Vfl BOCHUM - AJAX

Vfl BOCHUM - AJAX

--UEFA Cup game - 11 december 1997, Bochum--

NSF was present in Bochum. You just don't want to miss games against German teams!
We arrived at 13.00 hours. We went straight to the city-center. About 2500 AJAX fans made the trip to Bochum. The German police was very stressed. When a minor incident happened, they blocked the entire street and arrested everyone on the street. Also some pubs were entered by the German police and everyone inside was arrested. A total of about 750 AJAX fans were arrested this day. Totally absurd. For sure some incidents happened, but this is no reason to just lock up everyone. From our group one person got arrested. He was send home at about 1 o'clock (at night). The rest of our group had more luck and managed to got away.
We later heard that a group of Schalke hools, who were looking for a confrontation with AJAX hools, were also arrested. They were arrested before the could reach the city-center (I thought already on the highway), so there was no confrontation between Schalke and AJAX hools.
It was almost impossible to make pictures during the police action, because the risk of being arrested was too high. Inside the stadium no big incidents occured. One member of our group got into a fight with a Bochum fan (we had tickets for a german stand). We were inside "Bochum territory", but no Bochum hools were seen (personally I don't believe there are Bochum hools on this planet).

We had tickets for a german stand!

German police arrests an AJAX fan.

Inside the stadium; AJAX scored.
Upper right; the area reserved for AJAX fans.

Some stolen Bochum stuff is being burned.