Four pages already, including highlights, and I'm supposed to say something new? OK, here goes.
It was off to the Bodega on Weidenallee, as usual for Sunday away games, knowing that we were up against the league leaders and had won one and lost five away so far this season, so a point would be as good as a win. The way it turned out, it was almost better.
Stani had gone for a slightly daring 4-2-2-2 formation, with Schultz helping Boll out in front of the defence, Bruns and Trojan as the offensive midfield pair, and Hennings and Ludwig as forwards in place of Ebbers, who had to sit this one out following his sending off against Ahlen.
"Let's go, cowboys!", said referee Metzen as the teams came on, obviously warming up for his card trick later. The atmosphere among the 20300 fans in the stadium was good, thanks mostly to the St. Pauli contingent - it seemed that Premiere had once again put their mikes in front of the guest block - and the game was fast and uncompromising from the start. St. Pauli put Mainz (who are for some reason better away than at home) under pressure with constant forechecking, and it took a while for them to come to terms with it.
Then Mainz started to get the upper hand, if only slightly, which resulted in a couple of scenes which must have made their fans want to stick pins into voodoo effigies of the ref and his assistent on the far side. They're probably still doing it now. The first was a free kick, 20 yards out just on the left after a foul by Eger.
The ball went past the wall on the right, and was deflected by Schultz's left arm. Mainz called for a penalty, but the ref was having none of it, even though Schultz's arm seemed to have moved to the ball. Luckily, the TV replay showed that the ball actually deflected off Karhan's head before it hit the arm, so that was OK. Really.
The next scene, in the 24th minute, was a bit different. Feulner crossed into the St. Pauli area from the right, and Eger went up for it with his left arm. For some reason, the ref decided after conferring with the linesman that Eger had been pushed by Bancé, and gave a free kick to us. Unless Bancé's arms are 10 feet long (and 2 of the 4 are invisible), we can consider ourselves very lucky that it wasn't a penalty for Mainz.
Mainz kept up the pressure, but it was in this phase that we somehow went ahead. A long kick from Hain after an offside decision got to Bruns, deep in the Mainz half, and he headed on to Ludwig, just in front of the Mainz area. Ludwig headed back to Bruns and set off to the right, got the ball straight back and was politely accompanied by van der Heyden into the penalty area, where he sent a shot across the goal and in from the corner of the 6-yard box in the 30th minute. Wache in the Mainz goal got a foot to it, but it wasn't enough.
We should have gone 2 up a minute later, with an almost identical move involving Trojan and Bruns, but Bruns hesitated too long and Wache parried with his feet. Mainz were looking very wobbly at this point.
Then came the incident which will be famed in legend, and maybe even in song if any of y'all are feeling creative enough
, when Bruns stopped a free kick getting taken, and Karhan shot the ball at him for his pains. Bruns fell like he'd been struck by lightning, rather than just the ball in the back of his left knee. The double yellow was one of the ref's better decisions, and he also got very good marks for artistic impression. Noweski and even Karhan couldn't suppress a smirk; Bruns, having finally recovered from his almost mortal wounding, was less chuffed.
The second half started where the first had left off, with Mainz pressing forward and St. Pauli reacting with some reasonably good counters. A couple of Mainz corners fizzled out, and in the 48th minute, Hennings' shot was saved and Trojan's follow-up bounced off a Mainzer's hand, but the guy was on the ground, and even though his hand was high, the distance was so short that you can't call a penalty for that, particularly when Eger's blatant handball in the first half was ignored.
With an hour gone, Mainz's attacks were still biting on granite, but it's always after the first hour of away games that we seem to fall apart, and this time was no exception. The key this time was the inspired substitution of Borja for Karhan by Mainz coach Joern Andersen in the 65th minute.
It was a free kick for Mainz, 30 yards out on the right, and Borja hadn't been on the pitch for 30 seconds before Feulner's kick found him all on his own at the far post - Bruns, who was supposed to have been marking him, was a good six feet away - to head in for the equaliser. And suddenly, you could hear the Mainz fans, too.
Four minutes later, he did it again. A long ball from the Mainz half bounced luckily for him, he did a nice flick to get past Gunesch and give himself a free shot at Hain, who came forward and blocked it with his feet. The ball bounced out to Baljak, whose shot from 18 yards was again blocked by Hain, but the ball landed at Borja's feet, and he turned and shot under Gunesch and past Kalla on the line to make it 2-1 for Mainz. Here we go again, thought just about everybody in the Bodega.
Stani brought on Schnitzler and Sako for Hennings and Bruns in the 75th minute. The theory about bringing on Sako is that he's so big, the opposition thinks they have to put 2 players on him, apparently. I'm not so sure. Brunnemann came on for Trojan, who didn't show any of the magic he pampers us with at Millerntor, in the 81st, but it seemed for the last part of the game that Mainz were closer to the 3-1 than we were to the equaliser.
If there was a man of the match, it would probably be Feulner, who was a permanent thorn in our side. In the 86th minute, he easily went past Ludwig and then Rothenbach(!) on the left, and sent a perfect cross in to Baljak, who fortunately headed just past the far post from 7 yards - that would have been it.
Everyone in the pub had more or less come to terms with another disappointing but predictable, maybe even undeserved, defeat away when we got a corner in the 90th minute. Ludwig took it from the right, Gunesch got to the ball before two Mainz defenders to head it on past Wache, and it may even have gone in if Baljak on the far post had had a blackout, but Rothenbach wasn't taking any chances, and knocked the ball over the line from point blank range.
If anyone not in the Murrayfield or the Zeitgeist heard a distant cheer at about 2:48 PM last Sunday, it was probably us. The place just fucking erupted.
There were still 2 minutes to go, but the nail-biting finally came to an end and we could celebrate that completely unexpected away point.
FC Ingolstadt are coming on Sunday, and everybody's now expecting a win. A loss would be embarrassing, to say the least. By the way, Rostock lost at home yesterday to 1860 1-0, which leaves them as the lowest team in the division with a positive goal difference (14th - not too far to go), and us as the best team with a negative one (7th).
St. Pauli - better than Nürnberg, not as good as Freiburg.
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missed this game. was there in May this year, 5-1, and met the Brum boys in brown. Same as this weekend we were all shitfaced!!
but theres me nearly 43 getting a bollocking off me parents for drinking too much 
the guys fly back tomorrow and I'm preparing another excuse to get hammered!
