Schalke soccer fans injured in brawl outside clubhouse

At least four people were seriously hurt on Sunday after a mass brawl among soccer fans in front of a Schalke 04 clubhouse in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen.

The incident occurred as Schalke fans prepared to travel to watch their club's Bundesliga encounter with Union Berlin in the German capital.

The supporters were about to get on a bus in their home city when they were attacked by "at least 100 violent people assumed to be fans of Borussia Dortmund and Rot-Weiss Essen," German police said in a statement.

"Baseball bats and screwdrivers" were reportedly used in the attack that left four people injured, including the bus driver, police said.

Authorities in the city, which used to be part of western Germany's industrial heartland, said they had been alerted to the incident by calls to the emergency services, but officers had only arrived on the scene after the perpetrators had fled.

The Ruhr rivalry between Schalke and Dortmund

The rivalry between Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund is arguably the fiercest in Germany.

The two cities lie around 20 miles (34 kilometers) apart in the Ruhr region, where coal and steel production has been at the heart of the region's industry.

The most fervent fans even refuse to utter the name of their rival club, instead referring to them by their relative location from neighboring towns.

But relations between the two clubs have not always been strained. In 1974, when Dortmund were struggling with debt after relegation, Schalke were invited to inaugurate their rival's recently constructed stadium — at the time called the Westfalenstadion and now known officially as the Signal Iduna Park — in a friendly match between the two clubs ahead of Germany hosting the 1974 World Cup.

Owing to the hosts' financial issues, Schalke allowed Dortmund to keep all the gate receipts. Schalke would in turn invite their rivals to officially open their new stadium in 2001.

jsi/sms (AFP, dpa)