Bochum

Bochum is, or was, a coal mining city which is only 20 minutes by train from Dortmund. In Sydney we would think of it as a suburb, but this is place with very much its own identity within the Ruhrgebeit.

My first stop was the Deutsches Bergbau Museum.  It is on the site of a now de-commissioned colliery one stop on the metro away from the Town Hall. We went on a tour of the mine: the elevator took us only 17m underground but we could have easily been much further down.  The tour started with a great simulation of the 1,000m long descent into a modern underground working mine in a cage.  As we left the elevator there was even a simulation of the typical temperatures low underground: 25- 30 degrees.

We then made a round tour being shown tunnelling machines, a drilling and blasting rig, and various types of longwall mining machines.  All were designed to facilitate the efficient extraction of the coal from the seam with various techniques being used for the machines to advance into the seam, with controlled collapse of the rock into the cavity left behind.

Part of the labyrinth of mine tunnels

Mine tunnelling machine

This industry was the heartbeat of the Ruhr valley for more than 150 years.  It fostered a flourishing steel industry, thermal power industry and all of their support industries.  You casually see famous names on local buildings such as Bessemer. Today, the steel works have all closed and there are only 2 operating mines in the area, both of which are scheduled to be shut down in 2018.  Bochum and its fellow cities of the Ruhr have reached the end of an era.

The end of the mine.  A poignant reminder of the pride of the workers at Bochum in their industrial legacy.

During the tour I met Amar.  Due to our lack of language commonality our communication was limited but I did learn that he had operated the twin drum longwall mining machine that we were seeing for more than 20 years. 

Double drum longwall mining machine.  Amar operated this very machine for more than 20 years.

View towards Gelsenkirchen from the mine winder tower

Atop the tower.  That is Amar just behind me (looking at his phone)

Diarama of the Ruhrgebeit.  Each of those black flags represents the site of a coal mine.

At the conclusion of the tour of the mine we ascended in the elevator to the top of the mine-winder frame.  This gave us views of the city and other nearby cities.  Gelsenkirchen is so close by that it shares bus routes with Bochum and we could see Essen quite easily in the distance.

VFL Bochum

Back in 1977 the first Bundesliga game I saw on TV was a match between VFL Bochum and MSV Duisburg.  Those were still prosperous days for the Ruhr and its cities featured prominently in the Bundesliga.  Today they have been replaced by the clubs from the new technology centres such as Hoffenheim (bankrolled by SAP).  The traditionsvereine were clubs built from the bottom up – quite often factory teams, or at least teams based on the bedrock of the working class who operated those factories and mines.  For this reason these clubs are embedded in the culture oftheir cities, and while they do not have the financial resources available to some others they retain very strong passionate support.

VFL Bochum is such a club.  They are now very much an entrenched 2.Bundesliga team.  They will maybe make further forays into the Bundesliga but would not be expected to remain there for long.  Equally, it may be an ongoing struggle to prevent falling further within Germany’s football hierarchy into 3.Liga.

This trip was a little less planned for me.  Their home ground, the Ruhrstadion is only 2 stops on the metro from the Hauptbahnhof.  It dates from 1911 but the stadium in its present format was developed in 1979.  At its peak capacity in the 1930s it accommodated 50,000 spectators but with only 2,700 seats.  In line with this tradition I queued up for a Stehplätz at only 13 euros per ticket and found myself on the terraces among the ultras in the Osttribüne.  Led by 3 capos this crowd provided a steady, earthy heartbeat to the game being played out on the pitch.  Pure football passion.

The game itself (VFL Bochum v Kaiserslautern) was just an honest game of park football.  It was played at a fast pace and while individual players had some great technical skills the whole was not greater than the sum of its parts.  Both sides found it difficult to piece together meaningful moves that resulted in serious goal scoring chances.  0-0 at the end.  Two former giants clinging on to survival.

VFL Bochum did survive (a dubious) penalty decision and I was lucky enough to capture the keeper’s double save in a video.