We like to think our interviews are not the run of the mill on here. We continue in that vein with our first interview with a foreigner

Not face to face, but via email, we chat to Jan Stover,the editor of the German 5th level side Altona 93's fanzine "All to Nah". He has been one of those instrumental in bringing their fans over to Champion Hill, this coming Saturday, for the Sittingbourne match; & then playing our own Supporters' Team at Champion Hill Stadium, on Sunday, at 11.00am.

He visited London over the New Year, with his girlfriend, & they were both at our New Years Day 'derby' match with Tooting & Mitcham United.

You were a German fan in the crowd at our derby game with Tooting on New Years Day. Why were you here, & who do you support?

"I'm a supporter of the fifth division team Altona 93 and I mixed a
New Year trip with my girlfriend with our first visit to Champion Hill."

Tell us a little about the history of Altona 93...they played Dulwich
Hamlet in the 1920's, I believe?

"Altona 93 was founded as a cricket club in 1893 (exactly the year The Hamlet were founded as well, I think!). In 1894 they stopped playing
cricket and started to play football. They were one of the first
football clubs in Germany, founding member of the Altona-Hamburg-football-league (1894) and the DFB, which is the German Football Association (1900). In 1903 they organised the first ever German national championship final, which was played between VfB Leipzig and DFC Prague, in Altona.
As you know there had been no national football league in Germany prior to the Bundesliga starting in 1963. Instead of that the teams played in different local leagues and had play-offs in the end of the season. Thats why national and international friendlies had been so important for the clubs and spectators in that time. One of these friendlies was played on Good Friday 1925 and was the first match in a row of three, Dulwich Hamlet played on the continent that summer. 6,000 people saw different international players on the pitch: Edgar Kail for Dulwich Hamlet and Adolf Jäger (one of the most famous strikers ever in Germany) for Altona 93.Our stadium is named after him, & you have the road leading to yours, named after Edgar.
Even today our teams have a lot of things in common: The founding year
1893, the tradition of their unique colours in their countries, the
great history in the early 20th century, when both teams used to play
in front of over 10,000 visitors, and their sad sporting situation in the more recent years.
Altona 93 had it's best time in the 1910s, 1920s and 1950s. They had
been in the German championship semi-final (1903 & 1909) and the German
cup semi-final (1955 & 1964). They won the northern German championship
(1909 & 1914) and were the champions of Hamburg and Altona in 1898,
1899, 1900, 1903, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1917, 1925 and 1933."

This was your first visit to London. What did you think of our city?

"I enjoyed the five days a lot. But it was too short to really see enough of your city. So these are just my first impressions: I saw a lot of street art and went into a couple of pubs and locals. But there had been a lot more people than I expected and most of the markets were very crowded. The city seems to be very 'clean'."

So there is a good friendship developing between Altona 93 & Dulwich
Hamlet supporters, after some of our fans visited Hamburg in July last
year. How strong is it?

"The connection is very young and I can't say how strong it is, yet. I hope it grows. We all enjoyed your visit last summer. Although we are very lazy, a lot people were keen on visiting you will see this with our plan of a bus-trip - you can take this as a compliment, I think! Ha,ha! I look forward to meeting you again on Friday. 'No Life Lost', the band who wrote our club song, will join us and play a gig at 'The Plough and Harrow' (419 High Road, Leytonstone). Support bands will be 'Steve White and The Protest Family' and 'Belter' (tbc) and another local band. We are all looking forward to visiting Champion Hill for your league match on Saturday against Sittingbourne, and playing your supporters' side on Sunday morning."

Altona play in level five of the German pyramid. How does this work? How far away from you from playing St. Pauli or Hamburg SV?

"The fifth level of the pyramid in Germany is comparable to your divison, I think. Sometimes there appears a great talent (like Daniel Carr) for one year or a half, there are one or two genius players (like Erhun Oztumer) in every team, but the most players are young and playing
football is for them like a students job or they are lost talents.
A lot of the HSV and St.Pauli supporters like the familar atmosphere during the Altona matches. Their rivalry does not crop up at our ground."

What crowds do you get, and do you travel far for away games?

"Our attendances used to be around the 500 mark, on average,during the last few seasons. In winter there are less visitors than in summer, as the temperatures are a lot colder.. Our aim is to win the Hamburg Cup, as the team that does so take part in the first round of the national German FA Cup, but we have not done so for twenty years - our last appearance in the DFB Cup was in 1994 (we played Borussia Dortmund in our Adolf-Jäger-Kampfbahn, where your supporters' side played as well).
The longest journey now is round about 30 miles, because our league is a
Hamburg League, but in the season 2008/9 we played in the Regionalliga.
We organised buses to every away-match - for example Leipzig, Cottbus,
Plauen, Halle, Oldenburg, Bremen, Kiel, Lübeck, Rostock, Hannover or
Berlin."

Who are your main rivals? How does your derby compare to ours?

"Our main rival is Barmbek-Uhlenhorst - that's a long story. The
sporting rivals during the last years had been Viktoria Hamburg. Our
local rivals (Teutonia 05, Union 03 and Teutonia 10 for example) all
play in lower leagues, when we meet them in friendlies or in the cup the
atmosphere is very friendly."

What was your first impression of Champion Hill, you were lucky to pick a good day, with a big 'derby' crowd for us.

"I like old grounds, where you can feel the atmosphere of former matches and crowds. I know, that the old Champion Hill was one such a great place, but I think you managed to carry this feeling of former glories to your new ground in the best way! Everybody was very nice to us and introduced us to very interesting people - even my friend from Tooting and Mitcham had nice conversations in your lovely clubhouse. The only was that the 'Spitfire' ran out far too early..."