Heldt hoping for peaceful derby

Horst Heldt is hopeful Schalke’s clash with Borussia Dortmund can go ahead peacefully following crowd trouble last season.

Schalke host Dortmund at the Veltins-Arena on Saturday in 2014-15’s first Revierderby.

The corresponding fixture in January was marred by disturbing scenes in the stands as flares and smoke bombs were thrown from Dortmund’s section of the crowd on to the pitch and towards the Schalke support.

Close to 500 fans were handed stadium bans as a result, while a further eight arrests were made by police after the trouble continued on the streets following the end of the game.

Additionally Dortmund were fined €30,000 and had the capacity of their famous ‘yellow wall’ stand was reduced to 24,454 for domestic games.

The second fixture at Signal Iduna Park passed without incident, although over 3,000 seats remained empty due to security reasons.

And Schalke general manager Heldt is keen to avoid a repeat of the disturbances when Dortmund visit Gelsenkirchen this time around.

“We’d like to think that it will be a peaceful derby, and that emotions will only be battled out on the pitch,” Heldt said.

“Of course, we had those nasty scenes in our last home game against Dortmund. But we acted and both sets of fans have shown in the last derby at Dortmund that they are solely focused on the support of their team.”

Heldt also warned that there could be serious consequences if fans do not behave.

He added: “Should something happen on Saturday, we leave the option of playing a derby without away fans open.”