Thun journey from cowshed to marble halls

A decade ago they played as amateurs before 100 fans. Tonight at Highbury they make their Champions' League debut. Paul Newman reports

Thun are the most unlikely competitors to set foot in European football's millionaires' playground. The club from the shores of the Thunersee in central Switzerland pay their players, coaching and office staff out of a budget of Sfr5.1m (about £2.2m), roughly half of what Arsenal pay Thierry Henry in a year.

Ten years ago, as an amateur club playing in the Third Division, Thun were watched by crowds of 100. Three years ago they reached the First Division, turned professional and saw crowds rise to 1,500.

Last season, with home attendances up to 6,000, they finished runners-up in the Swiss League, earning a place in the Champions' League qualifiers. Even after half the team left, new chapters in the fairy-tale have kept coming, victories over Dynamo Kiev and Malmo earning a place at Europe's top table.

"I never dreamed for a moment that we'd be playing against some of the best teams in Europe," said 72-year-old Heinrich Egger, the kit man, who has been with his local club (and never been paid) since he joined the juniors in 1946. "When I got into the first team we were playing in the Fourth Division and hardly anybody came to watch us."

The longest-serving player is Lukas Schenkel. "Even when I arrived in 1996, the first team used to get just a few spectators," he said. "It was a surprise when we made the Second Division. Nobody thought then that we'd go any further. The great thing is that the club hasn't changed. Everyone knows each other. The players mix with the fans and there are no big egos."

The relaxed atmosphere was clear from the training session on the club's pitch. Children watched from the touchline while a handful of older fans stood on the terraces. Ruth Von Gunten, watching with her husband, Heinz, said: "What I like is that they're a team, not a group of stars. Every individual is as important as the next player."

The club recruit players from the lower divisions, rejects from bigger clubs, loan signings and cheap imports. "I was playing in the Fifth Division for Interlaken four years ago," Nelson Ferreira said. "Thun were in the Second Division and it seemed a huge leap. Then in 2002 we got into the top division. I couldn't believe it, but we won't be overawed in the Champions' League. We showed how good we are when we beat Kiev."

Mauro Lustrinelli, the leading scorer, is an economics graduate who turned professional at 25 and now plays for the national side, alongside Arsenal's Philippe Senderos. Ljubo Milicevic and Deumi play for Australia and Cameroon respectively. There are five Brazilians, including three signed by Werner Gerber, the sporting director, on a recent visit to South America. Alen Orman, an Austrian, joined from Hibernian. "I told Hibs I didn't want to play in the Uefa Cup," he joked.

Christian Stahl, a club spokesman, said: "Eighteen months ago we had virtually no foreigners. We lost six Swiss players this summer because other Swiss clubs could pay much more. We lost a defender to Bochum. We're in the Champions' League, they're in the German Second Division, but they pay him four times as much as we could.

"We couldn't replace with Swiss players of a similar standard, so we looked abroad. The Brazilians had to be from the lower divisions. Some Brazilian journalists here recently said they'd never heard of our Brazilians."

The 41-year-old coach, Urs Schönenberger, who has a modest track record, joined last season after Hanspeter Latour, the man largely responsible for Thun's rise from obscurity, joined Grasshoppers Zurich. Schönenberger is a great admirer of Arsenal and Arsène Wenger and had hoped to be drawn against them. Several years ago he went, accompanied by Charlie George, to watch Arsenal train.

Schönenberger has built on Thun's traditional strengths of teamwork, organisation and counter-attack. The opposition are never given time on the ball, though his team, winners of the Swiss fair play award, are no cloggers.

Their qualities were evident in a spirited display in a goalless draw away to Young Boys Bern on Saturday. Lustrinelli was a speedy and willing worker spearheading a 4-4-1-1 formation, the Brazilian Rodrigues Gelson offered intelligent support and Silvan Aegerter's silky passing showed why Schönenberger believes he should be in the national side.

Although Thun occasionally looked vulnerable on the flanks, Milicevic and Hodzic were uncompromising in central defence, where Deumi, reckoned to be the club's best player, was hardly missed. He has a groin injury and is unlikely to play tonight.

The 20-mile trip to the new 32,000-capacity Stade de Suisse in Bern is becoming familiar. Thun, which has a population of just 40,000, are playing all their Champions' League home matches there. Swiss League fixtures are played in the Lachen Stadium - which was six feet under water less than a fortnight ago after severe flooding - only under special dispensation. The capacity is just over 10,000 and there are only 900 seats.

Thun's offices were in converted shipping containers until a move last month to rented premises above a garage opposite the stadium. The club used to have an administration staff of just seven, though six more have been taken on following Champions' League qualification. Reaching the group stage guarantees more than £3m; with the money already earned from qualifying, Thun's income this season will triple.

Just 50 fans travelled to Kiev and 100 to Malmo, but 800 will watch Thun's Champions' League debut. A banner unfurled at Bern on Saturday is likely to make another appearance. "Vom kuhstall ins Highbury," it read. Translation: "From the cowshed to Highbury."