Staged Alterity: FC St. Pauli – the buccaneer of German football. By Florian Huber

Virtually no other club has cultivated the underdog image as successfully as FC St. Pauli. Even 100 years after being founded, it still flies the Jolly Roger in defiance of the establishment and excessive commercialisation in the world’s favourite game.

Things have changed since pirates were Hamburg’s public enemy number one. On the contrary, at the city’s Historical Museum, there’s nothing the staff would like to see more than the return of one of the main attractions – the skull of the infamous pirate Störtebeker, which was stolen recently. Even the Hafenstrasse is no longer a hotspot of social struggle where the police regularly do battle with activists from the alternative scene. On the contrary, it is a normal residential area. However, when the footballers run onto the pitch to the sound of “Hells Bells” at the Millerntor Stadium, the buccaneering spirit is still omnipresent in the form of the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger, which has become the unofficial emblem of FC St. Pauli. And, although the team is no longer a bunch of amateurs who drive across the country in a ramshackle VW bus to challenge the established clubs and their smart professionals, they still regard themselves as the buccaneers of German club football. And it is more than just playing with the history of the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg. FC St. Pauli is both the champion of values and tradition and the pacemaker in a professional sport that is frequently described as the world’s favourite game. And this blend is not only the result of self-assurance. It is also a future-oriented attitude.

ALLEGORY OF ALTERITY

The club’s president seems like an allegory of its philosophy of being “non-established since 1910”. Corny Littmann is neither a building tycoon nor a big-businessman or a banker, and certainly not a knackered ex-footballer. He is, however, a disputatious character – and a tough warrior. He became widely known in Germany as a cabaret artist during the nineties. As “Mr. Schmidt”, he once caused a television station to cut his “Midnight Show” programme because he tried to promote AIDS prevention at a time when this was not considered suitable viewing for small children. Openly gay, he also polarises politicians. He once stood as a Green Party candidate for the German parliament and took advantage of the scandal for his election campaign. Since then, the activist has turned into an entrepreneur and, now in his fifties, has been running two private theatres – “Schmidts Theater” and “Schmidts Tivoli” – for the last 20 years or more. In this role, he focuses on his great love, the stage, and fights single-handedly to improve a part of Hamburg that, despite glorification via film and television, still ranks among the least salubrious of the city’s districts. These experiences and his background as an outspoken representative of minorities and a St. Pauli fan made him the favourite for the office of president when the club was in the sporting doldrums and on the financial precipice with debts of around two million euros. Since then, Littmann has guided the club back in the direction of a secure economic and sporting existence with a pragmatic mixture of business sense and a flair for image.

THE MYTH IN THE AGE OF THE MARKET

The St.Pauli myth emerged from the remains of the protest movement that shook Germany with anarcho-left political revolts in 1968 and which the rest of society resisted with all its might. In the microcosmos of Hamburg’s protest scene, the romantic notion of piracy was preserved in the specifically North German “Likedeeler” version. And this included the occupied houses of the Hafenstrasse just around the corner from Millerntor Stadium where, in a pub of the same name, “Slime”, the doyen of the German punk movement, praised the pirate Störtebeker as a Robin Hood and used appropriate emblems. At some time during the eighties, the alternative scene discovered FC St.Pauli, the everhopeful but hopeless proletarian club, which they revered in preference to the more genteel local rival, HSV. And the less successful the team was, the greater the reverence. This development was accompanied by the entry into the stadium of the Jolly Roger and supporters who regarded themselves as autonomous and progressive. But that’s not all. They also generated a lively atmosphere with chants, banners and all kinds of humorous guerrilla activities, and took an explicit stand against racism, discrimination, commerce and the sports industry. The result was a cult revolving around the “sexy outsider” that, together with the “Hamburger Schule” and German hip hop, became a pop-culture export hit in the nineties. However, these intoxicating times were followed by the inevitable hangover because much has changed since the “roaring nineties” when St. Pauli went through its most successful phase by climbing into the first division three times. At the same time, the club was threatened by the rapidly rising costs of top-flight soccer, which would have meant regional league and amateur players hardly had the new millennium really started. Fan loyalty alone – on average, 17 000 came to matches even when the club played in the regional league – was not enough even given the special culture, originally avant-garde but gradually shifting towards the model standard for clubs from all over Europe. The time had come for a new kind of buccaneer, one like Littmann.

BROADSIDE AGAINST TAKEOVERS

Littmann had long been a fan of the club and was familiar with its roots in the district and the left-wing intelligentsia. Moreover, he also knew how to operate successfully in a free entertainment market with limited funds. As president, he took to heart the pirate’s motto, “The friend of God and the enemy of all”, and began to renew FC St. Pauli structurally and economically against resistance from all quarters. And, in just the same way that, despite his openness about his homosexuality, he refuses to be reduced to a gay football official, resistance to the club being taken over in any way is a fixed part of his programme. The image of the club as a “David” is successfully used for PR purposes, e.g., when its favourite enemy, FC Bayern, is invited to take part in a benefit match or the team travels demonstratively to Cuba for a training camp. The blinkers in respect of professionalism and modernisation, as well as the radical-left romanticism, have been discarded.

Today, the club is a well-structured, top-class sporting enterprise. The new Millerntor Stadium, which opened in 2006, has the same event facilities and commercial goals as everywhere else – almost because you will only find a kindergarten in St. Pauli. In other words, the club remains different – a club and not a company. So it continues to be committed to its members, who not only support the team but also play an active role in the social field, and is immune to takeovers by corporate investors (and their economic destinies). Sustainability is also writ large. The members prohibited the otherwise customary sale of rights to the name, as well as other rights in and around the stadium, to preserve the club’s identity and ensure that all benefits accrue to FC St. Pauli. If they have the impression that one of the marketing partners is trying to pull a fast one on them, Littmann and Co. are perfectly capable of ignoring contacts and, for example, launching their own range of garments, the profits of which flow into the club’s coffers. Even now, FC St. Pauli remains a force to be reckoned with. And, when the club’s 100th season officially begins in August, the declared aim could well be to get back into the first division and, under the Jolly Roger, to continue the club’s inherent mission – to annoy the establishment.

Florian Huber was also a promising footballer and event organiser. Today, he is a student of history, philology and political science at the University of Zurich and works as a freelance journalist, primarily in the field of sports.