Hello world

I am Toby, fan of FC St. Pauli since quite a while (when “Modefan” was still a thing), and I just wanted to add another place in the internet where this fabulous club is being discussed. The blog will be in english, although I am german. Why? Well, there are so many non-german speaking english fans out there, and I very much enjoy listening to Fell in love with a girl podcast (hey Sam and Shawn!). I think there should be more international connections, and that’s just easier in english.

Toby at Millerntor, holding up a scarf of San Franscisco FC

About me: Toby (he/him), born 1974, married, father of two (2003, 2008). Grew up south of Hamburg, lived in the city for 11 years, now back in the outskirts (Speckgürtel is a word more people should know). We have permanent season tickets on Gegengerade for my wife and me, and we get one-season tickets for our kids whenever we get them. Most times it works out. We’re all members of the club, and are also members of 1910 e.V. although both memberships are rather silent.

I don’t remember my first time at Millerntor. My father (passed away way too early aged 68) was an HSV fan, and my oldest brother (lives near Munich) is. My other brother is Werder Bremen supporter (he likes the boys in brown too, tho), living in Freiburg. So as a kid, I visited Volksparkstadion and Weserstadion, not Millerntor. My love with FC St. Pauli started end of 90s, when close friends of mine had season tickets and took me a couple of times. I remember hearing St. Pauli winning against Bayern Munich from my flat in Hamburg 2001. I had my window open and wondered what the cheering is about. I lived in one of the Grindel towers, 3km apart of the stadium. I liked the club at the time already, but wasn’t really regularly following them, so it took me a while to understand what I was hearing. I think that was what impressed me enough to go more often: not that we were Weltpokalsiegerbesieger, but that I could hear the crowd 3km away.

When I talk about FC St. Pauli (which is quite common too), it’s in german, though. My own Podcast (Einschlafen Podcast) is a solo project since 2010, was quite successful in the beginnings (probably because there weren’t so many podcasts around at the time). Still has like 150k downloads per episode, so the episodes about the club probably make it the largest reach FC St. Pauli podcast around, although most people who listen are not really interested in FC St. Pauli, and my stories about it rather help them fall asleep. The other podcast where I sometimes talk about the club is hosted by Holger Klein and is called Realitätsabgleich (reality check). While the reach is a little smaller (still one of the bigger german podcasts), at least listeners don’t use it to fall asleep. Find a curation of my ramblings in the sidebar, subscribe, enjoy. Einschlafen Podcast episodes come with an automatic transcript, if you’re really interested, you could auto translate and try to understand.


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Got feedback? Reach out to @tobybaier@chaos.social please!