Markus, 13, with his friend Thomas / 14. October 1995 - 1995/96 season, first round / Eintracht Frankfurt - FC St. Pauli 2:2
Markus comes from a strange family: no one has anything to do with football, let alone a club. So the boyfriend of his best friend's big sister - a groundhopper and Eintracht fan - had to take the two of them to the football after several pleas.
When Markus entered the Waldstadion for the first time in October 1995 at the age of 13 - 25,000 people, drizzle, the idols Jay-Jay, Köpke and Uwe Bindewald on the pitch - he was "directly set on fire". Also because the stewards sometimes kindly let children behind the main stand after the game, where they could get an autograph from "their" stars up close when they went to their cars.
More visits followed with the "friend of my mate's sister" and relegation in 1996, before "out of spite!" the first season ticket in the J-Block had to be bought and nothing stood in the way of trips to the stadium on my own. By the way, the season ticket cost a horrendous 50 Deutschmarks back then and was hard-earned through a job in the supermarket in Bad Nauheim: 6-8 a.m. stocking shelves, a nap, breakfast and off to Frankfurt on the S-Bahn - that's what every second Saturday looked like for Markus back then.
The illustrated scene also dates from this time: Markus in his second jersey (the first was of course the Tetra Pak classic), buddy Thomas and the flags in his luggage - and the other guys waiting at the entrance to be brought in with the season tickets. Yes, sorry, they weren't snapped off back then. Pre-modern football ...
Even though he was the first in his family to ever see the inside of a stadium, he was all the more eager to make sure that friends and his brother accompanied him to the SGE and also became fans. In fairness, it must be mentioned that even his parents later started to take an interest in the Eintracht and listened to the games on the radio.
Later, as a "young ultra", he helped design banners and flags for choreos, founded his own Eintracht fan club and is now a freelance contributor to Eintracht magazine, where he has been working with Jan Åge Fjørtoft on the interview section "Übersteiger" for several years. Conveniently, they had already "known" each other since 1999, when they stormed the pitch after Fjørtoft's 5:1 win against Lautern, which meant the club stayed in the league.