As a boisterous sea of white marched towards the Toronto Stadium, flags waved violently while chants of “Super Deutschland” echoed from front to back.
German football fans had travelled from across the world to witness Die Mannschaft in the World Cup, and the moment had arrived.
Some brought flags and smoke bombs to support the squad; others donned Rudi Völler and Franz Beckenbauer wigs – but Glenn Kremp was carrying something different: his family legacy.
As the German-Canadian walked unassumingly through the crowd, proudly sporting his FC Schalke 04 scarf and chatting about the club to anyone willing to lend an ear, he moved closer to a full-circle moment that was 40 years in the making.
Kremp amidst the German supporters’ march to Toronto Stadium.
Kremp’s football fandom began with a roar.
During his first trip to his grandparents’ hometown of Gelsenkirchen in 1987, a teenage Kremp visited his aunt’s house. From her window, Kremp could see the tall, blue light fixtures overlooking Schalke’s former ground, the Parkstadion. And luckily for him, the team was playing.
Kremp wasn’t overly interested in the sport, but, perched on his aunt’s balcony, he was about to be thrown into a lifelong journey.
Reiner Edelmann put Die Knappen ahead, and most of the 17,500 in attendance shrieked in ecstasy. But, as was common in the 80s, there was a massive tape delay. In broken German, an amazed Kremp asked his grandfather what the noise was, and he pointed at the stadium.
“Still to this day, it’s something I’ve never experienced in my life,” he said, showing the goosebumps forming on his arm.
Schalke went on to score four more times, with a roar following each goal, and Kremp was left in awe.
“That’s where I tried to understand, especially as a young teenager back then, ‘what is this?’ And then really getting involved with it a lot more,” he said.
The youngster became obsessed once he was back in Canada, devouring months-old Schalke and Germany games on converted VHS tapes in his grandparents’ basement. And that obsession only grew.
He dyed his hair the day after Bastian Schweinsteiger debuted his bleached look at the 2004 European Championships, began collecting kits, and brushed up on his German.
Kremp (middle) and his family inside Schalke’s Veltins-Arena.
Kremp took his love for the club online in the 2010s. It was all fun and games, but when his grandfather – who introduced him to the game – passed away in 2014, a chance encounter caused him to create a meaningful community.
He and a friend travelled to Florida in early 2016 for Schalke’s winter training camp and were astonished by the number of Canadians in attendance.
“The Canadians in Florida outnumbered the Americans there to support Schalke,” he said.
“[We] said, “Okay, we’ll make it a dedicated [fan club]. So officially we built it, we’ve had our meetings online, and I’m the president of it… We’ve gone across Canada with it, which is really neat.”
Where club football divides people in Germany, it unites them in Canada. As part of the German diaspora, the sport has the power to bring people closer to the culture they come from.
“Everybody gets together,” he said. “We’ve been able to go to different clubs, being our club and fully accepted by everybody,” said Kremp.
Nowhere was that unity and sense of community more evident than in the lead-up to Germany’s second-ever match on Canadian soil.
Südkurve Toronto, the city’s Bayern Munich fan club, became the de facto German supporters group as thousands came to Toronto from across the globe.
For their 7-1 thrashing of Curaçao, Schalke fans celebrated with the likes of Bayern, Stuttgart, and St. Pauli supporters in a downtown pub serving schnitzel, pretzels and Stein’s of Weissbier for the occasion.
German supporters beginning their march in Toronto.
Kremp said the food wasn’t like his grandmother’s, but he enjoyed the German atmosphere – it reminded him of his late family. And the day before Die Mannschaft took on Côte d’Ivoire in Toronto, he began to reflect again.
“I really feel like I’m carrying the legacy of my family with me to see this,” he said.
“My Opa will be with me; decades of memories go in, my family from Germany, my aunts and uncles and stuff like that.
“I think it’s just very much gonna hit. I may just go back to everything that has happened in my life through football… sitting in the basement, just watching our Schalke games. Or when [me and] my Opa got to celebrate the [1990] World Cup [victory].”
The next day, Kremp’s prediction was spot on.
He was buzzing ahead of the march, waving that Schalke scarf and joking that even alcohol couldn’t elevate his mood. He met Canadian Schalke fans, passed out hats and stickers, took pictures, and chatted with Germans who were in disbelief that the club’s supporters existed.
Once he arrived at the stadium, a random run-in with visitors from Gelsenkirchen meant he was able to put his Schalke Canada flag in the German supporters section.
A Schalke Canada flag was among those on display in the Toronto Stadium
Then came the anthem.
Kremp thought about his late grandfather and grandmother, who passed away in January.
“The emotions hit, and it [tears] came down. I felt good, but I felt embarrassed, and my friend James, who came with me, just put his arm around me and goes, ‘I get it, man, don’t worry, buddy,’” said Kremp with a raspy voice after the match.
“I never kind of expected the emotions to really come at me as hard as they did, and kind of looked up and said, ‘I’m here for you guys.’”
After Germany went behind early, Kremp expected a draw, but super-sub Deniz Undav’s double gave Germany the win – and sent the stadium into a frenzy.
“I should say that was my first beer shower,” Kremp, who stood the whole match, said. “I don’t even know where this beer was coming from…But we’re just enjoying it. It was crazy. Just crazy, crazy scenes.”
After the match, Kremp stood on his seat and unfurled his Schalke flag as the team did a lap of the pitch. Manuel Neuer, the German no. 1 and former Schalke goalkeeper, pointed at the flag, put his thumbs up and then grabbed Leon Goretzka, who clapped in his direction.
“My first Schalke kit is a goalie Neuer kit, so for him to just grab Goretzka, and both of them to kind of point at me as I’m holding up the Schalke scarf, that felt like, ‘Okay, that was awesome,’” he said.
Kremp and his friend, James, at the match in Toronto.
While he was intently focused on the match – especially the former Schalke players – Kremp couldn’t help but let his mind wander, thinking about where it all began.
He remembered the roar from the Parkstadion, his summers in Gelsenkirchen, standing up for the German national anthem in his grandparents’ basement (which he now makes his daughter do), and his grandfather taking a shot of Whiskey for every Germany goal.
“So much of my life flashed by,” he said.
“I feel maybe somebody was there, heard us cheering. And my voice obviously was a part of that, because it’s gone now.
“It was incredible.”
