Saints in Germany diary day one - A whirlwind trip to Braunschweig

IT was a non-stop 36 hour trip to Braunschweig for Saints' friendly out here in Germany against Eintracht Braunschweig on Friday.

Saints fans all dream of a return to competitive European away days, but for now this was the closest we're going to get.

To be able to do something like this less than three weeks into my time at the Daily Echo was pretty special.

The day started at the gruelling hour of 2am as I set off on the two-plus hour long drive to London Stansted for my flight to Bremen.

Upon arriving at an extremely busy Stansted for that early, my first stop was the luggage shop as I had already made my first error of the trip - forgetting an adapter.

I navigated through the hordes of families about to go on their summer holidays and got on my flight, desperate to use the rare opportunity to catch up on some sleep of a busy day ahead.

I landed in Bremen, a city that, in truth, didn't seem to have much going on.

It does have a Bundesliga football team though, and I must have counted at least five posters for Werder Bremen's new home kit during the short tram ride to the Hauptbahnhof.

There were plenty of adverts for Werder Bremen's new home shirt upon arrival (Image: Dan Hargraves)

After a two and-a half hour train journey via Hannover, I had finally made it to Braunschweig.

With two hours to spare until my hotel check in, I took the opportunity to have an explore of the city centre as once I had landed in my bases it was going to be all stations go.

Situated in Lower Saxony, there is clearly a great deal of history in Braunschweig and perhaps with more time a walking tour would have offered some interesting insight.

Instead, I took myself on a stroll on the cobbled streets around buildings that must have been hundreds of years old.

A shopping centre in Braunschweig that used to be a castle (Image: Dan Hargraves)

There was also an opportunity to get the 10 minute tram up to the Eintracht Stadion to check out where Saints would be playing that evening.

It was all barricaded around the stadium as expected, but I was still able to film an on location video from outside the ground. Ideally further away from a main road next time though.

Once checked in, changed and ready for the match, I headed back into the centre and met two Saints fans for a chat, dad Ralph and son James who had made a spur of the moment decision to go on a boys' trip for the match.

The estimate is that about 50 travelling supporters were at the game on Friday but pictures make it seem less than that. With short notice and it being a Friday, fair play to all of those who went.

The expectation is that there will be a fair few more at Münster next weekend.

Once back at the stadium, there was a contingent of yellow and blue, Braunschweig's home colours which Saints fans won't mind at all.

There were plenty of small locally owned shops that had tables set up with beers and other refreshments scattered along the walk to the ground.

The exterior of the Eintracht Stadion (Image: Dan Hargraves)

I had to pick up my accreditation from the fan shop but tried to queue up to buy a small souvenir but I had about five people in front of me, all getting new shirts with names printed so I had to accept defeat and move on.

My German Duolingo streak reached 600 days on Friday, but I'm yet to reach the "media accreditation collection" unit so getting my pass involved some gesturing and broken sentences.

As soon as you walked into the stadium, you could appreciate the scale of the bowl.

I'm not a fan of running tracks around football pitches but I can imagine, when full, they make a right racket in there.

With a little over an hour until kick-off, I got myself settled and prepped taking it all in.

Around half of the ground to the right of me was filled with home fans while the handful of travelling Saints supporters were on the opposite side.

Where Saints fans were situated (more were in by kick-off) (Image: Dan Hargraves)

I'm not sure how good their view would have been of Damion Downs scoring the only goal of the match down the other end, but you could still hear a faint cheer.

Saints looked pretty sharp on the night considering it was their second friendly of pre-season.

More:The five big talking points as Saints win friendly at Eintracht Braunschweig

The game itself wasn't particularly memorable but players and staff showed their appreciation to the travelling support afterwards which certainly will have been for them.

After post-match interviews, I was guided out by a member of security staff and managed to squeeze my way onto a tram full of Braunschweig fans back into the city.

Over land and sea ✈️ Thank you for being with us, Saints 🫶 pic.twitter.com/66AseZhy54

— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) July 24, 2026

It was gone midnight by the time I wrapped up work for the evening back at base with another few pieces to do while waiting for my train back to Bremen the next morning.

Having reported on football for over three years now, I have typed away at various random locations while on the road and Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof McDonalds has now made the list.

There was very little to report from my journey back on Saturday. Brighton midfielder Pascal Gross was on my flight to Stansted, that's about as interesting as it gets.

Saints are travelling to their base for the week today and will we be heading back to Germany on Thursday.

There will be plenty of content to come from part two, stay tuned!