Power to the people at St Pauli

Walk west of Hamburg's wealthy city centre, past a mammoth statue of Otto von Bismarck overlooking the giant Elbe river which made Germany's second-biggest city a prosperous port.

Continue over a busy traffic intersection and car park and you will see floodlights close to the seedy Reeperbahn district.

While many of the big German clubs have super stadia well away from their roots, the promoted side St Pauli - who are currently riding high in the Bundesliga - are firmly in touch with theirs.

St Pauli were founded in 1910 but did not reach the top flight of the Bundesliga until 1977. Immediately relegated, they clambered back in 1988 and have been up and down since.

Their history was unremarkable, their hard-core crowd about 3,000, until 1987 when they started to attract a new generation of supporters who had been drawn to the area's alternative scene, with a preference for change and left-wing politics.

Disaffected with the corporate identity of giants like Bayern Munich or their posh neighbours SV Hamburg, St Pauli became the team of the young, the politically aware, the socially disaffected.

"The new fans stamped out the neo-Nazi hooliganism which was strong in German football at the time," said Ed Barrett, a St Pauli fan.

"And they brought in a more [do it yourself] ethic, borrowing ideas from England by starting up fanzines and encouraging free thinking, from boycotts of certain matches to running their own radio broadcasts."

Within a few years, the new fans were effectively running the club, with the cover of the match programme for a game against Bayern Munich showing a heavily-tattooed man with a raised fist and the headline: "Class War!"

Another year, the team posed for their annual photo in their new brown kit, handcuffed to each other outside a prison. Do not expect fans of city rivals SV Hamburg to agree, but St Pauli's influence on German fan culture remains significant.

The once-deprived area around the ground - current capacity 24,000 and growing - is gentrifying and the crumbling terraces of the Millerntor Stadium are making way for bigger stands.

The changes have caused tension, but the different fans who pack the stadium all come together on a match day to generate the roar for which the stadium is famous.

Visiting teams are often applauded, while fans stay in the bars and cafes around the stadium long after the game has finished, organising parties or street art. For them, St Pauli is a way of life.

"Italy, rather than England, is now the inspiration for much of the fan culture," Barnett said.

"And there's a pride in international visitors, distrust of the police and a strong stance against discrimination, not just in terms of race, but gender and sexuality, as well as a sheer bloody-mindedness.

"I don't know whether it all comes across as too romantic, but it really is like that."

FIXTURES

Last night

Bayern Munich v Freiburg

Today

Cologne v Hamburg 5.30pm

Kaiserslautern v M'gladbach 5.30pm

St Pauli v E Frankfurt 5.30pm Werder Bremen v Nurnberg 5.30pm

Wolfsburg v Stuttgart 5.30pm

Schalke v Leverkusen 8.30pm Tomorrow

Mainz v Dortmund 6.30pm

Hoffenheim v Hannover 8.30pm