WHEN Dieter Mateschitz unveiled Red Bull Salzburg in June 2005 flanked by his private aircraft collection, there was no doubt that the club had become nothing more than another branch of his firm’s forays into novelty sports events such as skydiving, wakeboarding and Formula 1. There stood 11 walking billboards for a drink: red and white strips for home games with all blue when playing away from a ground tackily refitted with laser lighting rigs and a “supersonic” sound system.

The insensitivity shown to Austria Salzburg’s identity alienated swathes of supporters, some of whom were further outraged at being denied entry to a pre-season friendly merely for wearing their traditional colours. “The red bull can’t be violet, or else we couldn’t call it Red Bull,” went Mateschitz’s response. “This is a new club with no history.”

Despite a successful start on the field, the club’s most dedicated fans moved quickly to safeguard its discarded past. Today, those who had egged-on the young Martin Hiden in the 90s are more likely to be found on the sidelines of Austria’s village greens than at Red Bull’s temple of mammon.

To the refrain of “scheisse Red Bull!” and backed by unprecedented terrace solidarity from fans of many European clubs, the Initiative Violett-Weiss – an alliance of Austria Salzburg’s 20 or so supporters’ groups – attempted to reason with Red Bull on the issue of colour. The firm filibustered, dismissing public objections to their takeover as hooliganism. During a home game against Austria Vienna, 1,000 pro-violet supporters noisily exited the stadium through a choking violet fug at precisely 19.33, the year of Austria Salzburg’s foundation. Vowing only to return with their resurrected club, the bearers of 76 years of Austria Salzburg’s history are now sitting on top of the fourth division: the halfway stage of their epic journey back to the Bundesliga.

It’s not been easy. Their small community has suffered the loss of its grandstand to fire, and the life of young ultra Gerhard Weiss on a coach trip to visit a group of sympathetic fans of Borussia Dortmund. Those who Red Bull termed a “violent group of so-called fans” have welcomed supporters from all over Europe to Salzburg’s violet quarter. The demands of having a four-figure crowd in tow everywhere they go may present challenges to rural venues, but there’s more danger of being duped by tall tales about Martin Hiden’s supposed appetite for ham than anything else. In fact, the most violent act I’ve witnessed there was a bloke getting heartily slapped by his girlfriend.

Well, he probably asked for it – which is more than most football supporters do as the institutions we sustain with noise and with colour are bought and sold with increasingly frequency. Without our traditions, our culture, the lives we live and lend to our clubs, what would they be? What’s left when clubs exist for the benefit of those other than their supporters? In the third division, with ownership a mystery and Thorp Arch left unbought while plans for a commercial development estimated to cost over £80m sit on the drawing board, the endeavours of Austria Salzburg’s supporters is a timely reaffirmation of what we Leeds United fans already know: always question the motives of those running our club even when it’s on a roll. In fact, especially when it’s on a roll.

As for the only man to wear the all-white of Leeds United and the violet of Austria Salzburg, 36-year old Martin Hiden last year became the world’s first carbon neutral footballer (whatever that means), adding a righteous splash of green to an already extensive palette for one of the game’s least likely colourful characters.

This article appears in issue 4 of The Square Ball Magazine. Out now, only £1.

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WHEN George Graham checked behind the ears of the defender he’d bought from Rapid Vienna in February 1998, everything seemed to be as advertised. Within days, Martin Hiden slotted straight into one of his stoic yet occasionally engaging Leeds United line-ups on an afternoon it was neither: defeated by a single goal at home to Southampton. Nevertheless, the new acquisition settled in and was present at some memorable on-days (5-0 at Derby County) as well as some forgettable off-ones (0-1 at home to Wolves in the FA Cup).

Homesickness, however, was soon to become a worry for Hiden. English football’s only other Austrian, Alex Manninger, kept goal 200 miles away and much worse: no matter where he looked, it seemed that nowhere in West Yorkshire sold speck, a peculiarly Austrian sort of salt-cured ham. Bruno Ribeiro told him about a shop in Harrogate that stocked chorizo, but it simply wouldn’t do. Nothing could replace the distinctive juniper flavours of his favourite brand of speck, and in the depths of despair he reached for the bottle.

Summer brought the first indication to George Graham that all was not how it seemed with his £1.3m man: when the once brown-haired Hiden turned up for pre-season training with a brightly bleached barnet. If there’s one thing Graham hated, it was peroxide. So much so, that Hiden’s roots were barely showing when the man who once frogmarched freshly-blonded Lee Sharpe and Jonathan Woodgate back to the barbers by their ear holes walked himself all the way down the M1 to Spurs.

Hiden’s experiments soon left him with a bonce so red it resembled David Hopkin’s as seen through a pair of infrared goggles. Then, in a cruel twist of fate, a pothole in the turf of that club who wear the same disgusting colour ended his Leeds career. With a sore arse from the treatment table, Hiden eventually skulked back to his homeland; his hair a footnote in Leeds United’s history yet, it turns out, a token of the chameleonic nature of Austrian football.

Believe it or not, Hiden still plays in the Austrian Bundesliga. With revenues a fraction of those enjoyed by the other one in neighbouring Germany, it’s a grotesquely commercialised league. Playing kits are pockmarked with logos and the turnover of sponsors buries clubs beneath a colourful array of names and motifs. The games of hide and seek played with identity suits sponsors more than clubs, and some deals are more intrusive than others.

Take one of Hiden’s former clubs, for instance. Austria Salzburg were known officially as Casino Salzburg for a decade until an insurance firm, Wüstenrot, lent their name to the club in 1997. Throughout this period, the club wore its traditional hues of violet and white – until, that is, the hangover from a mid-90s purple patch that brought three Bundesliga titles and a UEFA Cup kicked in with a bang.

Amid cash concerns in the second half of the 2004/05 season, top flight survival was secured and Red Bull owner Dieter Mateschitz stated his intention to rescue the club. Outgoing chairman Rudi Quehenberger expressed his delight that “years of hard work for the benefit of football in Salzburg” had come to fruition, and the local company’s investment was roundly applauded. The strugglers suddenly became favourites for the title, but it quickly emerged that in brokering a deal with the energy drink firm, the club had sold its soul to the devil.

This article concludes here and appears in issue 4 of The Square Ball Magazine. Out now, only £1.

See also: Austria Salzburg, Leeds United, Red Bull by TBG | Comments Off

FOR REASONS unknown, a gentleman by the name of Mike Boorman recently commissioned North East-based artist Aidan Brown to work on a life-size bust of Ken Bates, of whom Mr Boorman is, like me, a “life-long admirer”. The likeness, sculpted in clay and cast in reconstituted copper, is presently at Elland Road, where its ultimate destiny is unclear.

Should it form the centrepiece of a delightful water feature in the foyer of Ken’s fabled L-shaped block?

Perhaps it’ll serve as a paperweight, providing peace of mind should a drafty window interfere with Ken’s ever-precarious piles of carefully-organised papers?

Or maybe it’s just going to prop Suzannah’s kitchen door open until the day clumsy Ken stubs his toe on it in that bombastic style of his.

What is for certain is that it’s eerily reminiscent of that Lionel Richie bust from the “Hello” video. So with this in mind: hello, is it Ken we’re looking for? At the time of writing, the overwhelming majority of visitors to the excellent thescratchingshed.com don’t think so. They can’t see it in his eyes, can’t see it in his smile, he’s not all they’ve ever wanted and their arms aren’t open wide…

See also: Leeds United by TBG | 3 Comments »

WHEN considering Ken Bates’ Leeds United from time to time, I’m increasingly mindful of (and that’s “I’m increasingly mindful of” not “I make a direct comparison with” if you’re watching, Carter-Ruck) a quote from Jon Ronson’s book, Them: Adventures with Extremists on the subject of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania, the one about a whole nation “living inside the imagination of a madman”.

Away from the sanitised airwaves of Yorkshire Radio and the pages of the matchday programme (and though it pains me to say it, those of the Yorkshire Evening Post too), and beyond the Members Club’s reach (but certainly within its ranks as well), there are an increasing number of questions, once again, about the way the club is being run.

Over the last two years, The Beaten Generation has provided – for free – a range of designs which enable the collective expression of these ongoing concerns.

By downloading, applying and sharing the work with others – be it online in the form of wallpapers, twibbons and avatars, or in print as posters, stickers and t-shirts – only you can demonstrate that the right notes are being struck.

FREE downloads:
Self Before Side | Don’t Believe the Tripe
Never be Defeated | How Low Can You Go?

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WITH advance apologies to Public Enemy (thanks once again, Chuck), The Beaten Generation make yet another monochromatic addition to an ever-expanding portfolio dedicated to the many achievements of Leeds United’s esteemed chairman (but NOT it’s owner).

Got that? Good.

“How Low Can You Go?” is available to download for FREE in all the usual formats: A3 poster, A4 poster, A5 flyer, and A4 sticker sheet from the FREE: How Low Can You Go? page.

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VILLAREAL visit Red Bull Salzburg in the Europa League tonight, but nobody cares about that bollocks (unless of course, they win there).

Of interest instead this evening is the first pairing of Celtic and Rapid Vienna since the two clubs slugged out an ugly Cup Winners Cup tie in 1984.

At Parkhead, Celtic overturned a 3-1 first leg deficit but were ordered to do it all over again by UEFA after Rapid midfielder Rudi Weinhofer claimed to have been struck by a bottle chucked vaguely in his direction from the crowd.

Weinhofer left the ground with his head wrapped in a comedy bandage, and the Austrians eventually progressed to the quarter finals after a venomous replay at Old Trafford, where goalscorer Peter Pacult had the smile wiped from his face by a Celtic fan.

Pacult is Rapid’s boss these days, and may aim to land a few blows of his own with the aid of specially re-introduced all-red strip to commemorate 1984’s skandalspiel victory. It’s just “a joke”, Rapid say – though Celtic are unlikely to see the funny side if history were to repeat itself tonight.

See also: Bundesliga, Red Bull, UEFA by TBG | Comments Off