Fans always seem to have solutions to the problems that clubs face on the pitch.   Its always the players fault, or the Chairman's fault or the coaches fault.   Sometimes its the referee that gets it and every single club has a player who can do no right; the tried and trusted long standing 'scapegoat.' Quite often though its a combination of all of these things that just push fan patience to boiling point and anger.

In this day and age of fan forum, message boards and media spotlight its easy enough for many clubs fans to get their 'unhappiness' across if only in a virtual way. Sometimes though it can be online communications that can galvanise things. One pointer to Old Trafford this season sees the now blooming green and gold protest against the ruling Glazer family which has become high profile as the weeks have went on.  Across to the east at Liverpool similar ongoing protests have been heard at Anfield with Liverpool's American owners being the target of heated protest and hateful vendettas. For some though, the politics at a club goes further than the need for a simple demonstration or fans counter grouping.

Smashing up the Dugouts

In case you missed it the continued struggles of Hertha Berlin and dissatisfaction with the club's running saw some fans of the club go on the rampage last week.   And it was not simply a pitch invasion; it was an outright violent act not seen for some time in Germany.   In the previous Bundesliga season Berlin's biggest club had been in the running to be crowd Bundesliga Champions. The goals of the Ukrainian striker Voronin had seen Hertha challenge Wolfburg, VfB Stuttgart and Bayern until the final weeks of the season. The club eventually fell by the wayside but fans had hopes for the new 2009-2010 season ahead.

Instead the 2009-2010 season has been a complete disaster for Hertha Berlin and its fans with the club rooted to the bottom of the league and destined for relegation to the lower rung of Zwei Bundesliga. The simmering unhappiness with the club's rulers, the strategic direction of the club and often woeful mediocre performances on the field saw tensions come to boiling point last week against 1.FC Nurnburg.

Results since the mid-winter break hve not gotten any better for Hertha.    In perhaps their most important match of the year Hertha BSC hosted 17th-placed strugglers and last years promoted club Nurnberg in a classic relegation 'six-pointer' at the Olympic Stadium. The host club started well with Greek striker Theofanis Gekas and creative force Raffael both hitting the woodwork. Then in the 36th minute Gekas scored the opener. The hosts continued to push forward aware of the importance of a result, but would rue their missed chances when Albert Bunjaku levelled for Nurnberg on the hour mark.

Being held to a point would have been a disappointing result for Hertha.   Hertha, buckling under severe relegation pressure and 57,000 fans, allowed Nurnburg back in to the game. Former Bayern midfielder Andreas Ottl played a through ball to Ilkay Gundogan, who crossed to another Greek striker Angelos Charisteas for a late winner for the visiting Franconians.

To fully understand  the simmering tensions for several weeks into spring 2009 Hertha sat on top of the Bundesliga table. Even though they were quipped with a squad that could be described as 'average' at best, the team from the German capital relied upon flawless organization and Liverpool loan signing Andriy Voronin.

While the late resurgence of teams like eventual champions Wolfsburg, Bayern, and Stuttgart saw Hertha slip from their position atop the table, managed a fourth-placed finish and earned a Europa League berth.

Instead of being emboldened by their success no-one found it prudent to strengthen their squad. Striker Marko Pantelic left for Ajax Amsterdam, trusted defender Josip Simunic moved to TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and most surprisingly of all Voronin was allowed to return to Liverpool. Strangely, Hertha’s only noteworthy signings were aging forward 'super' Artur Wichniarek from Arminia Bielefeld and Florian Kringe. A factor that also irritated the Hertha faithful was that Voronin was transferred to Dynamo Moscow for £1.8m but had been offered to Hertha for the same price.  The price was deemed 'too expensive' by management and this indicated to many a team seemingly bound on returning to the mediocrity and anonymity of middle table obscurity.

The club entered the winter break last after managing just six points in the first half of the campaign from 17 games. To challenge this they brought in Leverkusen and Schalke players Theofanis Gekas and the Georgian playmaker Levan Kobiashvili on loan.   Last season's rise for Hertha was built on far from flowing football and more on tedious but very competent defensive organisation with excellent results.

This season this turned into slightly less tedious football but without any type of results. As if the last minute winner from Charisteas was not hard enough for Hertha fans to put up with Nürnberg keeper Raphael Schäfer went that one step further by eldulging in schadenfreud and making gestures towards the Berlin fans on the Kurve.

These actions were the queue for 120 fans to storm the pitch with plastic flag poles and chase the amazed players of both teams into the waiting changing rooms. As the stewards stepped out of the way, the invaders started to demolish the dugouts smashing the glass casing.   Berlin players took refuge in the changing room with only long serving Hungarian Pal Dardai staying calm and contining with a Sky interview but even he was forced to flee when a fan hit a billboard nearby. Stewards managed to seal off the changing rooms but rioters still destroyed the Hertha bench. A few minutes later the police moved in and as the fans ran back to the Kurve the police arrested 26 troublemakers.

With a conservative backlash against Ultra type groups all the rage in Germany's media the actions of Hertha fans served again to build up a case for an institutional backlash.  The spontaneous riot has shocked German football and created headlines full of conservative terminology such as 'thugs', 'violent hooligans' and other calls for punishment short of public floggings .

"Violent offenders have no place in football and we will push for sanctions," said the Bundesliga president Reinhard Rauball. In terms of sanctions the public flogging of the identified offenders is unlikely to happen but those caught are certain to be banned at least from the Olympic Stadium. With the absence of a football banning order it may be that the fans who smashed up the dugout may face prison instead.

Hertha themselves will certainly pay a heavy fine and at least be forced to play one game without supporters.  On a wider level terracing for some has been the cause of the trouble with the deputy CEO of the DFL hinting that terracing could come under review as well from the game organisers.

It is hard to identify the extent to which seating would have stopped such an incident occurring. Fans surely can enter a pitch despite seating being any sort of hindrance. For the fans themselves, more than simply a spontaneous reaction, the actions were an outpouring of frustration not only with the result but with the corporate politics at the club.

Many fans of Hertha had lost all respect for the players of the team and the invasion was seen as a 'last throw of the dice'. The Berlin-based Der Tagesspiegel newspaper which has a predominantly West Berlin readership has stated that some Hertha Ultras believed they could motivate and spur on the team by creating a 'threatening scenario.'

Others have counter-acted the calls for increased 'law and order' with suggestions that the pitch invasion may instead have been a reaction to the ground laws already in place and which fans saw were being applied aggressively.

Most fans of Hertha will have experienced extremely diverse levels of  new 'efficiency' at football grounds in Germany in particular the recent backlash against rockets and smoke flares, but seem particularly angered at the perceived way they are being treated inside the Olympic Stadium.  

Disillusionment with the results of course may have clouded the judgement of some.   Looking into things more analytically, Der Tagesspiegel have suggested that the bureaucratic management of sporting director Michael Preetz is to blame for many of Hertha's problems. Preetz was a former veteran striker of the Berlin club and the hero of many last minute goal scoring exploits himself.   He is also the top all time goalscorer  of Hertha.   However, he has proven to be less successful off the field as he was on it. Against this the club's last General Manager was the opinionated if higher profile Dieter Hoeness who departed the previous season and now successfully manages at Wolfburg.

The decision making and media persona of Preetz has been unpopular with Hertha fans. Last seasons coach Lucien Favre was sacked and replaced with the less than media friendly  Friedhelm Funkel.   On the back of these decisions fans have also raged against what they perceived as a lack of passion from the club and the players. Some believe that money should have been spent during the pre-season, whilst others cannot get used to the club treating sporting problems as a modern corporation does via bureaucratic decision making and financial forbearance at the forefront of everything.

Rather than attempting to build on their previous successes, Hertha entered the 2009-10 campaign with issues not ironed out.   As a root cause, higher up the corporate food chain fingers have been pointed at Hertha President Werner Gegenbauer's austere transfer policy and specifically the lack of suitable replacements for the departed strike force of Marko Pantelic and Andriy Voronin. Both were exciting strikers who were vital to the run of the club and no real quality was brought in to replace them.

The problem with Hertha is that it is a club that has never had a sustainable presence in the Bundesliga and even during the East/West divide they were a club over shadowed by the more successful Dynamo Berlin.   In 1963 when the Bundesliga was formed Hertha BSC participated by direct invitation through the need for a capital club and left its old stadium to use the Olympiastadion.

However in 1965 the German Football Association DFB found Hertha BSC guilty of bribery and relegated them to the Regional Leagues.   Hertha had illegally bribed several football players in an attempt to add them to the team following their disinterest in playing in Berlin because of the construction of the Berlin Wall. In 1968, Hertha returned to the first division and to the Olympiastadion.  The second half of 1970s was quite successful for Hertha BSC Berlin and in 1979 they reached the semifinals of the UEFA Cup but was defeated by Red Star Belgrade.

Bankruptcy and a financial quagmire were only averted via the sale of land within which the old ground of the club stood.  A muted merger of Hertha and Tennis Borussia to create a  Berlin 'super-Klub' never came about.

In the 1980s, Hertha had a declining role in the Bundesliga and fell to the Regional Leagues in 1986 although they later recovered reaching the Second Division from1988-1989. With the demolition of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, a spontaneous feeling of sympathy between Hertha and 1.FC Union from Eastern Berlin arose and new fans were attracted.

In 1990 Hertha returned to the First Division although it fell again to the Second Division from 1991 until 1997.   Since 1997 the club has improved greatly climbing up the Bundesliga table and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League with matches against top European teams like Chelsea and A.C. Milan increasing the international prestige of the club.

The history at Hertha is there and the historical totality of the past is encapsulated in the stadium building the club plays within. The whole Nazi landscape has not disappeared at the Olympic Stadium.  The conservation factor of the Olympiastadion as a historical monument was considered when redevelopment of the ground kicked into action especially with respect to the preservation of the natural outer stone blocks. After criticism, the colour of the athletics track around the game field was changed from red to blue  to reflect the colours of Hertha BSC.  

Postscript

In postscipt, talk since the event has been that many fans thought the event was a joke.  Other Hertha fans have suggested that those that came on to the pitch were not actually Hertha fans but simply disillusioned Berlin Youth.   11Freunde a German football culture magazine has suggested that there had been some talk prior to the lead up to the game that some sort of invasion had been planned. 

Berlin Police intelligence has pointed the finger and reported that 25 members of the Hertha Harlekins Ultra group whom follow the club were the first fans to jump over the barrier. It is thought some other members of other fringe Ultras groups such as Haupstadtmafia whom congregate on the OstKurve also were involved.   At least another random 75 fans joined in and went on the rampage on the field.  To which group they belong is unknown exactly.

Questions of course have been pointed at the security methods in place. 800 stewards were in force at the game but only 20 of these were standing in front of the home  Kurve when the fans run on. It would appear that the shear surprise of the invasion took the police by surprise.

Five minutes after the invasion began, 60 policemen in riot gear forced the fans back to the end from which they had came. The police temporarily detained 25 rioters and four officers were injured after being struck by sticks.   Across the city, a Hertha fan shop was demolished during the night in Neukölln area of the capital.

With Hertha now fearing a nationwide fan travel ban the German Federation and League will now look at re-assessing fan stadium strategies. Whilst some want a knee jerk reaction and all Ultras groups banned more measured procedures to ensure violence does not happen again at least at a top Bundesliga level will probably come into play. 

Its probably appropriate to end on a slightly pretentious if highly relevant note.  It's not often Shakespeare is mentioned in tune to acts of football hooliganism, but the angst and anger of words from Hamlet just seem so relevant to the scenes from Berlin.