to the pitch, the guy who had been in front of me commented to me in German. I gave him my best - I'm a tourist, I don't really speak German, just a bit I learned at school, but, yes, he did take fucking ages - apology.
He was good as gold. But, explained, in German, that he had been taught Russian at school. Obvs. We're in the Old East. He was 53. Born in 1971. His best English was nicked from Springsteen.
“Born in the GDR…”
A better than some I've seen, high tempo, both teams at it, game.
My time in Germany has come to an end. For my archives, I going to wrap.
To fulfill family commitments as well as the EUROs, I left my house at Carrier Bag Firm Towers on 5 June. I got back on 19 July. I spent 37 hotel nights in Germany. I attended those seven England games. But only one ground Tick in there. I got to 12 German pre season games - all ticks. Nineteen games, thirteen ground ticks, seven beer ticks at those games.
On the plane home, I calculated that I'd ticked 94 German Beers on this trip. If I'd have realised I was so close to the milestone, I'd have gone for it a bit in those last few days. Still. Can't have everything.
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