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NO DICE<br />
FIRST EDITION
match reports<br />
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NO DICE<br />
Berlin football in words, photos and<br />
illustrations<br />
“Football? It’s like chess, just with no dice”<br />
It’s a shame that the quote is apocryphal. Prince Poldi never said it, but it illustrates something<br />
that so many people were happy to believe it was true for a long time.<br />
It is the beautiful poem of the dumb. In many ways, like football itself. A game that can be as<br />
elegant as it can be brutal or as cerebral as it can be, well, stupid.<br />
We have always believed that football is a perfect way to understand and get inside a city and<br />
its people. This is as much the case in Berlin as anywhere else. Berlin - with its unique history<br />
of togetherness and division, of war and peace, of immigrants and locals - tells so many stories<br />
through its football.<br />
Though it’s not been considered a ‘football town’ since the game started being played in<br />
Germany, the amount of people that play and watch the game in Berlin is astonishing.<br />
The Berlin Fußball Verband alone has over 100,000 members. We aim to provide the slightest<br />
snapshot of that.<br />
Football is a language in itself, it will always cross over the bullshit boundaries of semantics.<br />
Although <strong>No</strong> <strong>Dice</strong> is in English (the practical reason being that it is our native tongue) it is not<br />
meant to exclude the German fan. <strong>No</strong> matter what language you speak, we sincerely hope that<br />
every man, woman and child with a scarf draped around their neck, a whistle between their<br />
pursed lips, or with a ball at their feet in the Hauptstadt will enjoy our magazine, and continue<br />
to pursue that impossible dream - to enjoy the beautiful game.<br />
3
NO DICE<br />
FIRST EDITION<br />
Page 9.<br />
Page 21.<br />
Page 36.<br />
CONTENTS<br />
Interview with Uwe<br />
Neuhaus, by Jacob<br />
Sweetman<br />
Tennis Borussia returns<br />
to its roots, by Stephen<br />
Glennon<br />
Berlin Referees - a photo<br />
essay by Ian Stenhouse<br />
5
<strong>No</strong> <strong>Dice</strong> are:<br />
Jacob Sweetman - Ipswich Town, 1.FC Union<br />
Stephen Glennon - Sampdoria, TeBe<br />
Jude Flegel - Crystal Palace, 1.FC Union<br />
Emily Sweetman - football agnostic<br />
Ian Stenhouse - Hearts, Hertha BSC<br />
photo by Matt Grayson<br />
5
Don´t look BAK. Berlin Athletik Klub 07 look forward to the new heights of the Regionalliga <strong>No</strong>rd<br />
Photo: BAK07<br />
7
Emily Sweetman<br />
INTERVIEW : UWE NEUHAUS<br />
by Jacob Sweetman<br />
In early 2007, Uwe Neuhaus was appointed head coach at<br />
1.FC Union Berlin. At the time they weren’t so much a club<br />
in transition as merely a collection of raw materials that had<br />
the potential, with time, to be turned into something greater.<br />
There was no roof on the tatty but charming Stadion an der<br />
Alten Försterei, their home (in various guises) since 1920. The<br />
team had just avoided relegation to the Oberliga, a repetition<br />
of which could well have heard the death knells ringing<br />
out across Köpenick for the fiercely proud, but at the time<br />
impoverished club, despite the impetus brought in by the new<br />
chairman - a fan, no less - Dirk Zingler.<br />
The first game of that season was at home against Fortuna<br />
Düsseldorf, a team that have followed Union, and therefore<br />
also Neuhaus, step by step, league by league, over the last<br />
five or so years. Despite ending up with only ten men on the<br />
field, Fortuna won 1-0. The pain on Torsten Mattuschka’s<br />
face would have been plain to see at the end, but his shirt was<br />
pulled up to his eyes - he had missed a penalty - but Neuhaus<br />
was proud of him. He had shown the qualities of leadership<br />
that would, in time, make him captain. The team, though,<br />
needed to show more of the fighting spirit that Neuhaus knew<br />
was necessary for the fans to accept him as the man to take this<br />
club back from the depths.<br />
The new boss was already making up his mind about his<br />
squad. The make-up of his team, which he knew would have<br />
to be “Eisern” - made of Iron - to succeed in this league, but<br />
also to keep the fans satisfied. He is the kind of man who<br />
respects skill, but it has to come alongside the work ethic. That<br />
Ruhrpott sensibility: they are sensible and solid people down<br />
there. It is football country, but it is also hard working country.<br />
They don’t suffer fools gladly.<br />
I remember that Düsseldorf match vividly, because it was the<br />
first game I ever saw in Berlin, having moved here a couple<br />
of months previously. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a<br />
kick off at the strangely normal time of 2pm on a Saturday<br />
afternoon. Obviously TV didn’t have much interest in a battle<br />
between two teams in the Regionalliga <strong>No</strong>rd, at the start of a<br />
long season where the only tangible goal was to finish in the<br />
top ten. The first and second placed teams would skip merrily<br />
straight up to the 2.Bundesliga, the next eight would make up<br />
the numbers in the brand new 3.Liga which would commence<br />
from 2008.<br />
Uwe Neuhaus, at that time, had little to lose. It would be<br />
the managing of the expectations created as he increasingly<br />
succeeded that would come closest to being his undoing.<br />
They ended up so close to that second place. A miracle<br />
was needed on the final day against Oberhausen. A 4-0<br />
victory (with Düsseldorf also losing) would have sufficed, but<br />
there were few among the 14,000 there that day who didn’t<br />
believe it could happen. It was the end of a fantastic season,<br />
after all. Neuhaus had delivered, and more. Oberhausen<br />
spanked Union 3-0 that day, but the loss mattered little.<br />
It was blindingly hot again, meaning the celebratory plastic<br />
sheeting stretched out across the terrace behind the goal may<br />
(in hindsight) have not been such a good idea. A guy who must<br />
have weighed 20 stone fell down the full length of the tribune<br />
in the heat, his seemingly unstoppable momentum eventually<br />
ceasing at the bottom. A couple of fans picked him up, dusted<br />
him down and gave him another beer. It was that kind of a day.<br />
The last one at the old Alte Försterei.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t only had the team moved on (Marco Gebhardt provided<br />
strength and technical ability, Mattuschka was flourishing,<br />
Karim Benyamina was scoring regularly, and young players<br />
such as Christian Stuff had come through - Neuhaus had found<br />
the foundations for a successful, occasionally stylish, but also<br />
steely football team), but with the unbelievable help of the fans<br />
for whom the word dedication barely musters justice, the club<br />
was too. In spite of the capital city’s intransigence, they were<br />
going to rebuild themselves. The fable of the Alte Försterei<br />
is for another day, but within this story of hundreds of fans<br />
donating many thousands of man hours, for free, to<br />
rebuild their stadium, was Uwe Neuhaus looking on,<br />
sometimes even helping out as an electrician, and trying to<br />
understand these people. These fans. Their dedication was<br />
astonishing. He must have realised then that they could be<br />
tricky customers to deal with too. They were almost too close<br />
to their club.<br />
-----------------------------<br />
That first year, 2007 / 2008, was to be one of the easiest rides<br />
that Neuhaus would be given at the start of a season. He had<br />
time to rebuild and the patience and grace of the fans as one.<br />
But when I met him recently, it was the week after a 4-0<br />
mauling away to Dynamo Dresden that epitomised a horrible<br />
beginning for the club as a whole to 2011 / 2012.<br />
Union had been knocked out of the cup in the first round to<br />
the Regionalliga side Rot-Weiss Essen. His former club.<br />
The 4-0 dealt out by newly promoted Dynamo was the<br />
mirror image of the score against Greuther Fürth in the first<br />
game at home. A routine win against Paderborn had started<br />
with the unveiling of a banner that simply stated ‘Unzufrieden’<br />
- unhappy - with the UN spelt out in red to avoid any<br />
ambiguities as to who it was aimed at. The three points that<br />
day took little of the pressure off. Paderborn are easy. Dresden,<br />
though, are rivals. The players had looked spineless, and had<br />
frozen in the glare of a game against a team with a shared<br />
9
Emily Sweetman<br />
history in the former DDR.<br />
Sitting back at his desk, a Marlboro light still smouldering<br />
away in the ashtray and the walnut hew of his summer holiday<br />
tan not yet completely worn out by the stress of this horrible<br />
start to the campaign, Neuhaus reflected on the differences<br />
between when he had taken over and now.<br />
“The preconditions that [first] season were totally different,<br />
as I had just taken over a team that the year before had only<br />
stayed up on goal difference.... The levels of expectation<br />
weren’t as huge.” The growing of these expectations is best<br />
shown by the fact that nobody minded being knocked out at<br />
the same stage in his first year by the Bundesliga’s Eintracht<br />
Frankfurt. “Getting knocked out of the cup is totally different<br />
when you are a second division team against a Regionalliga<br />
team.” He looked stung, drawn almost, reflecting on the bad<br />
start.<br />
Events on the pitch were bad enough, but attention was<br />
being increasingly focussed off it. This was new to me. I<br />
had attended almost every home game, and several away,<br />
in the last five years and had never seen sections of the fans<br />
arguing amongst themselves like they were said to have done<br />
at Dresden. I had never seen them openly turning on the man<br />
who was now the second longest-serving manager in the top<br />
three divisions.<br />
The success in ensuring 2nd division survival before time the<br />
previous season had been overshadowed by the rancorous<br />
reading of the headlines. The club’s all-time top scorer and<br />
fans favourite, Karim Benyamina, had been allowed to leave<br />
for FSV Frankfurt and naturally scored a typically elegant<br />
volley against his former employers in the opening fixture.<br />
The manager (in the German sense, a director of football<br />
to the English) Christian Beeck had been fired in a surprise<br />
announcement in May. To many of the fans, Beeck was<br />
Union as much as Benyamina. He was the man whose quote<br />
(whilst playing for Energie Cottbus) “we played fairly, with<br />
the necessary brutality” would also sum up the black sheep of<br />
Köpenick whose cries of ‘Eisern’ literally translate as ‘Iron’.<br />
Beeck understood what they needed and what they expect<br />
from their team. They want to see fighting for the cause. <strong>No</strong>t<br />
for a single man. <strong>No</strong>t for Uwe Neuhaus, it seemed.<br />
But he remains sanguine about it. “There was seemingly<br />
a lot of disquiet in the summer. Some personnel decisions<br />
that were taken didn’t have the complete support [of the fans],<br />
and a few were surprised. I believe that this plays a part....<br />
the last week’s headlines...” He trails off, talking about the<br />
performances again. He likes to talk football. <strong>No</strong>t the other<br />
bullshit. He says he trusts his players, and with his single<br />
mindedness, is sure how to get the best out of them. <strong>No</strong>t for<br />
him the Jose Mourinho ‘lightning rod’ technique, where the<br />
Portuguese soaks up all of the off field pressure on behalf of<br />
his squad. “I just try to regulate the pressure. You can’t take it<br />
all off their shoulders. This last week is a good example. They<br />
have seen the reaction of the fans, and taken it on board. They<br />
read the newspapers, they know that the pressure is there, but I<br />
have to redirect it on the training pitch.”<br />
He says simply that his methods towards training won’t change<br />
due to external circumstances, or due to the poor results. Why<br />
should they, he asks. There are always specifics that come up<br />
in the analysis after a game, but he says that that is completely<br />
normal.<br />
But this, in many ways, is at the root of some of the<br />
fans’ problems with his management. He is seen as<br />
an autocrat. As an inflexible dominant manager who<br />
won’t see another way than his own. His accusers say<br />
this was why Beeck was pushed out, and this is what<br />
prompted a rash of ‘1.FC Neuhaus’ headlines in the<br />
weeks that followed. Looking in, as an Englishman,<br />
this is an argument that I have never fully understood.<br />
<strong>No</strong>body tells Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger who<br />
to buy (or not to buy in Wenger’s case).<br />
Neuhaus sees it simply. “In England they do it one<br />
way and in Germany we do it another. Everything<br />
that is uncomfortable is received critically at first.<br />
I don’t understand the anger, my methods of working<br />
haven’t changed in six years... This was a false impression<br />
given by the press.” This had followed the fallout from<br />
Felix Magath’s unhappy second season at Schalke, where<br />
he was ridiculed by all and sundry for wielding too<br />
much power.<br />
But Neuhaus’ mention of the press is telling. He seems<br />
to be irritated by the workings of the game in the 21st century,<br />
but does he accept that the press have a job to do the same as<br />
he does?“Years ago, there were barely any headline stories,<br />
ones that these days you see in different newspapers every<br />
week. I have to accept it, but whether I like it or not is a<br />
different thing.”<br />
-----------------------------------------------<br />
UWE NEUHAUS<br />
Uwe Neuhaus has been through tough patches in football<br />
before. Experiences that shaped his responses to the game’s<br />
seemingly permanent state of crisis. In 1990, SG Wattenscheid<br />
09 had made it to the promised land of the top flight. It was<br />
unprecedented and Uli Hoeneß<br />
described it as “the worst thing that could happen to the<br />
Bundesliga.” As minnows, Wattenscheid knew they would<br />
have to use all of their guile to stay up. They had to fight<br />
together and learn how to come back from the inevitable bad<br />
results that would follow.<br />
That Neuhaus is such a determined and hard-working manager<br />
is due in many ways to the fact that he was already in his late<br />
twenties when Wattenscheid got promoted. He had honed his<br />
skills in the lower leagues. The players may not have been as<br />
naturally talented as some in the top flight, but the architect of<br />
their promotion, Hannes Bongartz, knew how to make them<br />
stand up to the best. This included a retort to Hoeneß’ words<br />
11
UWE NEUHAUS<br />
in a 3-2 home win over Bayern that kept them in a surprising<br />
tenth position. That they were that high at all was because of a<br />
remarkable bounce back in form. A formative period certainly<br />
for Neuhaus.<br />
A few months earlier they had been humiliated 7-0 by Hoeneß’<br />
Bavarians (then managed by Jupp Heynckes). It should have<br />
been eight, Stefan Reuters’ penalty having cannoned into the<br />
post. Following the mauling, Wattenscheid lost 4-0 at home to<br />
local arch rivals Bochum, and then 4-2 away at Nürnberg. He<br />
struggles to think back, slurps his coffee and sneaks a glance<br />
at the fags on his desk, thinking another one might help the<br />
memory along.<br />
“Well, these phases are a little bit different as a player than as<br />
a trainer.... as a trainer you have complete responsibility As<br />
a player you can play without it, you have other goals on the<br />
pitch, naturally whilst trying to help the team. But, if<br />
you have experienced this situation before it can help to<br />
bounce back.”<br />
He chuckles when he says that he played in every position,<br />
even as goalkeeper a couple of times. As a kid he wanted to<br />
be a striker. He wanted to be Gerd Müller, but that is hardly<br />
surprising. You could throw a stick into a group of German<br />
men of a certain age, and you know that it would hit someone<br />
who wanted once to be ‘Der Bomber’. He became either a<br />
holding midfielder or a central defender. The positions where<br />
you can see the whole game developing in front of you. The<br />
positions that can be played with the brain as well as the feet.<br />
Experience counts at the back, and it counts to draw on as a<br />
trainer.<br />
Wattenscheid stayed up for three long seasons, but he knows<br />
all too well they had it easier then. It was a less complicated<br />
time when moustaches (his own inelegant little lip crawler<br />
included) ruled the Bundesliga, and football could hardly seem<br />
to be quite as significant in comparison to the events happening<br />
on their doorstep every day with the re-unification of the<br />
country.<br />
“It’s more complicated for players nowadays, the whole<br />
media has changed. You only made it into the headlines with<br />
something spectacular in those days. Today you only need to<br />
be photographed somewhere at 11pm and it’s on Facebook.<br />
Agents also play a completely different role today.” He sighs.<br />
“The whole business has changed.” He doesn’t look like a man<br />
who is on Facebook, but there is also a contradiction here. He<br />
has stressed the club needed to go in the new direction football<br />
was headed. They didn’t need another football man any more.<br />
They needed a businessman. Hence the replacement of Beeck<br />
with Nico Schäfer. But it seems as though he still pines for<br />
those times when the game was a whole lot simpler.<br />
----------------------------------------------<br />
Union walked the 3rd division in 2008 / 2009, all the while<br />
playing ‘away’. While the fans worked tirelessly on the<br />
stadium, Union were playing their games at the unloved Jahn-<br />
Sportpark in Prenzlauer Berg. The ‘Tierpark’ as they call it: it<br />
is only fit for animals, the home of BFC Dynamo’s greatest<br />
European nights, the memories of which are still resented in<br />
Köpenick. Many fans stayed away entirely for one of the best<br />
seasons the club has ever enjoyed. But this is the way with<br />
‘Kultklubs’, ‘Traditionsklubs’, call them what you will. You<br />
are supporting an idea as much as 11 players and a boss.<br />
Neuhaus knows this implicitly. His three managerial stations<br />
have all been at such clubs - Essen, Dortmund, Union. They<br />
are all what they are (at differing levels) purely because of the<br />
fans’ particular connection to the team and the area. It would<br />
be impossible for Unioners to countenance playing outside of<br />
Köpenick. Simply impossible.<br />
Naturally the conversation comes back around to the pressure<br />
in these places particularly. He beams with pride when he says<br />
“in everyday life in Köpenick the people confront you with<br />
tactics. That is surely a huge point. Tradition is founded from<br />
what is beautiful. But also through the bad times the tradition<br />
is always there. To get 7,000 average attendances in the<br />
Regionalliga is....” he trails off again. “I don’t see that reaction<br />
at all other clubs.”<br />
After a victory in Regensburg in 2009 that ensured Union<br />
would be the first winners of the new third division, he was<br />
speechless, simply managing to squeeze out a couple of cliches<br />
for the throngs of press. The fans carried him aloft. In their<br />
proudest moment, he was the star of the show. But how does it<br />
compare to his other achievements? It really is impressive, but<br />
this guy has been at Dortmund, where a wall of 25,000 people<br />
sit in the south stand alone. His face lightens enormously<br />
talking about nights like the time that the Dortmund side<br />
(where he was assistant trainer to Matthias Sammer) beat AC<br />
Milan 4-0 at home in the first leg of the UEFA cup semi final<br />
(“an absolute highlight in life, the memories of which always<br />
remain. It’s a shame we lost in the final [to PSV], it was a<br />
crazily emotional time”).<br />
“Everything in its way is special about days like those.<br />
To reach a European final is a different dimension, but<br />
despite that it’s not more meaningful than the promotion<br />
to the second division with Union. I believe they both<br />
belong at the same level, at a higher dimension than<br />
winning the German title or the cup.” He loves talking<br />
about football. This is probably at the root of his annoyance at<br />
the modern game and the press intrusion. He likes to talk about<br />
football. <strong>No</strong>t politics.<br />
--------------------------------------------------<br />
To many Neuhaus would always be an outsider, no matter his<br />
achievements at the team, though he is (arguably) the most<br />
successful manager they have ever had. The spectre of the<br />
DDR is never far away at this club, and outsiders, ‘Wessis’,<br />
are often dismissed as being interfering know nothings. The<br />
inference being that ‘they’ didn’t live through the tough times<br />
13
in a former country that formed the club in much the same<br />
way that the Galapagos Islands were spat out of the sea floor,<br />
the magma cooling to form spectacular new bodies. Though<br />
incredibly welcoming, the fans of 1.FC Union Berlin can also<br />
be a suspicious bunch at times.<br />
At the same time that he was trying to sort out the on-field<br />
stuff, the newspapers turned their ire onto president Zingler<br />
due to the discovery that he had served in army group strongly<br />
connected to the Stasi during his military service.The Union<br />
wagons circled around their own. Neuhaus remained silent,<br />
already angered by the heavy criticism of his role at the club,<br />
but also in the knowledge that he would never be an ‘Ossi’.<br />
The attacks were coming from without - the club made it<br />
clear. It was journalists, they said, who had never lived in the<br />
DDR and couldn’t possibly understand the pressures a young<br />
man would be under in the regime - and he wanted to remain<br />
within. It was best to keep his head down and try and get<br />
some results on the pitch. He simply told the Berliner Kurier<br />
at the time that “we must win to put a stop to this rubbish”. He<br />
performs a Cruyff turn around my mention of the chairman’s<br />
past and sticks to the basics, merely saying that his job is to<br />
win on the pitch. There are no excuses.<br />
Uwe Neuhaus is charming whilst at the same time obdurate.<br />
He knows he has to be that alpha male that you find so often in<br />
football to succeed. His watch must weigh as much as my bag.<br />
His hair is immaculate and the shoes,<br />
spotless as ever. But he is also unfailingly patient, polite and<br />
generous to a foreign writer, stumbling through a language that<br />
he doesn’t really understand. Immediately<br />
I’m convinced that he couldn’t work any other way. To take<br />
away the determination that gives him his weaker side, the<br />
side that refuses to countenance outside opinions for instance,<br />
would take away the very thing that makes him good at his job.<br />
Looking back through the sides he has brought through<br />
at Union, there is a common thread. Players such as Nico<br />
Patschinski and Guido Spork were quickly wheedled out for<br />
not toeing the party line. For not taking things as seriously as<br />
he does. Players such as the outrageously gifted Santi Kolk too<br />
have gone because they had trouble understanding the basic<br />
needs of the German football fan in general, and the Union<br />
one in particular. The need for fight, for aggression, but most<br />
importantly the need to never give up. As they say in German,<br />
‘Immer weiter’. His teams have relied on players such as<br />
Marco Gebhardt, Patrick Kohlmann, Daniel Göhlert, Christian<br />
Stuff and Torsten Mattuschka - players that fought.<br />
Another of the frequent criticisms of him is that he sticks to his<br />
favourites whether they are performing or not. In many cases<br />
his detractors have a point. John Jairo Mosquera couldn’t buy<br />
a goal last year at times, but he would never be dropped. He<br />
only stopped using Macchambes Younga-Mouhani when it<br />
became absolutely clear that he didn’t have the legs for football<br />
at the highest levels any more. He is also accused of being too<br />
frequently negative away from home. They see his pragmatism<br />
as being an alien concept at times. This is what the fans were<br />
UWE NEUHAUS<br />
so angry about after the Dresden game. It was up to Neuhaus<br />
to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again. To lose is one<br />
thing, but to lose without trying is a cardinal sin. I mention<br />
this in a comparison to English fans and he tells the story of<br />
how as a youngster his club side played against a team from<br />
Darlington. They were older, tougher “and they just flew in to<br />
you”. He was impressed. Neuhaus always lost horribly against<br />
these teams but he learned a vital lesson about the fight.<br />
It is this which makes this complicated man tick, and this<br />
which has made him so, at times belligerent, but at times calm<br />
and understanding of others faults. If they can’t be avoided,<br />
then so be it. But if it’s through lack of trying... there will be<br />
hell to pay. It seems he needs the pressure to remain on him to<br />
succeed and it seems he actually enjoys the confrontations at<br />
times.<br />
He had done his army service himself as a helicopter<br />
technician in the old west. It was something he had to<br />
do, but never has he thought that he would rather have<br />
stuck at it, despite the fact that he has to deal with all<br />
of this. Smiling at the inference he points out that although<br />
it should be simple - this cable goes here and that cable<br />
goes there and the thing flies - there is never a way out<br />
of personal responsibility. He smiles away my suggestion<br />
that life in the army would be somehow easier. People<br />
die through a human error in a helicopter. He hasn’t got<br />
it so bad dealing with a few pissed off football fans.<br />
“There’s not always sunshine in a life in the middle, a<br />
couple of raindrops will also fall, but it’s not so bad, this<br />
pressure.”<br />
As I write this now, the storm clouds seem to have passed<br />
over. A ship that seemed to be listing has been righted,<br />
and results have taken Union back to the top ten spot in<br />
the league that he set out as his goal before the start of<br />
the season (a prediction that caused him more problems<br />
than he probably needed at the time). Uwe Neuhaus’s faith<br />
in his players - those who are prepared to put in the hours<br />
at least - has paid off.<br />
But I had a final question when things seemed at their<br />
nadir. Is he still having fun? He beamed back across the<br />
desk and let that answer for itself. It seems he loves the<br />
fight more than anything else. To pit himself against the<br />
best and the hardest, in the knowledge that his hard work,<br />
hard ethics and thick skin will see him through. And<br />
who’d bet against him being at Union for another five<br />
years?<br />
Jacob Sweetman 2011<br />
15
Hansa Stadion, Weissensee 16.09.11<br />
Roter Stern <strong>No</strong>rdOst - FFC Lichtenrade Ost 4-2<br />
17
LFC Berlin- Türkiyemspor 3-3 24.09.11 Emily Sweetman<br />
19
Tennis Borussia returns to its roots<br />
by Stephen Glennon<br />
Most football fans would give their right arm for their team to<br />
be backed by wealthy investors desperate for on-field success.<br />
However, after two such speculations turning to disaster,<br />
Tennis Borussia Berlin is more interested in cementing its<br />
unique philosophy than topping tables. Stephen Glennon met<br />
some TeBe fans to discuss why they have embraced the club’s<br />
recent relegation to the sixth division.<br />
June 12th, 2011, and there’s a game on in Berlin’s Friedrich-<br />
Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. There’s no police presence<br />
Considering that one of these teams will be relegated to<br />
Germany’s sixth division at the final whistle, one would<br />
be excused for expecting at least some of the crowd to be<br />
disgruntled and angry. The levels of expectation that football<br />
fans can muster up leaves little patience for failure on the scale<br />
of relegation.<br />
After a tense draw and extra-time, Tennis Borussia Berlin<br />
(TeBe) lost, and their subsequent relegation to the Berlin-Liga<br />
was their second in consecutive years. As their triumphant<br />
opponents Borea Dresden celebrated retaining their fifth<br />
division status, the TeBe players slunk dejectedly over to<br />
the terrace, where many of their purple-clad followers had<br />
clambered up on the large, imposing barriers separating the<br />
stand from pitch.<br />
Like any symbolic moment, the significance of what happened<br />
next can be understood in a variety of contexts. Buenos Aires a<br />
couple of weeks after that game in Berlin offers one.<br />
River Plate, one of Argentina’s most famous teams, suffered<br />
a similar ignominy to TeBe in being relegated to their lowestever<br />
divisional status. Their fans climbed fences too. They<br />
did it to invade the pitch, causing the match to be abandoned.<br />
They then rampaged out onto the streets of the capital, rioting<br />
and battling with police. Water cannons were used to disperse<br />
the crowds as the area around the stadium turned into a war<br />
zone. To the overwhelming majority of football fans, the<br />
River Plate supporter’s reactions were a baffling, inexplicable<br />
overreaction.<br />
The TeBe fans, however, after climbing the fences of the<br />
Jahnpark, applauded their players, shook their hands and<br />
thanked them for their efforts in a season that saw only<br />
five league victories, a series of dreadful hammerings<br />
and, seemingly, precious little to be thankful for. To the<br />
overwhelming majority of football fans, the TeBe supporter’s<br />
reactions were a baffling, inexplicable underreaction.<br />
The reasons why the TeBe players deserved applause and<br />
thanks, to an outsider, are far from immediately clear. This is<br />
because TeBe, despite its average attendances of only around<br />
300 per game, has one of the most absorbing histories, one<br />
of the most well-developed and loyal fan scenes and one of<br />
the most unshakable philosophies of any football team in the<br />
world, but, due to events of the last fifteen years, is mostly<br />
viewed negatively by the general football-supporting public.<br />
TeBe was founded in 1902 in Berlin-Mitte’s old<br />
Scheunenviertel, an area with a large population of Jewish<br />
immigrants from Eastern Europe. In the precarious Twenties<br />
between world wars, TeBe were one of Berlin’s top<br />
teams, frequently battling with Hertha BSC for the Berlin<br />
championship, losing four finals in a row before finally<br />
overcoming their rivals in 1932.<br />
Having a large proportion of Jewish members, more than any<br />
other Berlin club, TeBe was used to recurring hostility from<br />
the opposition, and its short period of success came to an<br />
end in 1932 when Nazi decree banned Jewish players from<br />
participation in organised competition.<br />
After the war, Holocaust survivor and TV personality Hans<br />
Rosenthal was TeBe President from 1965 to 1973, and he is<br />
remembered every time TeBe scores a goal with the stadium<br />
announcer repeating a version of his catchphrase “Wir sind der<br />
Meinung, das war…”, to which the crowd roars “SPITZE!”<br />
(We think that was… GREAT!)<br />
These days, anti-fascism is the basis upon which the TeBe<br />
fan scene is built, along with strong opposition to any form of<br />
discrimination, be it based on gender, race, religion or sexual<br />
orientation.<br />
According to Carsten, lifelong TeBe fan and co-founder<br />
of the website wesavetebe.de, the atmosphere at TeBe’s<br />
Mommsenstadion was always incomparable to that at other<br />
stadia. It was “pleasant and different”, he claims, even in the<br />
Seventies as the team reached the pinnacle of its sporting<br />
success – two short visits to the Bundesliga that both featured<br />
plucky performances but ultimately ended with relegation in<br />
1975 and 1977.<br />
There is, however, nothing particularly noteworthy about<br />
a liberal-minded bunch of fans who create a pleasant<br />
atmosphere, and it was not until the late Nineties that the TeBe<br />
philosophy really began to develop. The catalyst was one<br />
that, in these days of ambitious oligarchs, American tycoons<br />
and Arab sheikhs in search of expensive playthings, is all too<br />
familiar – a rapid injection of cash from a group of investors<br />
that don’t willingly answer questions about their motives.<br />
Back then, without the numerous examples of teams going<br />
bust following the withdrawal of large-scale investment, there<br />
21
was none of the dubious suspicion that accompanies financing<br />
of that sort today. As the gift horse’s mouth opened wide,<br />
TeBe closed its eyes tightly shut. The benefactors were the<br />
investment trust, Göttinger Gruppe, and they seemed happy<br />
to invest freely in order to achieve the maximum amount of<br />
sporting success in the shortest amount of time possible.<br />
TeBe smashed their way into the 2.Bundesliga, finishing<br />
thirty-two points clear of their nearest rivals, Dynamo Dresden,<br />
without losing a single game in the 1997/98 season. High<br />
calibre players such as Uwe Rösler and Toni Micevski were<br />
lured to Berlin with exorbitant sums of money in time for the<br />
2.Bundesliga campaign.<br />
Naturally, their rivals for promotion were not impressed at<br />
how uneven TeBe’s new-found riches had made the playing<br />
field, even if much of the resentment that was directed at<br />
the club for having apparently bought success is somewhat<br />
off-target: in the early and mid-Nineties, TeBe were often<br />
promotion candidates and the cash injection simply gave them<br />
the push required to not only be able to win promotion but also<br />
consolidate their 2.Bundesliga position.<br />
Carsten’s co-founder of wesavetebe.de, Christian Rudolph, can<br />
verify the animosity that TeBe fans endured, having himself<br />
been part of it. “I had a really bad view of TeBe ... [they were]<br />
a dislikeable team in the 2.Bundesliga times,” he said. But<br />
in 2007, he started an internship with the club and saw the<br />
reality. “[My opinion] was very quickly revised. I’m not even<br />
really a football fan, I always found football too chavvy. But<br />
I really found a home here ... it’s not the usual rowdiness and<br />
abusiveness that you have with other teams.”<br />
Carsten identifies the antipathy that the TeBe fans had to<br />
endure in the Nineties as key in the development of the fan<br />
scene.<br />
“TeBe had a pretty strange appearance to the outside world<br />
and a lot of bad things happened that directed a lot of hatred<br />
towards the team. It was a good thing, almost, to see how<br />
people dealt with the hate and persevered. That’s a particular<br />
quality [of TeBe fans] .... we’d go to 1. FC Union Berlin and<br />
there’d be bottles thrown at the old granddads in our crowd.<br />
That really politicised our fan scene, as well as simultaneously<br />
immunising it against people that we simply don’t want to<br />
have around.”<br />
Especially from East Berlin came a great deal of resentment<br />
towards the newly-rich team from the already-wealthy<br />
district of Charlottenburg. Beliefs, however, are moulded and<br />
reinforced by adversity. They must exist beforehand, of course,<br />
but it is only when they are threatened do they reinforce,<br />
recruit, and advance. This is exactly what happened on the<br />
terraces at TeBe in the late Nineties, as the fans started to<br />
organise and stand firm.<br />
TeBe fans were defending their way of life from external<br />
sources, but soon it became clear that the biggest threat was<br />
from inside the club. The Göttinger Gruppe, in their efforts<br />
to achieve success as quickly as possible with their new<br />
plaything, neglected to attempt to understand the wishes of the<br />
TeBe fans. The players who joined were drawn by cash rather<br />
than any particular attraction to the famous old purple Tennis<br />
Borussia shirt.<br />
The team’s second season in the 2.Bundesliga in 1999 started<br />
excellently, with promotion looking eminently possible until<br />
March, when ten of the last twelve games resulted in defeat.<br />
Relegation was narrowly avoided, but off the pitch, things<br />
were even worse.<br />
Current Tennis Borussia chairman, Andreas Voigt, remembers<br />
the period well. He was running the TeBe marketing<br />
department that year and, as a true and pragmatic TeBe fan,<br />
recalls that season as a success, since relegation was avoided.<br />
One can’t help but feel that his über-ambitious bosses did not<br />
agree, and as the Deutscher Fussball Bund (DFB) required<br />
guarantees about the club’s financial health in order to be<br />
allowed to participate in the following season’s 2.Bundesliga,<br />
perhaps the Göttinger Gruppe saw an easy way to disengage<br />
themselves from their little experiment.<br />
According to Voigt, “back then, the DFB required a bank<br />
guarantee and the Göttinger Gruppe had one from their own<br />
bank ... but the DFB didn’t accept it. I believe the Göttinger<br />
Gruppe would have gotten the relevant guarantee from a<br />
different bank, but they were stubborn about it and had a<br />
dispute with the DFB. That’s where everything went wrong<br />
because the DFB didn’t grant them a licence for the second<br />
division. You could speculate though, whether that was the<br />
Göttinger Gruppe’s intention or whether they really were just<br />
too proud, but that’s not a question that I can answer.”<br />
TeBe was forcibly relegated to the third division, and<br />
consequently lost the support of the Göttinger Gruppe<br />
(whose fortunes were also on the decline, finally starting<br />
insolvency proceedings in 2007) and the vast majority of<br />
their expensively-assembled squad. A second consecutive<br />
relegation was inevitable, and a year and a half after pushing<br />
for promotion to the Bundesliga, TeBe was floundering in the<br />
fourth division.<br />
While the sporting side of things may have been difficult<br />
for TeBe fans after the turn of the century, there was a sense<br />
of relief amongst the fans at having their club back. The<br />
following seven years in the Oberliga <strong>No</strong>rd saw consistent, if<br />
unspectacular performances, and even featured four victories<br />
in the Berliner Pokal (Berlin Cup).<br />
By 2007, as TeBe’s financial affairs reached an even keel and<br />
on-the-field performances became increasingly reliable, they<br />
were again attracting the attention of large-scale investors.<br />
This time it was the secretive Swiss company Treasure AG<br />
providing the funds.<br />
With the benefit of hindsight, one can criticise the club for<br />
TeBe<br />
23
once more accepting vast amounts of cash without either<br />
asking the right questions of the sponsors or bearing the wishes<br />
of the supporters in mind. This time, however, was somewhat<br />
different to the experiences with the Göttinger Gruppe.<br />
Treasure AG, for all their unwillingness to speak to the press<br />
about the source of their wealth or their plans for TeBe, only<br />
had one of their employees on the TeBe board of directors,<br />
leaving most of the decision-making in the hands of the club.<br />
Unfortunately, the hands of the club was where the problem<br />
lay – the boss was now Mario Weinkauf, a former President<br />
of hated rivals BFC Dynamo, a team that in many ways<br />
resembles the ideological opposite to TeBe’s own convictions.<br />
TeBe fans could not get over this link to their adversary, and<br />
how Weinkauf, having had his Treasure AG proposals rejected<br />
by Dynamo when he was there, had simply looked for the next<br />
potential vehicle for his plans without any consideration of<br />
what sort of vehicle it was.<br />
What happened next followed a familiar pattern – the 2008/9<br />
Oberliga was dominated with eighteen points to spare over<br />
second-placed Dynamo (who, at that point, must surely<br />
have been regretting their decision to turn down Weinkauf’s<br />
investment) and, as promotion to the Regionalliga was<br />
attained, the sponsorship was withdrawn when Treasure AG’s<br />
member of the TeBe board of directors became embroiled in a<br />
sexual abuse scandal.<br />
Andreas Voigt looks back on the days of the Treasure AG<br />
sponsorship in the same way as all TeBe fans – confusion<br />
tinged with sadness.<br />
“If I’m honest I didn’t understand the Treasure AG<br />
sponsorship. They supported us really well in the Oberliga but<br />
didn’t want it public. They didn’t want to be on the jersey and<br />
didn’t want any advertisements and were very media-shy – I<br />
don’t even know if the managers of Treasure AG ever carried<br />
out any interviews. They also didn’t officially explain where<br />
they earn their money and there was no internet presence. It<br />
was all a little shady and you just had to ask yourself why were<br />
they giving Tennis Borussia their money. The only explanation<br />
I have is that the directors just wanted a bit of fun with a<br />
football team and they just had some money spare.”<br />
And so, after TeBe’s relegation from the 2009/10 Regionalliga<br />
thanks to the inevitable insolvency proceedings after Treasure<br />
AG pulled the plug, we find ourselves almost up-to-date with<br />
proceedings. Just as before, the financial situation meant that<br />
most players departed, and a second consecutive relegation,<br />
after that game against Borea Dresden, followed. We still,<br />
however, don’t understand why the fans were so appreciative<br />
after that defeat. Surely the powers that be selling out for a<br />
second time is more a reason to be entirely disgruntled than<br />
politely sympathetic?<br />
The answer lies in the fact that, post-Treasure AG, everyone<br />
involved at the club was determined that nothing of the sort<br />
should happen again. Twice bitten, change the structures to<br />
ensure shyness.<br />
TeBe<br />
These days, the fans are rooted in the day-to-day running of<br />
the club. As well as founding the aforementioned wesavetebe.<br />
de, the aim of which is to raise funds for the club through<br />
donations and increasing the team’s visibility on a local<br />
level in order to attract small-scale investment, the matchday<br />
programme is written and produced by the fans. They also run<br />
the club’s website.<br />
Perhaps the biggest change was the appointment of Andreas<br />
Voigt as chairman. He is a TeBe fan, and utterly lacking in<br />
the airs and graces one might expect from someone running a<br />
football club. His policy is one of forthright honesty towards<br />
the fans, with the result that, upon starting last year’s Oberliga<br />
campaign, everyone was fully furnished with the knowledge<br />
that survival that year would be nothing short of a miracle.<br />
Voigt elaborates: “...we are very open with our fans and we<br />
always say what is really happening. We didn’t promise<br />
anything about staying in the division and maybe that’s why<br />
everyone was so tightly-knit for the Dresden game – there<br />
was no incentive for negativity. Everyone was obviously<br />
very sad but many thanked us for our work all season and the<br />
atmosphere at that game gave us strength to get working on the<br />
next season.”<br />
And the fans are on exactly the same page as the boss. “...<br />
since [the takeovers], the club has been in the hands of people<br />
like Andy Voigt. He stands with us and celebrates with us and,<br />
simply put, he’s a fan”, says Carsten. “[The TeBe philosophy]<br />
is carried on by idealism and it’s like that with Andy.”<br />
This marriage of bureaucracy with fan participation is far from<br />
unique in German football (St. Pauli and Union being two of<br />
the more notable examples), but one can’t help suspect that it<br />
is a structure that can only work in the lower leagues, and one<br />
that is inherently impossible to combine with success. That<br />
St. Pauli’s recent promotion to the Bundesliga came at a point<br />
when their core base of fans fear that the club’s identity is<br />
disappearing due to gentrification is telling.<br />
Sebastian, another staunch TeBe fan despite growing up in<br />
Mainz, has an answer. “What is success?” he asks rhetorically.<br />
“Realistically, no-one expects us to be back in professional<br />
football in the foreseeable future.” The experiences of the last<br />
fifteen years have moulded the expectations of these fans to<br />
such an extent that they are almost glad about TeBe’s demise.<br />
Finally, the club belongs to them again, and what league they<br />
are in is of little consequence as long as the club retains its<br />
identity.<br />
When asked about the theoretical idea of another big sponsor<br />
arriving to pull TeBe out of their current position, Carsten,<br />
Christian and Sebastian suddenly focus. We’re meeting after<br />
the first game of the new Berlin-Liga season, a 6-2 win over<br />
BFC Preussen, and spirits and beer intake are proportionately<br />
high. Until now, it’s been joking and fooling around and<br />
25
constantly greeting the stream of fellow fans that walk past.<br />
“There’s the requirement that it’s transparent and with the<br />
participation of the club: that it’s democratic. If that doesn’t<br />
happen, then I am against it and would prefer to stay in the<br />
sixth division,” says Sebastian definitively, “I think the fan<br />
scene is self-aware enough now, and powerful enough, I’d say,<br />
that we could say that we have conditions. We’re not running<br />
after everyone that has money.”<br />
Carsten agrees. “I don’t want that any more. If we stay here for<br />
three or five years but can hold on to what we have and have<br />
fun too, and we have players who realise who they are playing<br />
for, that’d be great. It’s nothing to do with what league we’re<br />
in, I have nothing against professional football or anything, but<br />
we don’t need it and it’s not what TeBe is about.”<br />
When one looks back over the last seven years, one can<br />
understand why the fans feel so strongly about retaining the<br />
status quo. Attendances fell from an average of around 4,000<br />
during the 2. Bundesliga games to today’s 300 or so, making<br />
it a great deal easier for the core group of TeBe fans to steer<br />
the club’s philosophy in the direction that they feel it belongs.<br />
Carsten is aware that it is the size of the fanbase that allows<br />
this. “We accuse other [fan groups of opposing teams] of not<br />
isolating fascists,” he says, “but it is easier for us to do it. We<br />
have more control, more of an overview.”<br />
As far as Christian is concerned, every TeBe fan has the<br />
responsibility of upholding their beliefs. “Everyone pays<br />
attention. We don’t ignore the things we don’t like,” he<br />
explains. “Someone will always say, hey, that’s not what we<br />
want here.”<br />
What the fans don’t want is very simple. In the Mommsenstadion,<br />
there is no place for fascism, homophobia, racism<br />
or sexism. Christian is wearing a purple “Fußballfans<br />
gegen Homophobie” (football fans against homophobia)<br />
t-shirt, an initiative of some TeBe fans and the Lesben- und<br />
Schwulenverband Berlin-Brandenburg (LSVD) who travel<br />
to football games around Europe with anti-homophobia<br />
banners in an effort to reduce intolerance in football. ‘Tennis<br />
Queerussia’ shouts one of the regular stadium banners in<br />
rainbow colours, as it sits beside a variety of anti-fascist, gay<br />
pride and Star of David flags.<br />
Such movements are relatively common in German football,<br />
from the working-class liberal anarchists at St. Pauli to the<br />
somewhat more extreme Roter Stern teams, who go as far as to<br />
argue that the nationalism inherent in supporting the German<br />
national team has no place in their fan scene. Comparing the<br />
varying philosophies, however, serves only to degrade their<br />
respective importance, and displays a fundamental ignorance<br />
of the origins of the teams. TeBe, often labelled as ‘sell-outs’<br />
or the ‘St. Pauli-lite’ by begrudgers, come from an entirely<br />
different world to their friends in Hamburg.<br />
St. Pauli has always been a working-class district, in stark<br />
TeBe<br />
contract to the well-to-do Charlottenburg area where TeBe<br />
are based – St. Pauli football club is much more an organ of<br />
the local community than any other team in Germany, and in<br />
that sense is fully deserving of its cult status. The Roter Stern<br />
movement, the most notable of which is Roter Stern Leipzig<br />
(who, along with a group of TeBe fans, arranged a friendly<br />
between the two teams this summer, which ended in a 2-1<br />
victory for the Berlin side) is a relatively new development<br />
in German football, which, of course, results in naysayers<br />
mocking it for its lack of history.<br />
The discussion ignores what these people are fundamentally<br />
about. “As long as certain essentials that are important to us are<br />
respected ... we all just want to stand on the terrace and drink<br />
beer,” says Carsten. These football fans simply want their<br />
terrace to also contain the basic fundamental values that we<br />
accept as a given in our society. We may never achieve a world<br />
free from intolerance, but every Saturday afternoon, these<br />
fans meet to simply have fun in their own little slice of utopia,<br />
carved from tolerance, openness, and no small amount of beer.<br />
Andreas Voigt doesn’t necessarily have such a romantic view<br />
of the future. He speaks hopefully of seeing TeBe back where<br />
they belong, in the second or third division, and has a plan<br />
about how to achieve it. Unlike his predecessors, however, his<br />
projection of success involves a slow but solid development<br />
based on secure foundations, and, most importantly, no<br />
reliance upon one single sponsor.<br />
“What we lost sight of in the last decade was to build up a big<br />
sponsor pool from many smaller sponsors,” he says earnestly,<br />
clearly having learned from the mistakes of his predecessors.<br />
“If you have 50 or 100 small sponsors, it’s not so bad if three<br />
or four break it off - we could find three or four new ones.<br />
But if one big sponsor stops and you don’t have this base [of<br />
smaller sponsors], then there’s the danger that the club could<br />
finish totally.”<br />
His idea is sound in theory, but the practice is somewhat<br />
different. TeBe, as one of Germany’s so-called<br />
Traditionsvereinen, never had a problem attracting one large<br />
sponsor due to the combination of its famous name, solid<br />
infrastructure and loyal fan base. When it comes to finding<br />
smaller sponsors, however, TeBe suffers from being based in<br />
a large city like Berlin. Here, there are so many sports teams<br />
that the competition is fierce, and a sixth division football<br />
team, Traditionsverein or not, finds it hard to compete with ice<br />
hockey, basketball, and the plethora of other sports that can be<br />
more rewarding to small sponsors than football.<br />
This means that Berlin-based teams are at a disadvantage when<br />
compared to teams at a similar level based in smaller towns.<br />
“Take for example Rathenow,” expounds Voigt, speaking of<br />
a town 80km west of Berlin with some 26,000 inhabitants,<br />
“Optik Rathenow are the only sports team there so obviously<br />
the local Sparkasse is going to sponsor them, and the same<br />
goes for the car dealer, energy providers, butchers and bakers<br />
and everything that’s there.” TeBe don’t have such a wealth<br />
27
of options, and suffer accordingly.<br />
The ongoing insolvency process also hinders the search<br />
for sponsors. Voigt expects it to conclude in autumn, but<br />
warns against the expectation that this will result in an<br />
instantaneous upturn in the club’s fortunes. “Many think that<br />
that automatically means that there’ll be more money but there<br />
won’t,” he laughs, “because you have to be just as careful with<br />
the money as during the process. The talks with sponsors will<br />
be easier. Many of them are frightened away by the knowledge<br />
that we’re in an insolvency process.”<br />
The end of the process will also allow Voigt to concentrate<br />
more on the sporting side of the club. Up to two weeks before<br />
the beginning of the new season, the TeBe official website<br />
indicated only ten players in the first team, and Voigt is upfront<br />
about the difficulties they have not just recruiting players,<br />
but retaining their promising youngsters. The TeBe youth<br />
development set-up is renowned for producing excellent young<br />
players (Bayern Munich and Germany central defender Jerome<br />
Boateng played with the TeBe youth teams until snapped up<br />
by Hertha aged 13), and compete at the second-highest level of<br />
youth competition in Germany.<br />
Bizarrely, with the relegation of the first team, the quality of<br />
TeBe’s youngsters actually worked to the club’s detriment –<br />
not wanting to make their senior starts in the sixth division,<br />
the majority of the 2010/11 youth team preferred to move<br />
other other, higher-ranked teams in search of the superior<br />
level of football that they are capable of. In their stead, a<br />
number of former youth teams players, including Alexander<br />
Greinert, made their way back to TeBe after unsuccessful stints<br />
elsewhere.<br />
It obviously wasn’t a question of money for these prodigal<br />
sons – TeBe players, according to Voigt, receive a minuscule<br />
monthly sum for their services, occasionally ameliorated<br />
by win bonuses in the rare case of some extra money being<br />
available.<br />
Voigt believes that the appointment of former youth team<br />
trainer Markus Schatte as the senior trainer last April is one<br />
of the reasons that that a number of former TeBe players<br />
were attracted back to the club. Schatte worked with many of<br />
the returnees over the years, and, seeing their former boss in<br />
charge of the youth team, they jumped at the chance to work<br />
with trainer whose credentials they are well aware of.<br />
The excellent facilities at the Mommenstadion, virtually<br />
unchanged since the days of the 2.Bundesliga, are also a big<br />
draw. They include a sauna, and the players’ kit is always<br />
washed and laid out on matchdays – unheard-of in the sixth<br />
division. This, of course, returns us to the financial situation<br />
– the much-loved kitman, Frankie Lange, must also be paid<br />
for his work. Such a luxury, however, is important as it helps<br />
the players realise that playing for TeBe, despite the current<br />
restrictions, is an honour, and such an honour is accompanied<br />
by benefits for them.<br />
Clearly, every aspect of the running of the club is affected<br />
by the lack of funds, but when asked if a certain amount<br />
of suspicion arises when large sums of money are on offer,<br />
Voigt’s answer is reassuring.<br />
TeBe<br />
“Those thoughts occur immediately. That’s clear. These<br />
thoughts occur both for those running the club and the fans,<br />
especially with the experiences of the past. We’ve seen it at<br />
other clubs too, like at 1860 Munich... someone from the<br />
Middle East made it very clear very quickly who had the say.<br />
We don’t want that, that could go in completely the wrong<br />
direction for us again. Maybe it could lead to short-term<br />
success but it’s generally not sustainable.”<br />
Like the fans, he does not want the club’s identity to be<br />
threatened again. “We would have a problem with selling the<br />
club. If the sponsor wanted to decide everything we’d have to<br />
think about whether we really want that because we don’t want<br />
to sell our philosophy.” However, being actively involved in<br />
the day-to-day finances of the club leaves Voigt with a great<br />
deal more pragmatism when considering the idea of another<br />
large sponsor shovelling money into the club, and he appears<br />
to have learned a great deal from the events of the last decade.<br />
“What we learned is that when you have a big sponsor, you<br />
can’t stop working in the marketing department. If we’re<br />
ever in the position that a big sponsor comes and we have<br />
some money, we would build up a marketing department. I’d<br />
personally make sure that happened very quickly.”<br />
Voigt believes that a large sponsor, rather than sending TeBe<br />
hurtling up through the divisions again, would simply allow<br />
the club to start building a foundation for a slow and steady<br />
return to the 2.Bundesliga. And should that one large sponsor<br />
decide to abandon the team, this foundation, in the shape of a<br />
solid base of many smaller sponsors, would guarantee that the<br />
club would not plummet to an all-new low, like what happened<br />
when both Göttinger Gruppe and Treasure AG pulled out.<br />
So far, Voigt has been in agreement with the fans Carsten,<br />
Sebastian and Christian. <strong>No</strong>ne are totally opposed to a new,<br />
large sponsor, but all would be entirely opposed to it if they<br />
demanded control of the club. However, while the fans believe<br />
that their participation in the running of the club could continue<br />
indefinitely, Voigt is more businesslike.<br />
“In the fifth and fourth divisions it’s possible, but from the<br />
third division the structures become more professional,” he<br />
explains. “My honest personal opinion is that we’d have to<br />
be very careful that everything that we build up isn’t thrown<br />
away. I know that it’s a difficult balancing act, you just have to<br />
be honest about it.”<br />
His tone quickly softens, however, perhaps when considering<br />
just how far away from professional football TeBe currently<br />
are. “But maybe it could run differently, I’d love if it did and<br />
we could have that experience and keep everything how it is<br />
up to the second division.”<br />
29
One also gets a clear impression from Voigt that, like the fans,<br />
a couple of seasons of simple stability, free from promotion<br />
and relegation stress, is exactly what the club needs. He’s also<br />
been very specific in his downplaying of the team’s chances<br />
this year. “We want to consolidate our position. That means<br />
avoiding a relegation battle at all costs. I think we’ll fit into the<br />
mid-table nicely and it could be that there’s a surprise and<br />
we’re further up – if that happens, we’ll take that chance but<br />
we’re not going into this season with the goal of promotion<br />
because the competition up there is much greater.”<br />
The competition of which Voigt speaks is that offered by the<br />
second teams of Bundesliga, 2.Bundesliga and 3.Liga teams,<br />
squads that he feels badly skew the playing field and leave<br />
smaller teams like TeBe or Dynamo with a much smaller<br />
chance of success. These teams have such comparatively vast<br />
resources that they can effectively decide if they want to get<br />
promoted, simply moving quality young players from their first<br />
team to their second in order to achieve their goals.<br />
This, as well as unfair distribution of DFB funds, is one of the<br />
main reasons that smaller teams struggle greatly to keep their<br />
heads above water. Even in the 3.Liga, teams rarely have any<br />
financial security – TeBe’s neighbours and friends Babelsberg<br />
03 were hours away from insolvency before a last-minute bank<br />
guarantee saved them last May, and both Rot-Weiss Ahlen<br />
and TuS Koblenz were forcibly relegated from the 3.Liga due<br />
after failing to meet required standards of solvency. Below the<br />
2.Bundesliga, there is precious little TV money available and<br />
teams are forced to survive with contributions from the fans,<br />
sponsorship and a great deal of fiscal prudence.<br />
As Voigt and I chat, the club secretary interrupts us briefly with<br />
a phone call. When the call is finished, I finish asking Voigt my<br />
question, about what TeBe has learned from all the sponsorship<br />
crises it has been through.<br />
“You can’t really say TeBe like that,” the secretary interjects,<br />
“it’s always been different people responsible [over the last<br />
fifteen years], so who is TeBe?”<br />
It’s an excellent question. One can easily criticise the club for<br />
selling out repeatedly, but the fact remains that those who sold<br />
out are no longer involved with the club, and at the time, only<br />
saw it as a cold, profit-oriented investment. With the club’s<br />
financial problems, there are currently very few players or staff<br />
who stay at the Mommsenstadion for more than one single<br />
season. Here, there is no Alex Ferguson or no Alex Del Piero<br />
to embody the spirit of the club as it threatens to be eroded by<br />
profit-hungry investors or corrupt directors dragging the club’s<br />
name through the mud.<br />
Therefore, that responsibility falls to the fans. People like<br />
Carsten are the only mainstay that this club has had during<br />
its turbulent recent history, and while the fan scene’s holierthan-thou<br />
attitude towards other fans less concerned with<br />
bringing politics in the shape of a liberal ideal onto the terraces<br />
occasionally grates, one can’t help but respect and admire the<br />
dedication, perseverance and loyalty shown by the Lila-weisse<br />
fans.<br />
The heady heights of the 2.Bundesliga are currently a long,<br />
long way off, but from watching a game at the Mommsenstadion,<br />
it’s clear that that doesn’t really matter very much.<br />
Even though the team currently lies bottom of the Berlin-<br />
Liga with that easy victory over Preussen looking more and<br />
more like a footballing false dawn, the TeBe fans continue to<br />
applaud their charges from the field regardless of the result.<br />
Things may not be great on the pitch, but on the terraces, TeBe<br />
is as healthy as it has ever been.<br />
TeBe<br />
Stephen Glennon<br />
2011<br />
Images by Ian Stenhouse<br />
31
Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark 12.08.11<br />
Türkiyemspor - FC Anker Wismar 2-1<br />
33
Berlin Referees<br />
Images by Ian Stenhouse<br />
The referee used to share his uniform only with those equally-loved folk, the undertakers and the traffic wardens.<br />
There is a popular rumour that they only started wearing other colours because the beautiful alliteration of “Who’s the<br />
bastard in the black” didn’t scan from the stands when they wore yellow or purple. Of course, like everything else in<br />
football, it was more about letting the players wear the coolest colour so that the clubs could sell more shirts.<br />
It’s a shame in many ways. Black suits them, and their singularly thankless profession. Johnny Cash sang “But just so<br />
we’re reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought to be a man in black”. It was as a penance that he wore<br />
that colour on his shoulders. It was as a penance that the referees had to wear it too. They are the forgotten ones, trying to<br />
impose order on a chaotic world, with the support of no-one and the love and respect of even fewer.<br />
There will always be a minimum of fifty percent of people who think that the referee has done a bad job in every game and,<br />
despite the fact that everybody seems so sure that they could do it so much better, they are never willing to get into the ring<br />
themselves.<br />
When Gerald Bothe donned his shirt to officiate the Berlin Landesliga fixture between Medizin Friedrichshain and TSV<br />
Helgoland he didn’t expect to end the day in hospital after a horrific attack. But after he had flashed a second yellow card<br />
to a TSV player in the 85th minute (as the teams were level at 3-3) everything changed. This was no longer just a game.<br />
Bothe was punched to the ground.<br />
He was lucky that the appropriately named Medizin had a medic playing for them that day who, it is acknowledged, saved<br />
the referee’s life. He swallowed his tongue when he hit the deck. Bothe ended up returning to hospital after being initially<br />
discharged with bleeding on the brain. It was, to use a footballing analogy, touch and go for a while.<br />
There are over a thousand referees, men and women, registered in Berlin at this time. Week in, week out (and, to quote the<br />
great man again) they walk the line. They have the shittiest job of all, but without them there would be no game. <strong>No</strong>-one<br />
ever paid money to see anarchy on the pitch.<br />
These photographs are dedicated to all of them.<br />
35
Kreisliga C<br />
SK Türkyurt II- RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 1-8<br />
18.09.11<br />
Oberliga <strong>No</strong>rd<br />
LFC Berlin- Türkiyemspor 3-3<br />
24.09.11<br />
37
Kreisliga A<br />
SV Berliner Brauereien - BAK07 II 2-1<br />
11.09.11<br />
BerlinLiga<br />
TeBe - Berliner SC 1-5<br />
20.08.11<br />
39
Kreisliga C<br />
RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 - Fortuna Pankow ll 11 - 0<br />
23.10.11<br />
Kreisliga C<br />
RW Viktoria-Mitte 08 - WFC Corso/Vineta II 10-1<br />
28.08.11<br />
41