Are they any good?
Grasshopper Club Zurich, aka GC or GCZ, is historically the most successful club in Switzerland. You can’t really argue with 27 championships and 18 cups. However, right now its a bug’s life for the hoppers.
Not only is the club far from being top of the table, their financial trouble has recently been all over the news. A remarkable story of hundreds of millions of francs that was supposed to be invested and suddenly disappeared.
Despite their recent woes, GC is considered, at least by themselves a top4 club in Switzerland together with FC Zurich, FC Basel, and YB Bern. In line with this claim they finished fourth in the 2008-09 season.
Cracking atmosphere
Where do they play?
I thought you’d never ask. They play in a fantastic modern stadium, assuming you are into watching athletics. Attending a football match in an athletics stadium is like watching table tennis on a golf course. As if this wasn’t bad enough the stadium is vastly over sized, on a typical league game around 75% of the seats are empty. The Leitzigrund has a capacity of 25.000 for football.
Getting to the ground is easy as there are plenty of tramways and it is even quite walkable from the Zurich city center.
It has to be said that GC is a club in exile. They didn’t choose to be here – they used to play in a real football stadium, the Hardturm. The old ground was closed in September ‘07 but unfortunately for GC building work on the new one is delayed, in part because of planning permission issues.
Supply exceeding demand
What’s it like to visit?
What do you think? You are not paying attention. It’s awful.
The football special stops at a train station that is a 5 minutes bus ride away, you will be able to enjoy the presence of a police escort as you travel through the Zurich suburb. Getting through the security and ticket control seems to take forever. Catering inside is not bad, there is a special Leiziwurst sausage and beer is sold in plastic cups with a two francs deposit you will get back when the cup is returned.
As previously said, getting a seat is not a problem. The away end is right behind a goal where the impact of running tracks is at its worst. The Grasshopper fans sits right across. It is quite surreal to see a single section of the ground completely filled while the rest is empty apart from a few scattered hermits in the more expensive seats.
Better come earlier next time.
Its no easy to support GC right now. Not only are their neighbors FC Zurich flying high, they are also in exile in their ground. Many fans never followed the club in their move to the Leizigrund and it is uncertain if they will all come back when GC can finally move back to their permanent new home for the season 2014-15…
That’s it?
No, I bet you didn’t know these crazy facts about grasshoppers:
- The Leizigrund has a secret dark past. In 1996 Celine Dion sang here in front of a 75000 crowd.
- According to the Wikipedia: “The origins of Grasshopper’s name is unknown, although the most common explanation is rooted in its early players’ energetic post-goal celebrations.” Given their current performance on the pitch these energetic celebrations are much rarer nowadays.
- Last season Grasshopper had an average home attendance of 6497.
- Female grasshoppers are almost always larger than the males.
- In Africa, grasshoppers are an important food source, adding proteins, fat, minerals, and vitamins to the daily diet, especially in times of food crisis. Grasshoppers are usually collected at dusk, using lamps or electric lighting, in sweep nets. They are placed in water for 24 hours, after which they can be boiled or eaten raw, sun-dried, fried, flavored with onions, or used in soup.
- The 1957 film Beginning of the End featured mutated giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago.
- “Grasshopper” is a term currently used in jest referencing a person who has much to learn.
- A grasshopper is also a sweet, mint-flavored, after-dinner drink. The name of the drink is derived from its green color which is provided by the Crème de menthe.
- Grasshoppers is often mentioned as a football club with a funny, or odd, name. Very much in the same vein as Eleven Men in Flight from Swaziland, Deportivo Wanka of Peru and Young Boys of Bern.
Your online provider of independent, biased, partisan FC Luzern related propaganda since 2008. And in English too.
JUST CAN'T BEAT THAT 
Was the 3 game ban not for kicking Van Persie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBBdG_Tfow
You may be right. Separate incidents. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8252803.stm
The guy is a young lad who hasn’t featured much for them (according to Wikipedia’s stats) so maybe he just got carried away. The racist stuff is beyond the pale.
Having said that about Wiki – most of the stuff on there is nonsense as per the edit history of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lonsdale
was there, too! the genius you mention two seats to my left.
die erschti reihe höpft ole!!!
This “anonymous innovating hero” is called “Alpenloewe” and is a member of the infamous “Hüetli-Club”. So just come and visit us next home game, I guess your chance to get a free beer from us is quite high as we love your page and the way you think
Cheers,
Daniel
Daniel,
Thank you for your comment – where is this infamous “Hüetli-Club” of which you speak?
We shall be sure to redeem our free beer.
Cheers
Michael
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amade-ch/4805798410/in/set-72157624529267114/
look @ top left of this pic, we’re the guys with the blue-white hats (“hüetli” is swiss german for small hat).
zone 2, next to our loved beer…
cheers
So you are in amongst these chaps here: http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3540/screenshot20100812at173.png
I think we are further along in Zone 2. Usually near the back on the right side behind the goal. See you at the next home game then.
Wikipedia user Daveh86 you are also a hero for standing up to tyranny of mediocrity and doing the right thing.
One day the world of user generated trivia will be ready for our bold and revolutionary update on the home page of the African audio torture device. One day.
Zibung is a hero
Hakan is a hero
Ianu is a hero!! “Cristian Ianu, schiess bald weder es gool!!!”
Pure magic.
I agree – that ground is the worst in super league for football, though I have not yet been to Thun.
What a goal from Paiva. http://www.videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=7e8420f1-f2a4-462d-8418-4d2c4f8f796a
More snails please.
More snails are coming right up…..
I never knew you agreed on the stadium, but having just read this: http://justcantbeatthat.com/who-are-they/grasshopper-club/ I know what you mean!
It is a ghastly soulless arena, severely lacking in punters, let alone atmosphere. Watching a game there is akin to watching one in the Scottish Premier League.
Nice article, just a small hint: already a 0-4 defeat against thun would cost us the lead… however – still highly unlikely.
Thun only needs to win 0:4?
Maesi? I have never claimed maths as a strong point, but going by the league table above – FCL have a positive goal difference of 11, and Thun 4….
11-4=7, so Thun have to win by 8 goals to overtake FCL on goal difference???? Or does the Swiss League have different rules?
If I am wrong, I will happily correct it?????
0:4 is correct, the difference is the second priority after the points.
thun 7gms 15:7(+8)goals 13points
fcl 7 18:11(+7) 13
Fair point…. In my excitement of realising that FCL will be top of the league for a couple of weeks, I hadn’t considered LU’s defence to be conceding any goals… time to hit the edit button I guess.
2-0 spurs, right now it looks like the team itself is the biggest joke.
Anonymous – that is a well known fact. I refer you to the day in May when they came to the Gersag in their numbers, and had they won they would have pretty much been in pole position to win the league. Instead they got smashed 5-1 by FCL….
We know they are a joke – Still hope they can beat Spurs though!
Swiss catholic priests favorite football team?
‘Winning doesn’t really matter as long as you win’.
Ironic that Vinny ‘Psycho’ Jones holds the record for the fastest ever yellow card. Just three seconds.
Thanks for commenting Dan, but what has that got to do with anything? And in what way is a yellow card for Vinny ironic? It could possibly be that if he had made previous statements on how fair he was. Or is the first sentence a quote from Vinny and you see fouling other players after three second as something you wouldn’t do if winning was very important. Just curious.
Their mum is doing the half time food – no dirty plastic sausage for us. Turkish sandwiches – yum!
and you’ll be first in the queue for Mama Yakin’s mutton, cabbage and yoghurt wraps….
Its a bit far to Geneva, but Lausanne is a team I could consider going to see in the Europa league. If you boys have a GA then why not?
“It is at this point unclear if we should count the points we need to avoid relegation or start dreaming of champions league next season.”
No – disagree, FCL have had a belter of a start to the season – they need to build on it and go for a top three finish. Anything lower than fourth spot will be epic failure.
Anything else than the Championship is a disappointment and not tolerable
COME ON LUCERNE!
Doubt I will go. Need to focus on the right games away. Sausage munchers away 25th Sept is one. Sion Merde Allez 31 October is a given.
“The human Vuvuzela invented by the FC Luzern fans remains a kick in the genitals of the clowns at Nyon. Keep it going and spread the word”
Brilliant!!!!
The folks in Nylon will be banning church bells next !
we’d better get the chance to travel to more than just one european destination next year!
The family of this chap still own the club. His main work in CH seems to be either based in Fribourg or Schaffhausen so not sure if he or the family have a personal connection to Fringer.
ROLF – DON’T DO IT! The shadow of Fat Le Tissier will always be above you!
maybe we shouldn’t worry about this too much, appears Rolf isn’t even on the bookies lists
http://www.online-betting-guide.co.uk/next-southampton-manager.htm