By Eckhard Berkenbusch At Hertha BSC 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen (Berlin, 26 October 2002)

Were there racist chants at the game?
The 43,000-strong crowd chanted songs to well-known English football tunes, but there was nothing racist.

Ratio between racial groups in the stands and on the pitch?
The usual mix for a Hertha crowd, 10 to 15% of whom are ethnic Turks.

Only a handful of German players on either side - Hertha's team included three dark-skinned Brazilians, two Hungarians, one Portuguese and one Belgian.

Any racist banners, flags or graffiti in the ground or surrounding streets?
No racist banners or graffiti to be seen.

Were non-white players targeted by sections of the crowd?
The fans used to target players with dark skins, and have been known to throw bananas onto the pitch.

Hertha fans are subject to strict checks on entry

But times have changed, and there was none of this on Saturday.

Was there any visible anti-racist action from the club or police?
Hertha BSC introduced new stadium rules some time ago. Spectators are now searched on entry for racist flyers, banners, weapons, bottles, spray cans, stones, laser pointers and so on.

Anyone caught making racist chants is liable to a fine of 250,000 Euros.

In the stadium itself though, there were no stewards or police specifically assigned to anti-racism duties.

Any other comments?
Apart from the odd man urinating in somebody's front garden shrubs near the ground, nobody needed to feel threatened on Saturday.

But the Bundesliga has not always been so resolutely anti-racist.

In 1989, its then chairman said in a newspaper interview: 'What will become of it if all the blond players emigrate across the Alps to Italy and our league is filled by Poles, by these Furtoks and Lesniaks?'

Last year, about 100 neo-Nazi Hertha fans shouted racist and anti-semitic slogans at a league cup match in the city of Potsdam.

Happily, there was no evidence of this in Berlin's Olympic Stadium on Saturday.

But I'm not sure that means it is gone for good.