Bundesliga start 2004: Schalke bus driver scared

The opening game of the 2004/2005 Bundesliga season between SV Werder Bremen and FC Schalke 04 is Lars Laser’s first day at work as a permanent bus driver for the Schalke professional team. The then 29-year-old passionate motorcyclist actually likes it rough, is a fan of AC/DC and Metallica and plays drums in a heavy metal band. But he doesn’t need it as heavy as he did 20 years ago.

Laser, who has been a fan of the Royal Blues since childhood, stands in Block 5 of the Parkstadion as a teenager and registers all four sons as members of S04 on the day they were born, brings the team to the opening game in Bremen with precision. After coach Jupp Heynckes and the team, including the new signings from Bremen, Ailton and Mladen Krstajic, have long since disappeared into the Weserstadion changing rooms, he begins to prepare the food for the journey home, which is usually brought frozen from Gelsenkirchen for away games. Because he doesn’t want to leave the brand new Mercedes Travego running on ignition and needs power for the hot air ovens, he asks a security employee about connection options.

“He showed me a distribution room in which I felt like there were ten thousand cables and one last free socket. I then connected my cable drum to this.” Back in the van, the ovens were already preheating when a bang went through the stadium and one after the other the intercom, the scoreboard and the floodlights went out. Laser wondered “why so many people suddenly ran past my bus in panic. Then I looked through the marathon gate into the stadium, which was completely dark.” Power failure!

When he sees that a squad is also inspecting the distribution room from which his cable treacherously leads into the bus, Laser is sure that he is the initiator of all the evil. Driven by a guilty conscience and terrified, “I got out of the car, acted innocent and pricked up my ears to find out what was going on.”

A party in the dark

In the stands of the Weserstadion, which is sold out with 42,500 spectators, the fans take it with humor, light lighters, sing their songs, and the Schalke supporters actually manage to drink the beer stands in the guest area dry. In front of the television, the ARD viewers have to make do with an entertainment program in which Roberto Blanco also sings “Ein bisschen Spaß muss sein” to top it all off. The ‘perpetrator’ on site is less amused, probably already thinking about whether his liability insurance will cover it and what exactly is written into his employment contract regarding the probationary period.Bunde

But because his cable was still undiscovered and the inspection of the distribution room was apparently completed, the bus driver now starts destroying evidence, secretly pulls the cable out of the socket and lets the cable drum disappear into the depths of the bus as if it had never left Gelsenkirchen. Then, in consultation with those responsible, he turns his bus back on, puts an AC/DC CD in the player and prepares the meals as planned.

The season opener between Werder and Schalke kicks off under emergency lighting with a delay of over an hour, and Nelson Valdes scores the latest goal in Bundesliga history to date at 11:15 p.m., making the final score 1-0 for Werder Bremen.

After the team and the support staff have been provided with food and the bus is on its way back to Gelsenkirchen long after midnight, Laser hears from the radio that an excavator has cut a power cable during construction work and is responsible for the dilemma. The next day, the Bremen public utility company reveals that a high-voltage socket, which is now on display in the Werder Museum, was responsible for the power outage in and around the stadium. “In the end,” says the now 49-year-old, “I didn’t care who was responsible for the drama. The main thing is that it wasn’t me.”