Standing with FC St. Pauli: an examination of a reflexive autoethnographic account of a woman sports fan’s experience of German men’s professional football

The professional German football team Fuβball Club Sankt Pauli of Hamburg (FC St. Pauli) and its fans are renowned for their socially democratic political identity (Davidson, 2014), and their inclusive celebration of community alongside fan-driven activism (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013; Siny, 2020; Totten, 2016). The club, the fans, and their reputation have attracted local, national and international interest and no small amount of academic examination of: their history (Davidson, 2014, 2024; Viñas and Parra, 2020); their brand management (Brand et al., 2023); and the “practical-radical politics” of the club’s fanbase (Siny, 2020, p. 244; see also Kennedy and Kennedy, 2014). Research on the latter includes: examination of the tensions between the club’s commercial interests and the fans’ anti-commercial, social and political action (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013; Merkel, 2012; Sander et al., 2014; Totten, 2015); investigation of the fans’ allegiances with those of other clubs, such as Glasgow Celtic (McDougall, 2013; Davidson, 2014, pp. 126–127; Viñas and Parra, 2020, pp. 115–119); analysis of fan representation within club governance (Ziesche, 2017); and study of the “Ultras”, those factions known for their fervent and fanatical support (Kennedy, 2013, 2016). The club and its fanbase are widely held exemplars of the nexus between sporting fan and politics, identity and inclusivity (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013; Davidson, 2014, 2024; Jack, 2021; Totten, 2016), yet with few exceptions (Viñas and Parra, 2020; Davidson, 2014), very little academic scrutiny is afforded to the fan experience of the club felt by women fans or through the lived experiences of other diverse fans who connect with the club. Where gendered practices in sports fandom often complicate the position of women as spectators (Klugman, 2012, 2016; Pope, 2012; Schallhorn et al., 2024; Symons, 2023, 2024), the purpose of this paper is to examine one woman fan’s experience of the FC St. Pauli fan space and explore how gender impacts perceptions of traditionally men’s sporting spaces.

The paper builds on innovative approaches to exploring fandom through mixed method and ethnographical investigations of women in sport (Hoeber and Kerwin, 2013; McParland, 2012; Richards, 2015, 2018). A critically reflective fieldnote method, informed by reflexive autoethnography (Chang, 2008; Couldry, 1996; Delamont, 2009; Ellis et al., 2010; Holman Jones, 2016; Koopman et al., 2020), is employed here to frame and contribute to place-based research on women as sports fans (Parry and Richards, 2019; Jones et al., 2022; Simmers et al., 2023; Symons, 2024; Toffoletti, 2017). More specifically, the paper focuses on women as fans of men’s football (Pfister and Pope, 2018; Pope, 2012, 2016, 2017) and confronts aspects of the complicated gendered fan experiences women can have in the traditionally hypermasculine spaces of sporting stadiums. As Kerwin and Hoeber (2015) note, autobiographical approaches to research are rare in sport management but can be important considerations to offer nuanced and reflective contributions to the field. This paper answers that call to draw findings on the impacts of doing professional men’s sports differently.

The critical place-based autoenthographic reflections are based on observational fieldnotes made during a visit to FC St. Pauli’s home stadium, the Millerntor, in November 2022. They include an attempt to attend a match, participation in a stadium tour, and encounters with club fans. They form a considered representation of a woman who is an expert fan of elite men’s sports and a nuanced portrayal of some of the many varied ways women can experience sport. They are informed by, or rather viewed through, concepts related to gender performance (Butler, 1990) and how this germinal concept is extrapolated to the sporting arena where women can perform their gender through fandom to fit into and comply with the hypermasculine environment rather than disrupt it (Jones, 2008; Richards, 2015; Schallhorn et al., 2024). The reflexive autoethnographical approach to considering gendered performance enables investigation of the woman’s position in the football fan space, and of the ways those experiences might be shaped and influenced by the sporting environment she has entered (Pope, 2012, 2016; Symons, 2023, 2024). The resultant examination is framed in the fan space related to one, as demonstrated in this paper, unique sporting site FC St. Pauli, which is located within the context of analyses of the club, its documented histories, and its fans’ activism.

The authors come to this paper through a shared interest in the club’s fans’ activism and history; they are established sports researchers, writers and historians (McGowan, 2019; McGowan et al., 2024; McGowan and Symons, 2024; Passos et al., 2023; Symons, 2023, 2024). The paper’s focus on the reflexive and place-based autoethnographical experiences of a woman sports fan occurred when one of the authors, relatively new to the sporting code, discovered FC St. Pauli through happenstance. Out walking during a research visit to Hamburg in the lead up to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the author found herself outside the Millerntor while a sold-out match involving FC St. Pauli’s men’s team took place inside. The other author is a fan of Glasgow Celtic. Initiated through his experience of 1990s club fanzines, his long-held fascination for FC St. Pauli draws on the fans’ of both clubs shared social and political values, commonalities that saw them find common ground (see Schlesselmann, n.d.; McDougall, 2013).

The diarised reflections, interwoven into the context and discussions that follow, are presented in italics for clarity and to offer distinction between the personal narrative and scholarly reflection, a method previously engaged with by the first author (XXXX) Jordan Bakhsh (2022) states that “Autoethnography is the act of telling a personal story about a certain phenomenon; however, it’s not simply storytelling” (Bakhsh, 2022, pp. 982) and goes on to engage with the works of Ellis and Bochner (2000) to underline the method’s capacity to provide “rich insight into a phenomenon by exploring an individual’s personal experience in depth” (Bakhsh, 2022, pp. 982). This paper begins with the author’s first experience of the Millerntor and engagement with FC St. Pauli, then provides some context to FC St. Pauli and their contemporary place within the context of German football, before the next set reflections centre on inclusion, belonging and fandom. The process of autoethnography engaged with in this work brings together a reflexive self-observation through interrogating the emotions experienced within a particular place and social context and combines the skills of an actively engaged researcher and actively engaged participant into a story (Anderson, 2006).

It’s a Tuesday night in Hamburg in November. Winter hasn’t yet settled in, but the air is crisp as I stroll around discovering where I am. I find myself in St. Pauli and immediately feel the way I do in Fitzroy back in Melbourne, at home and safe – yet not quite comfortable as the gritty streets and rowdy bars don’t offer solace as such, just a familiar feeling of something that makes me feel settled. It’s the most strange feeling to find so far away and in place I don’t speak the language and is full of punks. A rumble of a crowd echoes through the streets before I see a stadium. Instinctively, I want to leave. I no longer feel safe, and I’m embarrassed by that immediate sense of dread, how quickly my calm from passing the grimy bars with colourful fairy lights and Pride flags changes when I notice a sporting site. How I change. I work in sport. I love sport. I love stadiums. But, in a foreign country, in a sporting space I don’t know, I’m on high alert. In most sporting environments as a woman, I’m always on high alert. Curiosity pushes me through the initial fear and I wrap myself in the faux fan confidence I usually put on to avoid unwanted attention and walk towards what I soon know to be Millerntor Stadium.

I drop my cloak of faux-confidence the moment I see more rainbow flags, and trans flags, street art, and depictions of the skull and crossbones in every shade and size. I instantly realise that I don’t need any protection here. This is a space for me. Those signals, those signs, they work instantly to put me at ease, and I’m sure many others when approaching sites that have not always been so welcoming to everyone such as sporting stadiums. But it is more than that here. It feels as if I’m walking in New York City’s East Village, if the East Village was wrapped around a football stadium. It’s a space filled with art and conversation, beer and music. It feels festive, but non-threatening, but not staged or clean. It’s grubby, it’s weird and it just feels incredibly cool. The people around the stadium seem to be having a great time, typical of the moments and minutes before kick-off. There’s a bar, it’s heaving. Heaving bars near sports stadiums are always a trigger. Beers, banter and blokes not always the best combination. But this is different. There is a vibe. A different vibe. I know this feeling from spending time sitting in sticky booths in historic rock and roll bars that have been fighting off closure and grassroots music festivals that try to keep ticket prices accessible despite the pressures of the industry. But it’s hard to explain how that feeling is coming to me now, in a sporting venue, that is hosting men’s sport. I try to buy a ticket. It’s a sell-out. That happens a lot they tell me. I kick myself for not looking into it when I locked in the trip to Hamburg. Why didn’t I know more about FC. St. Pauli? Upon return to my hotel I desperately Google to see how I can get inside the stadium, I need to see this place, I need to know this place. The next best thing is a stadium tour the following day.

This experience and the physical change that is undertaken, from crises to confidence is one that could be seen to run counter to experiences of women at men’s football matches in Denmark (Lenneis and Pfister, 2015), England (Pope, 2011, 2018); France, and Italy (Pitti, 2019) where fan spaces are informed by widespread prejudices and sexism, which often results in women fans sometimes accepting and trivialising the behaviours (Lenneis and Pfister, 2015; Pope, 2011, 2016; Symons and McGowan, 2023), and performing gender in a way to “fit in and become one of the lads” (Jones, 2008, p. 519). As alluded to in the above field note, FC St. Pauli was perceived to offer a different experience, one worthy of exploration, particularly as the reflection refers to the feeling being foreign, not only as the author is in a foreign country, but in the setting of professional men’s sport.

The reflection indicates a sense of putting on a performance or a persona to enter the space. This is done to build confidence to enter an unknown space but also has been developed from the author’s prior experiences of attending men’s professional sport and understanding the gendered performances that make acceptance easier for some women. As Butler describes, “a shifting and contextual phenomenon, gender does not denote a substantive being, but a relative point of convergence among culturally and historically specific sets of relations” (Butler, 1990, p. 10). If we place this concept within a sporting context, we can see how gender performances are carried out and maintained within these spaces that provide a physical site for the convergence of social relations determined by the hegemonic masculinity associated with sport. What this reflection adds to the discourse of women as fans of men’s sport is how the experience is shaped by an empty stadium where the focus is not the culture surrounding a live match, rather the gendered experience is epitomised by visible signals of inclusion and, indeed, a counterculture to that usually on display at men’s sport.

As emerging research on fandom of women’s sports suggests, fan spaces are more welcoming, inclusive and celebratory of not just women athletes but intersecting fan cultures such as art, music and pop culture (Schallhorn et al., 2024). Fans have indicated feeling safe and that they can express their fandom openly and authentically outside of traditional fan conventions associated with men’s sport (Symons, 2022). What makes this examination of one woman’s experience of this particular professional men’s sporting site of interest is the navigation of performing gender to “fit in” with traditional male-led sporting culture, and the realisation that the performance is not required. This setting thus allowed for a fan experience more akin to that available in women’s sport. This is further explored in subsequent field notes.

Allison (2023) considers this in her work on the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup reflecting on how fans can converge around women’s sports mega events feeling inspired by a celebration of the women’s game and a positive gendered discourse, but can also feel alienated and restricted by the values promoted by governing bodies. Haldane (2021) highlights how this can lead to fans then using the mega event opportunity to platform political and social issues, with fans becoming activists and champions for the rights of the athletes but also for the women’s sports movement more broadly. Allison draws on Dashper to note that sport is “a prime site for the production and reproduction of gendered identities, discourses, and practices that can both constrain and empower groups and individuals” (Dashper, 2022, p. 1 in Allison, 2023, p. 330). How does a sporting site created for men participating in a sport designed for men then allow for a historically male-led culture to challenge some of the ingrained gendered practices in sport and how does it constrain and empower groups and individuals outside of match day?

On the surface, FC St. Pauli look like any competitive, nominally successful, professional football organisation. Many of the club’s operations mirror those of any professional club, and, much like the majority of those in operation in elite levels of German football, the men’s senior team have competed in their respective competition (in this case 2. Bundesliga) with varying degrees of effectiveness. In keeping with expectations of attendance in Bundesliga matches (Huth and Kurscheidt, 2022; Nufer and Fischer, 2013), FC St. Pauli also has a substantial domestic following. Competitive matches played at the Millerntor stadium (capacity of 29,500) are almost always sold out. More than half of the seats are held by season ticket holders and the waiting list for season tickets is reported to be in the thousands – in 2022, the club’s official membership was estimated to be a little over 30,400 (Bundesliga, 2024). The club’s distinguishing factors begin with these local fans.

On May 12, 2024, FC St. Pauli, were promoted back into The Bundesliga (Fußball-Bundesliga or 1. Bundesliga). Their previous efforts in the top league of the German national men’s professional football competition occurred in the 2010/2011 season. The scenes of celebration of this more recent promotion were joyous, colourful and vibrant. They echoed those often seen when sporting narratives provide metaphor and meaning for fans. Except, FC St. Pauli’s reverentially held “kult” status ensured they virally appeared on screens across the world (Moore, 2024). While German sports media has misconceived FC St. Pauli fans as anarchic punks (Sanderson, in McDougall, 2013, p. 231), their radical fan culture, fuelled by music, social justice, and equality, has instigated a substantial growing international following. Irrespective of myth, media portrayal, or reputation, FC St. Pauli and its fans clearly demonstrate football’s power to connect to and represent community (Giulianotti, 2021; Sanders et al., 2014). This instance of sporting achievement can be seen to represent more than promotion of a popular club from a lower division. Rather it is seen by a growing international community of fans, writers, scholars, and historians as an important exemplar of success on the pitch occurring in tandem with left-wing idealism and has been noted in the past as the Club’s community ethos and progressive stance against racism, fascism, and homophobia (Davidson, 2014). Where this level of solidarity is shown between the club and its fans, their relationship can be seen to have led to a transformation, the creation of a non-traditional football space, one not only tolerant, but forcefully accepting of all (with the exception of those who seek to oppress others). Success and meaningful community engagement have coalesced, another football is possible (Viñas and Parra, 2020). In an industry where commercial growth is privileged over community need, FC St. Pauli and the Fanladen – the independent supports organisation that helps fans, coordinate social projects and maintain connections to its local community – represent an important alternative.

“On the pitch” footballing success is important, but the Fanladen’s focus on community engagement, social connection and responsibility is a potent driving force. They are vigilant and critical and remonstrative of the ways the club is managed, even as the club are credited for and associated with their actions (Davidson, 2014; Totten, 2015). This symbiotic relationship is perhaps best illustrated on match days, which are renowned as a celebration of community, “a party with a pitch” (Bundesliga, 2024), and a site for broader inclusion and political activism (Daniel and Kassimeri, 2013).

In the opening and subsequent field notes, reflections are provided that explore how the visible signals on display by the club at the stadium such as Pride flags and political art operate to not only signal the club’s values and position on various diversity and inclusion initiatives, but invite fans into the space. As Dashper suggests, these signals highlight sport’s capacity to produce and reproduce gendered constructs that can both constrain and empower (Dashper, 2022, p. 1 in Allison, 2023, p. 330). In the case of FC St. Pauli, those “gendered identities, discourses, and practices” are understood in a different way through the experience of a woman coming into a professional men’s sporting environment framed by prior experiences in male-led sporting spaces and culture.

In the following excerpt, the author captures a close first-person perspective relating her first, accidental visit to the club, and the stadium tour the following day. She examines her experiences as a woman sports fan visiting FC St. Pauli for the first time but armed with and framed by many experiences entering professional men’s sporting environments. She does so within discourse related to gender performances to serve an individual in a cultural setting where alignment with a dominant culture can afford some form of acceptance (Butler, 1990), as they relate to gendered performances of fandom and compliance with male-hegemony (Jones, 2008) and more specifically women as fans of men’s football. While unable to examine the behaviours of women in the stands during a match, which tend to be dominated by men and masculine behaviours (Belfekih, 2024; Lenneis and Pfister, 2015), and a “muscular” approach to football fandom, the critical reflection explores some of the values and language adopted by fans in reference to the characteristics associated with inclusivity within the club.

Bright flashing lights and glittery pop music contrast the radical graffiti and activist street art that adorns the outlets and walls of the outer Millerntor. Between the winter carnival in the park and the stadium, I follow a wide thoroughfare to the small bar where my tour will commence. The website boasted a two-hour tour entirely in German. A language I could not speak. I had reservations. How much could I possibly appreciate the history? But I was too curious to not do it. As it turns out the fan experience is an international language.

The bar, “Clubheim FC St. Pauli”, was another strangely comforting experience. It was middle of the afternoon on a weekday after game day. A few volunteers (I assume) appear to be catching up on the game. They were speaking German, of course, and paid me no attention. Looking around the bar, despite being so desperately out of place, a sense of belonging washed over me. The bar seems to be exactly as it was when the stadium opened, with original signs hanging and black and white photos along the walls showing fan celebrations and commiserations over the years. It’s sparse, and sticky and familiar. I feel the way I did on a visit to CBGBs in New York City in 2006 – that was only a few months before it heartbreakingly closed its doors; ending an era of punk, creativity, and celebration of differences. I thought about my beautiful home city of Melbourne, with its thriving live music scene that often comes under threat, and the last party at the infamous Cherry Bar in AC/DC lane in 2019 because bureaucrats shut it down. The Cherry Bar found a new home in Melbourne, so people like me can still feel comfortable, absorb live music, and be our most authentic selves in these alternative spaces, but how many more will survive. I think how strange it is to be reflecting on the live music venues I’ve loved over the years as I stand in a football stadium. I am not used to these world colliding. I’d never considered that they could. To maintain my fan identity in previous sporting environments, I’d tried to play by the “rules” and follow everyone else to ensure I could belong. I never wanted to be told I didn’t. As I waited for a stadium tour guide to identify me as a lost tourist, I realised I’d never felt so at home in a sporting venue designed to host men’s sport. I felt the same way I do in a bar full of punks, goths, rockers, musicians, creatives, the LGBTIQ+ community and women. I felt the same way I do at women’s sport. How is it that same sense of safety can be generated around a football stadium? What was happening here?

A man in a FC St. Pauli track top and a stylish yet understated man-bun eyed me in the corner of the bar and spoke to me in German. “Ich spreche kein Deutsch,” I replied timidly. He asked in English if I needed help. When I told him I was looking for a ticket for the stadium tour, he eyed me up and down, told me the tour was in German, would go for three hours, and asked if I still wanted to go. I told him I really wanted to see inside the stadium and I didn’t mind not understanding. How do you tell someone you’ve just met that you could feel the mystical pull of a special place, that you wanted to understand this club to its core and that you were already sure you were going to love it? He asked if I was English. I told him I was Australian. “Ah,” he said. “You are here for Jackson Irvine!” I smiled and felt some of the joy in a shared connection.

The guide told me he was waiting for a group of six. I took a seat on a ripped vinyl stool near the bar. Another fan purchased a tour ticket and sat next to me. We waited in silence. Another man spoke to the guide and they looked at us. The guide spoke to the fan in German, and then looked to me, and spoke in English. “The group we are waiting for are not here, and we need to begin to finish in time. Our friend here speaks English, so we will do the best we can to speak mostly in English today.” The fan speaks English every day for his job in finance and was happy to do the tour in English. The guide then introduced his protégé, a new guide in training, to help with English if the main guide struggled. I profusely thanked them for their efforts to accommodate me. I felt guilty for the other tour member. If I, a non-fan from Australia, who just wanted to see this place, had not come to the stadium that day, he would have had a personalised VIP tour of his team’s ground, in his own language. I felt like I’d ruined his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If it were me, I think I would have been livid, but he assured me he didn’t mind. But I felt self-conscious of being an unknowledgeable woman ruining this “real fan’s” experience.

The four of us, one woman and three men, the most unlikely gang, set out on the tour. It felt surreal to be exploring the inner structure of a concrete football stadium with three strangers, in a foreign country, to be at such a disadvantage around language, and still feel completely safe – not only safe, cared for, and accommodated. Our guides unpacked the social, political, and sporting histories enmeshed in the club and cultural landscape of its neighbourhood. I explained my research in sports fan engagement, which prompted the protégé to discuss, in English, the club’s fan ownership model and voting systems and the fan-based ethos that informs “one of the most inclusive football organisations in the world”. He shared an incredible volume of information and enthusiastically answered all my questions. I was relieved that this afforded my tour companion, the fan, to discuss his own questions with the other tour guide in German.

As we ascended rainbow painted stairs, I noted my gratitude to the German fan for his understanding. Apologising to men for my presence in sporting environments not a foreign language for me. But rather than be annoyed with me, he shared his excitement to meet a fan from Australia so keen to learn about his club. He really appreciated how many questions I was asked. The guide’s answers, he said, made him very proud of his team. When I apologised for displacing him from his very own personal tour, he told me sharing it with a new fan was better. In that moment, I became a FC St. Pauli fan.

This invocation of the punk music origins and myths, which are emblematic of the ways those at and around club celebrate its history, their community and see and treat “outsiders”. There is a clear willingness to broach language and other barriers and boundaries in the tacit signalling of safety to marginalised communities in their actions and other aspects of the tour as detailed in these reflections. There is also an acknowledgment from the author that because of her nature to adopt, consciously or unconsciously, a fan persona to fit in despite her gender (Jones, 2008; Symons, 2024), that she had not considered that these concepts could overlap. That music, art and culture through a lens of activism and inclusion could not only exist but be fundamental to a professional men’s sporting club. As noted, the author had only experienced this kind of crossover and cultural experience while attending women’s sports.

The rainbow-coloured steps are only one of many examples. Even in this “glimpse”, there is a clear sense here of the steadfast allegiance to a principled yet welcoming working model that represents a viable alternative approach in the increasingly prosaic business of football. The fans’ determination to meet the complex moral, ethical, and cultural demands consistent with their communities’ inclusive values, social justice, equity and equal opportunities, have underpinned the club’s unprecedented popularity in other parts of the world (Davidson, 2014; Viñas and Parra, 2020).

In the 1960 and 70s, St. Pauli Quarter of Hamburg had become established as a distinctive alternative focal point for a broad range of subcultures, musicians, artists, political activists and those desiring a life not considered productive when measured against capitalist, Western societal norms (Siny, 2020). The local football team, FC St. Pauli, were poor, worse still they’d made no real impact on German Football history (Hesse-Lichtenberger, 2003). Less than 3,000 fans attended matches, with numbers decreasing each year (Martens, 1997; Davidson, 2014). In 1982, Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, was experiencing the benefits of its post war recovery; real estate around the port had become increasingly attractive. Abandoned buildings on the famous Hafenstraße, the road overlooking the port, home to myriad squats, was targeted for gentrification. A mobilised Police set to reclaim the land for development found themselves facing protesting residents who were joined by FC St. Pauli fans on the way to a match (Siny, 2020). The protest became more powerful and the FC St. Pauli fan base instantly and significantly increased. The incident has since taken on mythic proportions within the Fanladen. The fans actions and social justice driven intent continue to underpin the club’s community, its fans and their collective approach to addressing inequality and embracing the politics of the left, in this case the German second left (McDougall, 2013; Daniel and Kassimeri, 2013).

Painted across seats in one stand are two giant hearts, in black and white with a striking hand-painted banner beneath them stating, “Kein Mensch Ist Illegal” (trans. “No Person is Illegal”).

In the adjacent stand, a red sign runs along reading “Kein fussball den faschisten” (trans. “No football for fascists”). The guide proudly translates these signs for me. He explains what it means to him as a fan to have these statements so visibly prominent in the stadium. When I think about watching my favourite Australian rules football team play in a stadium, commercial advertising and betting odds come to mind. I cannot imagine the presence or acceptance of messages of social justice and human rights, messages that would be deemed as too political in our stadiums.

At FC St. Pauli they actively promote safety and inclusion and welcome and celebrate all people in the football stadium and watching at home. I wonder how it feels to those who have had to flee their home, who might be able to make their way to Millerntor and see these words printed unapologetically across the stands. How it must feel to walk into a sporting stadium and feel instantly at home when you might have had to leave one.

With their home games taking place near Hamburg’s famous Reeperbahn, FC St. Pauli continued to be a magnet for bohemian dwellers of the Hanseatic port’s red-light district. The initial observations outlined by the author in the first reflection are not unexpected and the fears expressed as she gets closer to the stadium are possibly warranted as the Millerntor is adjacent to a mostly working-class, unruly and some have argued gritty or unstable area of the city (Davidson, 2014; Totten, 2015). This is of course the same landscape where attempts to understand and address the community’s social and political issues led to the instigation of the Black Block and, 3 decades later, the Guiding Principles (FC St. Pauli, 2009), which continue to guide the club’s operation and its fans’ activism. To the contemporary fan, whose account is at the heart of this paper, this cultural heritage is evident upon first sighting of the stadium, and in the challenges and reputation of, the stereotypes attached to, the social and physical construction of this unique sporting environment.

The FC St. Pauli community is broadly comprised of (1) those whose role is “formal” or whose capacity is through professional employment or in a commercial arrangement with the club including, the athletes, the team’s coaches and support staff; club officials, management, administration, and non-football staff; the team’s sponsors and partners; and (2) the fans, those many groups that overlap at times, with different roles, involved in their organisation, including the Fanladen staff and volunteers, those facilitating the active fan scene, club members; the local Sankt Pauli community, and a large and growing community of international fans. The Fanladen is arguably effective in ensuring the club aligns with their collective values (Daniel and Kassimeri, 2013; Davidson, 2014; Jack, 2021; Totten, 2015). Evidence of this accountability can be gleaned in the field note observations where graffiti and artwork boldly and unashamedly reinforce the club’s values in the stadium and is also reflected in other ways.

Much of social and political activism has and is driven through and with the cooperation of the Fanladen (trans. fan shop), the term used by the FC St. Pauli’s independent supporters’ organisation, which has come to mean more than shop or meeting place (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013). FC St. Pauli’s fans are renowned for protesting on local issues, such as governmental budget cuts, as well as wider issues such as sexism and racism and the re-emergence of neo-fascism in German football (Cleland, 2015). In 2002, they opposed the club’s advertising of the international men’s magazine, Maxim, at the stadium (Viñas and Parra, 2020). The magazine is renowned for its objectionable treatment of women (Lambiase and Reichert, 2013; Nettleton, 2018). They are also well-known for their resistance to the commercialisation of football (Merkel, 2012), what has been seen as the bourgeois-ification of The Bundesliga (Cleland, 2015).

Alongside the tension, and perhaps as a result, the Fanladen is seen as the Gemeinschaft (trans. community) that facilitates fan driven projects and social education and maintains and supports strong links with its local community membership (Davidson, 2014). The Fanladen is often described or referred to as the Heimat, which means home or homeland, but speaks to emotional or nostalgic connections to place and identity (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013). This is reflective of the club’s distinctive cult status that emerged on the terraces in the early to mid 1980s and reflected in the fans’ support and activism, which informs day to day activities around the club (Ziesche, 2017). This includes a diverse range of antifascist, anti-racist, pro-inclusionist activities and related humanitarian projects (Daniel and Kassimeris, 2013; Totten, 2016; FC St. Pauli, n.d.), its governance and brand marketing (Brand et al., 2023), and an ethos crystalised in their being the first German club to adopt a set of Guiding Principles at the 2009 AGM (Daniels and Kassimeris, 2013).

The Millerntor is distinguished by an archway that leads onto the pitch. The arch crowns access to the bright green turf, which is at once strange and familiar and invokes the usual reverence for the field of play. From beneath the arch, I take in the now empty stands. Stands that bulged and bustled with fans at last night’s game. Today, everything is silent. I’ve been in stadiums before, walked on football pitches, walked through similarly decorated archways. This one though, is very different. Emblazoned at its peak, in English, are the words, “Football has no gender”. Their impact is visceral. I have never seen, and will likely not see again, these words at the entrance to a professional men’s sporting arena.

I have never been able to associate this ideal with any men’s sports. Women’s sports, yes. Queer sports, yes. Professional men’s sports? Never. I think what all the FC St. Pauli fans think when they read this, what away fans think. That these words have such a prominent position in the stadium means they are unavoidable and in that, knowing that everyone who comes here will read these words and have to think, to reflect, even in the smallest way about the intersections of sport, gender and access makes me feel the most hopeful I’ve ever felt at a men’s sporting stadium.

The adoption of the guiding principles was designed to foregrounded tolerance and respect and social responsibility. The road to their resolution began in 1989 when the club’s leadership leant into the Fanladen’s initial “underground” success. It could be argued they’ve capitalised on it. In the mid-1990s, the club formally licensed the Totenkopf as a key element of its identity, which might be seen as one of the many bridges constructed between club and fans.

The women’s fan section of FC St. Pauli, Ey, Die Hunde (trans. “Hey, the Dogs”, Viñas and Parra, 2020, p. 164) contribute to the substantial presence of women attending matches–as many as 30–35%% of Millerntor match attendees are women and girls (sold out crowds of almost 30,000)– which is argued to be the best ratio in Europe (Ford, 2019). Their presence informs and influences the club and the fans’ shared commitment to supporting equality and fighting sexism. However, the road is not a smooth one. In the year following the 2009 establishment of the guiding principles, fans found themselves protesting the club’s lease of VIP boxes to the notorious Susis Show Bar and against Kalte Muschi’s overtly sexualised advertising of their soft drink (Viñas and Parra, 2020). That this dialogue between the fans and club exists however allows a potentially safer cultural environment to air these issues. As reflected in the observations of the stadium’s visible inclusive art, these signal also work to disarm the gendered and heteronormative performances some women fans adopt to feel a sense of belonging (Butler, 1990).

The Millerntor is awash with rainbows, flags and art created by an array of artists from world renowned, to street, to members of the local community, depicting and calling for the support of the LGBTQI+ community. I have never seen such a profusion of the community’s colours outside of specific Pride and Mardi Gras events. The politics and ethics of the club are evident on stairwells steps and archways embellished with colour and decorative graffiti art adorns walls, rails, windows, furniture and floors. “No place for homophobia, fascism, sexism, racism” in English is stencilled on one of the walls leading to the pitch. The universal biological signs for male are intwined together, inside a football with the words, “Fight Discrimination” printed beneath. Promotion for the Women in Football fan art exhibition curated by feminist fan initiative, “Fantastic Females”, is prominent in the concourse. There is not one piece of concrete that doesn’t boldly demonstrate a message that fights for equality and inclusion for all diverse lived experiences. This football stadium is the most intersectional living museum I have ever walked through.

As the guide led us down a dark corridor he stopped at gate with a massive version of the club’s signature skull and crossbones and the words “Welcome Hell” warning you for what is about to come, the horror themed tunnel, painted black and emblazoned in blood red graffiti was designed by fans to unnerve opposition players and capture a sense of the intimidating energy in the stadium they are about to enter.

FC St. Pauli run out to thunderous tones of AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells”, the Australian rock anthem, which is blasted through the stadium speaker system. This connection to Australia, a connection to AC/DC Lane in Melbourne, and my beloved Cherry Bar speaks to my love of sport, music, culture and activism. I wonder how opposition teams feel entering these tunnels. Maybe for some male athletes who also suffer within the male hegemony of professional sport to be who they truly are it is not antagonising. Maybe this space is also for those who are stuck in professional sporting systems to also feel safe. Welcome Hell. Welcome Home.

While fan activism established the club’s culture, the club’s commercial intent and the fans’ sense of social responsibility will continue to be a point of tension. That is not to say that the club is not interested in on-field success. Of course, success on the pitch is a priority the club’s recent promotion to the Bundesliga is testament to what on-field success also means to fans and the local community. The commercial tendencies of the club are often underestimated in scholarly examination of the club (Totten, 2015), and the activism of the fans is distinct from and a challenge to the club itself (Ziesche, 2017). Understanding this relationship however, of the fans to the club, is as important of taking notice of the successes of FC St. Pauli, for this allows for examination of the ways in which fans are represented, and how their aspirations are pursued by and despite other pressures facing the club.

Through the use of autoethnography to portray the nuanced, challenging, confusing and illuminating moments the author faced while entering this space and reflecting on sporting spaces through the lens of diversity, inclusion and fan activism, we are able to further understand how sporting clubs, stadiums and sites construct culture/s that can exclude many fans from enjoying them. This approach allows for a dialogue to open about how professional men’s sport can adopt changes to visibly signal inclusion and offer safe spaces for more diverse fans. While many studies that utilise ethnographies and fan accounts have looked into the experiences of women at men’s professional sport (Symons, 2023; Pope, 2018; Richards, 2018) and work on women’s sports increases (Schallhorn et al., 2024; Taylor and Leslie-Walker, 2024; Allison, 2023, 2024) and what limit their participation and sense of belonging, most centre the match day or live sporting event as their site of inquiry. Our study looks at the stadium alone, without the attraction of a match, and explores how FC St. Pauli expresses club values through visible signals, art and paraphernalia and fan activism to position itself in a sporting culture. How these visible signals are enterpreted through a woman fan’s first experience of the stadium and the club demonstrates the gender performance some fans adopt in hypermasculine sporting space in a new setting and allows for an investigation of how those performances can be undone through active inclusion efforts to signal acceptance and safety for diverse fans. Thus we can reflect on what change can occur in our modern professional men’s sporting landscape to drive more inclusive practices and how achievable that change can be through modern fan activism and visible activism on show in stadiums.

Nine months later I find myself covering a class for a colleague. I’m teaching the “social impact” week in a unit about future trends in sport management and I use three football clubs as case studies about doing things differently in sport.

I get the students to look at Angel City in LA about building a club from the ground up that has women as its core business. We look at the Forest Green Rovers to see how a club can challenge sustainability in sport and we look at FC St. Pauli for diversity and inclusion.

The students haven’t heard of FC St. Pauli. Their ears prick up a little when I tell them that Jackson Irvine is the captain. I show them pictures from my visit and share my experience. We discuss the club’s ethos and history. I show them my photo of the entrance that took my breath away, “football has no gender”. They all think it’s pretty cool, but they are surprised to see those words at a stadium. One student comments that it’s a lot to see something like that printed on a stadium. I reply, “is it?” and they think about it a bit. I want them to really think about those words and if it is actually “a lot” to print them. Are they actually that political? Promoting that everyone should be able to play football? Our discussion is productive, but they still think it is too political. And I guess they are right. There’s a reason we don’t see these words painted on every sporting stadium.

I ask the students if they think we’d ever see these words at a stadium in Australia. It takes only seconds for them to respond. No. They don’t see it. They don’t think we’re “there yet”. One student tries to offer some hope by suggesting maybe at women’s sports. But they confirm to me my fears … The change I want to see is still a long, long way off. I have to remain inspired that clubs like FC St Pauli exist. That there are some sporting clubs in our world that defy, that thrive, those are the sporting clubs that have my heart and give me the drive I need to keep doing the work I do.

Place-based and reflexive autoethnography are effective mechanisms for examination of the self and placing one’s self in a broader social context for scholarly interrogation (Bakhsh, 2022), in this case a woman sports fan entering a foreign professional men’s sporting stadium. In this paper, we used autoethnography to create an academic space to draw informed reflections, consider sporting and popular culture to situate the stadium experience and combine with relevant academic research to draw key findings on how sporting stadiums create gendered environments and how fan activism can challenge them. As a method it allows for exploration of minutiae of the fan experience that is often overlooked, excused, and tolerated in some elite men’s sports, but when unpacked, can greatly impact the cultural experience for women, and other diverse and intersectional communities who want to be part of the sports fan experience. The complex and nuanced experiences depicted in the reflective accounts here provide a rich data set related to experiential learnings of fan experiences of a club that boldly stands outside the norm. Where it focuses on a woman sports fan, relatively new to the sporting code, who discovered FC St. Pauli somewhat by accident, these experiences are located within the context of documented histories of the club and an exploration of some aspects of fans’ activism to situate the club alongside the firsthand narrative of how the author experienced it walking through Millerntor. The paper therefore provides insight of current fan engagement practices at FC St. Pauli and the ways the club’s fans continue to foster empathy and advocacy for marginalised peoples in their own and other communities from the perspective of a woman engaging with the club for the first time; a woman with extensive experience in men’s professional sporting environments and innate understanding of the biases and barriers those environments had shaped within her own fan connections to sport. Future work could investigate experiences of other clubs doing things differently such as the Forest Green Rovers (Delia et al., 2024) and Angel City FC (Smith and Davies, 2023) and how they visibly portray their club values to fans and potential fans.

FC St. Pauli’s relatively successful reconciliation of fans’ needs and managing a commercialised football business has attracted the kind of global following more often associated with Europe’s affluent football elite, such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool FC, and the 1. Bundesliga’s dominant team, Bayern München. It remains unlikely that they will attain the wealth, glamour or “on the pitch” success of these clubs, though their 2024 promotion will attract opportunities that the club’s ethos and guiding values may hinder in terms of broader commercialisation. FC St. Pauli fans’ influence on the club continues to reinforce its sense of social responsibility, its service to its community and their support in addressing a wide range of social and political issues and concerns (Merkel, 2012; Totten, 2016). The club’s position reflects a rare exception in the international football landscape where the football club operations and their fan-based community’s needs are aligned, woven together, not always harmoniously, into collaborative collective aims. This approach, or more accurately the work of the Fanladen, often attributed to the club and not simply the fans (Davidson, 2014; Viñas and Parra, 2020), has seen the club grow an expansive international fanbase and an important position on international football landscape. Few second-tier clubs could boast the levels of fan engagement or international recognition enjoyed by FC St. Pauli. Now, after promotion to The Bundesliga, perhaps more sporting clubs will look to FC St Pauli for ideas on how to authentically drive social change in their own communities. Our intention for this paper is not to investigate the direct correlation of diversity and inclusion practices within the fan-centric and activist ethos of the club to commercial and on-field success. Future research could seek to further understand the motivations and values of fans in regard to these ideals, relationship to success or indeed challenges to resist commercial pressures when success is lacking.

Within this context, this paper affords a rare examination of a woman sports fan’s experience in visiting FC St. Pauli. Where it draws in discussion of women’s presence in sports spectator environments, it presents nuanced consideration of the multi-layered and complex experiences of women as fans in predominantly male professional football club fan spaces, in this case, within the German context. Its place-based and reflexive autoethnographical account highlights some of the ways one German club challenges the treatment of women as fans. The employment of this method offers new understanding of the gendered experiences of participation in sports fandom. The Fanladen’s ongoing dedication to serving fans and signalling of broader inclusion to those who might also feel alienated by some toxic and hegemonic masculinity and sporting events might indeed be the club’s real triumph.

Supported by Australia–Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme and the 2022/2023 Project-Related Personal Exchange (PPP), provided by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service).