This is not a book about football. It is more than a collection of anecdotes, data, goals and players of a club. Carles Viñas and Natxo Parra follow the story of St. Pauli through German history, from the unification of the country in the 19 th Century to its present. The field is itself a metaphor: of social struggles, worker’s demands, resistance to Nazism and ecological and anti- nuclear militant demonstrations. From promotions and relegations, squatters, popular empowerment, the founding of the Bundesliga, gentrification, club culture, anti-racism, anti- fascism and anti-sexism. St. Pauli is more than a football club. It is a way of understanding football, its ties with the community and the neighbourhood, to everyday. It’s a metaphor of a city, Hamburg. But not everything is as nice as it sounds. Even for the St. Pauli, a club between professional football, navigating through the contradictions of modern football, where money is everything. Viñas and Parra shows us what is hidden behind the skull and bones of the St. Pauli, the pirates of the Bundesliga.
