Wednesday 20th October 2010
Champions League Group Stage
Schalke 3-1 Hapoel Tel Aviv
Attendance: 50,900
First up was a trip to Gelsenkirchen, the home town of Schalke 04. The ground is a good 25 minute tram journey out of the town centre. A good place to stop off en-route for a beer, which I did, is one of the supporters bars near to the old ground. The Glückauf-Kampfbahn was used up until 1973, when Schalke moved to the Park Stadium before moving to the current Arena AufSchalke in 2001. Only the main stand remains as this is a listed building and cannot be demolished.


The ground is an impressive arena with a capacity of just over 61,000. I was led to believe that quite an atmosphere can be generated in the ground but sadly there was little evidence of that tonight.
The game was a routine 3-1 home win against a very, very poor Hapoel side. Once Raul had scored given the home team the lead inside 3 minutes, there was only going to be one winner. The only surprise was that the second goal took so long to come, Raul eventually adding a second on 59 minutes before Jurado hit a great third on 68 minutes. Itey Shechter bundled home a consolation for the Israeli's with the last kick of the game.
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