Back in Berlin, visited by a dinosaur

 Ok, I last put on my Hertha shirt whilst on holiday in Tenerife where I had to watch Hertha in a bar just above the beach in temperatures in the mid 30’s.  It wasn’t quite the same temperatures in Berlin prior to the clash against Hamburger SV on the first day of October 2016.  Somehow 20 degrees had got lost somewhere but I was still looking forward to the game and had high hopes of a good win in the Olympiastadion.

Arriving at the Olympiastadtion we were greeted by grey skies and drizzle; this was a far cry from the blazing sunshine and high temperatures of August and the opening game against Freiburg.

Although I arrived early and before the gates opened many of the 57,600 supporters came later as the attraction of stating around outside the Osttor in the rain was limited, even with a bottle of beer in your hand!

​The support for Hertha was, as usual, superb . .

A sea of blue and white - blau und weiß!

The Ostkurve was in fine voice before, during, and even after the game. A short clip to show the fans before the game as the players were coming down the escalator to the pitch . . .

The early minutes saw Hamburg have chances that were just thrown away (thankfully).  There were a number of chances for the Old Lady as Weiser hit the bar, Stocker had a shot saved and Genki Haraguchi blasted one in from distance only to hit the post.  Finally the breakthrough happened as Esswein shot from distance and pin-ball deflections took the ball to our Captain Vedad Ibisevic who made no mistakes in burying the ball in the back of the net leaving Hertha 1:0 up after 29 minutes just hours after the birth of his second child.

The Hamburgers were perhaps feeling a little nervous as they managed to collect six yellow cards during the match with a fair amount of their attention falling on Valentin Stocker who was eventually brought down in the box resulting in a penalty that the proud father, Vadad Ibisevic, calmly put away to double the lead and notch up his 97th Bundesliga goal.  Needless to say both of his goals were followed by baby inspired celebrations.  Who can blame him, certainly not me, that’s for sure. 

At the start of the second half the Ultras were expressing their discontent with some of the colour schemes chosen by the powers that be.  Flagged up were the pink shirts and orange training gear.  To be fair the third shirt does have to be something weird so it can’t possibly be the same as the team we are visiting but the training gear being orange . . really?