Daily Archives: October 7, 2012

Masticate

07 Sunday Oct 2012

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Sunday 30th September 2012 ko 14.00

3 Bundesliga

SpVgg UNTERHACHING 0

KICKERS OFFENBACH 3 (Fetsch 25 53 Rathberger 53)

Att 2,450

Entry (Haupttribune/Main Stand) €18

Programme €1

Badge €3

Bratwurst €3

Teamsheet FREE

The last game of our tour saw a 10km trip south of Munich to the municipality of Unterhaching, a location utterly dominated by it’s larger neighbour. The town is notable for being the German base for chewing gum manufacturer Wrigley, these days a divison of the Mars Corporation. The Wrigley factory is a few hundred yards from the Sportpark Unterhaching, in fact if we’d have watched Fortuna Unterhaching, we’d have been opposite! On a more ecological scale the municipality has become a centre for geothermal energy with two deep boreholes providing super-heated steam to drive turbines. To prove that we do live in small world Unterhaching is twinned with Witney, in Oxfordshire just a short drive from where I live in Oxford.

The Sportpark Unterhaching was built in 1992 to accomodate the club’s elevation to the 2 Bundesliga. Its been extended since then, and further expansion plans are afoot, but with the club’s demotion to the Dritte-Liga, the current 15,000 capacity is clearly sufficient. The club were second in the table at kick-off, so to draw as few as 2,450 spectators must have been highly disappointing for the club. Clearly the lure of 1860, and Bayern Munich is too much for a club this close to the big city.

There’s more to SpVgg Unterhaching than just football though. As the club badge betrays, the club has a highly successful Bobsleigh team. Multiple Olympic medalist and National coach Christoph Langen represented Unterhaching at his chosen sport. Graeme and I also discovered an active Curling club tucked behind the away end. Clearly there is no lack of sporting choice in this part of the world.

With the time so tight between games, I’d eaten nothing. The pizza stalls looked tempting, but there was the vexed question of nabbing a teamsheet from the press office. Eventually I found a 500ml glass of apfelsaft and a bratwurst and made to with that until we could stop somewhere between the ground and Frankfurt Airport.

The surroundings weren’t half as boring as a new-build ground can be. I liked the wooden roof on the main stand, and the quite bizarre hospitality area in one corner. The two sets of fans did their best to create an atmosphere but the empty spaces made that aim difficult.

What none of the 4 us expected was a massive away win. Unterhaching would have gone top with a win, but at no time did that look likely as Offenbach quickly took control with Mathias Fetsch looking a class apart from everyone else on the field. He scored two poacher’s goals which provided the intro and coda to Thomas Rathberger’s wonderful header for the second goal.

The Unterhaching manager Claus Schromm had no answers save for a rather contrived argument with referee Bibiana Steinhaus after the final whistle. The truth of the game was that Unterhaching hadn’t turned up, and Offenbach had taken full advantage. We made our way back to the car and followed the away fans more or less the entire 400km to Frankfurt. That bit, on the autobahn should have been straightforward but as befits our weekend, we got caught in several traffic jams and were glad of the live traffic feature on the hire car’s SatNav for reassurance. We handed back the car at the airport and dashed over to the terminal. We had 45 minutes to takeoff, enough, but not comfortable. That seemed somehow to be a metaphor for our weekend.

It remains only to thank my companions on this weekend, Lee, Martin, Graeme, and Andreas. Andreas in particular for his help explaining groundhopping to two border Polizei who weren’t minded to understand such subjects. The real star of the weekend was Lee, for planning this, finding the hotel, and for a positively mammoth driving stint. Many thanks mate, and when’s the next one?

Mannschaftsaufstellung

07 Sunday Oct 2012

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Sunday 30th September 2012 ko 11.00am

Kreisliga 2 Süd München

SpVgg THALKIRCHEN FREUNDSCHAFT 3 (Broch 24 43 Stoier 90)

SV ISTIKLAL MÜNCHEN 2 (Durmaz 47 77)

Att 47 (h/c)

Entry €4

Programme FREE

Badge €3

From Wackersbergstraße to the Bezirkssportanlage Thalkirchner Straße, is a mere one kilometre, so making kick-off shouldn’t have been a problem, except parking proved to be a real issue. You don’t expect the car park to be full for a Sunday morning Kreisliga (local league)  game, but when we worked out how to locate to the football pitch (use the entrance marked 207) we arrived a few seconds before kick-off. The fripperies of programmes and badges were easily obtained, but what required our immediate attention was the ground. With over 5000 grounds between us, none of the four of us had seen anything like it before.

It’s hard to know where to start with a description. The main entrance makes you immediately think of a Continue reading →

Morning Service

07 Sunday Oct 2012

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Sunday 30th September 2012 ko 9.00am

B Klasse München Gruppe 4

VIKTORIA MÜNCHEN II 2 (Rebel 5p 77)

FC BOSNIA I HERCEGOVINA II 3 (Kaltak 27 Nergic 41 Becirovic 73)

Att 10 (h/c)

Entry €3.50

No Programme

I honestly can’t remember attending an earlier kick-off, but with an 11.00am a few hundred yards away this was an opportunity not to missed! The alarm went off at 6.20 and Lee and I quietly regretted that final bottle of Wiessbier we’d quaffed the night before. With Andreas opting to make his way back to Stuttgart today, it was 4 Englishmen who left Regensburg at 7am and made our way 130 km south to München, or Munich if you’d prefer.

We passed the Allianz Arena, the iconic home of Bayern München and 1860 München, then the Olympic Stadium, long since rebuilt after the 1972 Olympiad where the likes of Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut shone, and the whole event was marred by Black September terrorists killing 11 members of the Israeli team and one German Policeman.

That seemed a million miles away as we headed into the southern suburbs, even the streets had cobbles, giving the place a homely, yet timeless feel. When you’re this early and nothing much is open, there’s little else to do than listen to the rustle of branches and contemplate the leaves just beginning to change to autumnal shades of gold. Or as an alternative, watch a game at the eleventh level of German football!

The Sportanlage Wackersbergestraße was the perfect place to spend a couple of hours of a Sunday morning. There was coffee in plentiful supply, and as the teams trotted out they were accompanied out by church bells calling the faithful to prayer. And yes, this was a game between 2 reserve sides, the first elevens following at, well eleven! And in case you’re wondering, yes there IS a C Klasse!

The standard was as poor as perhaps you’d expect, although the game always held your attention. Whilst the visitors named 5 subsitutes that seemed to be more in hope than expectation, and when Zahib Negic didn’t appear for the second half he wasn’t replaced. It didn’t seem to worry them unduly because while Viktoria played the better football, it was the Slavs who were the more clinical in front of goal.

As we watched, an elderly gentleman arrived, presumably as much for the first XI game as for ours. He found a chair from the picnic area and his favorite spot. From there, he took out his sandwich and bottle of beer from his plastic carrier bag, and quietly settled down for the morning. A Vikoria fan explained that he does this every week, his wife sleeps in on a Sunday, so he’s allowed out but must be home for lunchtime!

With the first elevens warming up behind one goal for the main event, we made our way to close to the exit in one corner, and when the final whistle echoed around the stirring neighbourhood we dashed back to the car. We had only a few minutes to get to the next installment.