As Inter fans we are blessed with two big derbies: Derby d’italia and Derby della Madonnina. This thread is about all of the other interesting derbies of the world. Derbies have a very special feel to them no matter how big the clubs involved may be because they often are very intense and the fans often have an amazing hatred towards each other.
I am myself a dedicated FC Copenhagen fan and three times a year I am suffering through the biggest Danish derby of FC Copenhagen vs. Brondby. In April I went to Stockholm in Sweden with some mates to watch “AIK Solna” vs. “Djurgaarden” and I was definitely not disappointed. I started this thread to hear if anyone has got some stories of intense derbies outside of Italy.
In Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) three big clubs dominate: “AIK Solna”, “Djurgaarden” and “Hammarby”. I am definently not an expert on the Swedish clubs and Swedish football but this is what I was told (please correct me if I am wrong). AIK is a club from the suburbs of Stockholm while Hammarby and Djurgaarden are from central Stockholm. I know the following is generalizations on my part and I am not sure if it is totally true but I was told that AIK is sort of the trendy club and at the same time the lower class club while Hammarby is believed to be the working mans club and Djurgaarden is the club for the upper class kind of people.
The match between AIK-Djurgaarden is one of the biggest local derbies in Scandinavia. I was told that the Swedes call it “the derby of hatred” and it was clear that the fans really hated each other. The two clubs have some of the largest fan groups in Scandinavia and I was told that AIK Solna also have some pretty aggressive fans and this was confirmed when we after the match celebrated the victory with them (AIK won it deservingly 3-1).
In Sweden the season starts in April as opposed to most of the other leagues in Europe which starts in august/September. Two seasons ago AIK had a horrible season and ended up getting relegated. After one season AIK got back into the Allsvenskan (Swedish premier league) and this was their first derby match against Djurgaarden since AIK got relegated so you can imagine how fired up the players and fans was for this match. The match was played at Swedens national stadion which is also the home pitch of AIK. 34.417 people attended the game which is almost a filled stadium. I am sure the attendance would have been greater if the stadium capacity had been larger.
I must say that I was very impressed with both fan groups. I was rooting for Djurgaarden throughout the game but we were standing very close to the AIK fans and they were very loud and it was hard not to get sucked in to their chanting. While AIK was playing in the second best league in Sweden, Djurgaarden won the championship and the fans of Djurgaarden started the match with a banner saying “Where were you while we were getting high?” which kind of cracked me up. The stand with the AIK supporters can hold about 8000 people and it was filled with aggressive constantly singing fans but the Djurgaarden stand was also filled and looked very lively. We couldn’t hear the Djurgaarden fans though because we were to close to the AIK stand.
All in all it was a great experience and also great because we didn’t really have anything at stake so we could relax and enjoy the atmosphere. I am sorry to say that I have never experienced any of the Inter derbies but I have plans to change that next season if I can convince my friends. Other than that I would love to experience the derbies Boca Juniors-River plate, Dortmund-Schalke, Liverpool-Everton, galatasaray-fenerbache or Glasgow Rangers-Celtic and maybe Sevilla-Betis.