A very unusual football club (soccer)

[Lars77]

"Punks, prostitutes and St. Pauli: Inside soccer's coolest club"

Hamburg, Germany (CNN) -- On the docks of the German port city of Hamburg, the district of St. Pauli blinks with brightly-colored neon signs advertising countless sex cinemas and private dancers.

This, after all, is where you will find the Reeperbahn, one of Europe's most infamous red-light districts, an area with proud memories of when The Beatles played the raucous venues of the town over a two-and-a-half-year period before they became the most famous band in the world.

But now it is the skull and crossbones -- which fly from almost every shop front and street corner -- rather than sleaze that defines this working-class district of Germany's second city.
The notorious black and white standard isn't a sop to the city's seafaring past, but rather a homage to one of the area's most famous sons: FC St. Pauli, often described as the most left-wing team in the world, who will this season take its place among Europe's footballing elite in Germany's Bundesliga.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/football/08/18/football.st.pauli.punks/index.html#fbid=ZxKwzmyH1pd&wom=false


_________________
This was written in August in the beginning of the season. So far St. Pauli, with a budget less than half the size of the second poorest team in the Bundesliga are currently sitting in 9th place even if their one star player has been out with injury for most of the time. Every game they win (or draw) is considered an upset. They were promoted two divisions in two years with former player Holger Stanislawski at the helm. The guy has no previous management experience, and coaches from the sidelines wearing blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with the skull and crossbones logo on it. The team enters the pitch to the music of AC/DC's Hells Bells.

[a la izquierda]

1. My husband bought me a bunch of stuff...

from the St. Pauli store. We're huge football fans.

[HuckleB]

2. Awesome! -eom-