11 Freunde online + offline German coverage

11 Freunde (11 Friends) is Germany's equivalent of 'When Saturday Comes'. When the magazine and website operator got wind of this crazy Englishman running around our fair isles promoting a German concept as the solution for creating safe standing areas in UK football grounds, they got in touch to conduct an interview.

The first interview was conducted in a small Italian restaurant in former East Berlin and appeared on the 11 Freunde website in January 2012, under the headline 'Das ist eine Win-Win-Situation' (It's a win-win situation).

How's your German? Here's the interview: Gibt es bald wieder Stehplätze in England?

Clearly the online feedback to that interview must have been good, as 11 Freunde got in touch again a few weeks later to arrange to do a more comprehensive article for their printed magazine. Managing Editor Jens Kirschneck was coming over to England for another story and wanted to know if he could meet me and see the roadshow unit set up at the same time. So I spoke to Guy Price, chief executive at my club Bristol City, and he kindly agreed to let me set up once again at Ashton Gate (as seen in the photo). Jens' article, accompanied by this full-page picture appeared in the April issue... comparing me to a 'vacuum cleaner salesman'! How dare he!?

This time with a translation, here's the full article.