 Die-hard football fans must excuse the fact that this trail covers only a small part of the whole picture. To recount the club history, match reports and eyewitness statements, for example, would require a level of detail that goes beyond the scope of this introduction. Our intention is to give tourists from outside the area an initial insight into the legend that is FC Schalke 04.
"Auf Schalke gehen" is what Gelsenkirchen people say for going to the match. This construction, which flies in the face of High German, is typical of the Ruhr vernacular, a product of the melting-pot of many different nations. An abrupt, direct manner of speaking has made communication easier. The locals don't go zur Zeche [to the pit] or zur Arbeit [to work], as standard German would require, but rather auf Zeche xyz or auf die Arbeit. This explains why Gelsenkirchen's new stadium is called the Arena AufSchalke. Here, in the middle of the Ruhr, blue and white are the dominant football colours.
Schalke - the famous working-class district of Gelsenkirchen gave the club its name. Schalke - who hasn't heard of them? Schalke - the club that meant the world to the 'grafters' of old, both above and below ground.
The club was formed under difficult circumstances in 1904 in a back street called Hauergasse (Hauer being the term for a miner who digs coal). For many years, the predominantly middle-class sports associations refused to recognise the club, referring to it as a 'wildly playing bunch of working-class boys'. Initially, the club colours were red and yellow, not blue and white.
Whilst much has changed since then, for many people one thing will never change: football is Schalke. For many, "football is our life" is a motto that remains as true today as it was back then.
The phenomenon that is Schalke and the passion it generates have been of great interest to a number of academics. We, however, choose to approach this unique subject with a journey back in time to the place that spawned the very first 'stars'. It begins in Schalke. Grenzstrasse and Blumendelle were the streets where club idols Fritz Szepan and Ernst Kuzorra were born in 1907 and 1905 respectively. These footballing geniuses discovered their love for the game in the local streets and back yards, and later became famous for the Schalker Kreisel, a style of play based on short flat passes, and the major successes it brought them and the club. This was not before their obsession with football had earned them many a clip round the ear for coming home too late. The much lamented dreariness of this part of town has still not completely vanished, and back then it may well have been the reason why boys devoted their time to football.
Just a stone's throw away, on Gewerkenstrasse, lies the Schalker Markt, a former marketplace that is now a car-park. This is where the fans celebrated triumphs such as the first German championship in 1933/34. To get there, the players had to fight their way through vast crowds from the railway station some three kilometres away. Hundreds of thousands of frenetic, fanatical supporters that not even the SA or the SS could control almost turned victory parades into a torturous experience. The popularity of the players and the enthusiasm of the workers for football led to some unusual demonstrations of solidarity. Privileges at work for the miners in the team according to the motto, "I'll dig the coal, you win the German championship, are said to have been the order of the day. The close ties between mining and football are also reflected in the nickname Schalker Knappen [a Knappe was a miner.
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