Vatertag 1999

This book is dedicated to the huge riots that erupted in 1999 around a football match between two bitter rivals - OFC Kickers Offenbach and SV Waldhof Mannheim 07. Direct promotion to the second division was at stake and since there were no other games scheduled in all of Germany that day, many hooligans from other teams chose to join the potentially interesting event, taking the police by surprise. Fans of 1. FC Union (Berlin), Eintracht (Braunschweig) and Swiss Basel were on Mannheim 's side. On Offenbach's side Leverkusen turned up with a mob of more than 120 hooligans and fans of Fortuna (Düsseldorf) were present too. Loose hooligans from Mönchengladbach, Mainz, Kaiserslautern, Munich, Leipzig, Duisburg and guys from Eintracht Frankfurt (on both sides!), got also involved in the riots. Can you imagine the scale? In addition to a lot of graphic material - archive photographs, press clippings of the time and other illustrations, the book includes interviews with several dozen participants in those significant events, as well as memories of neutral fans from Germany and Belgium who got marginally involved in the events.