Sportfreunde Lotte 2-2 Rot-Weiss Erfurt, Friday 12th August 2016

Sportfreunde Lotte 2-2 Rot-Weiss Erfurt, att. 1,898 (3.liga)

Welcome to ......

After Sonnenhof Grossaspach, here comes another village team to hit the heights of 3.liga. How do Sportfreunde Lotte do it? A village (a very nice village) about 10km from Osnabruck, who’re hardly Bundesliga behemoths themselves.  In fact, both are in 3.liga this season.  That should be SOME derby!

The mean streets of Lotte.

Today, it’s Sportfreunde, in only their 4^th ever game at this level, versus Rot-Weiss Erfurt, one of the smaller 3.liga sides, yet the only one who’ve been resident since the division’s inception. That’s 8 seasons strong, an achievement of sorts.  Erfurt is also a really nice place, far too nice for a football team.  Football teams ought to come from grim, decaying towns who’ve never seen better days even when they saw better days.

The path to the stadium.

Finding the Sportfreunde stadium was and wasn’t a problem.  It was, in that I’d heard the nearest rail station was Halen.  It wasn’t – as a visit to a bookshop in Osnabruck showed.  I couldn’t see ANY railway stations near Lotte on a local map and the tourist office confirmed it; go by bus (R31).  However, it’s not a problem, since the bus goes from Osnabruck Hbf, as well as the town centre, and lands right outside the arena.

Stadium plan.

Actually, you might mistake the stadium for training facilities, so small are their floodlights.  The stadium stands on your left as you enter Lotte, the other side of a cornfield.  The rest of the village lies to your right.  And don’t be expecting a multitude of drinking holes either.  I counted two, both closed, before I happened upon a large ice cream parlour, which served beer too.  I had something involving coffee, chocolate, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.  It was…sickly.

Advertising the main match.

The stadium is small but perfectly formed. It allegedly holds 10,000, which must be more than live in Lotte.  At the last game, their 1^st ever in 3.liga, there were over 8,500 empty spaces.  Yet the wonder shouldn’t be that there was so much space, rather that they got as many as 1,500 to come and watch.  After all, they already have Vfb Osnabruck to support!

The away ticket booth, next to more fields.

The small main stand does at least run the length of the pitch, with two small paddocks, or shelves, at either end, where fans can stand (‘capacity 83’ I think I read on one).  To its left is what looks like a brand new covered terrace. Perhaps it’s not open yet, or they’re waiting for bigger opposition.  I can only imagine what the likes of MSV Duisburg will make of this place.  I never saw tickets on sale for this terrace, but there were half a dozen spectators on it.  Elderly ballboys?

Open for business?

Opposite is a strange, tiny, double-decker stand.  There are 6 rows of seats in the upper tier, and only a few steps in the below terrace, which was closed, or just empty. Looking at the stand as you enter, it appears Sportfreunde have built the 2 end stands within the confines of a previous curve.  Was it an athletics stadium in a former life?

The double-decker.

Finally, opposite the main stand is a half-covered terrace running the length of the pitch, which houses the home ultras, the away fans and a no-man’s land inbetween.  It’s a shame we’re all housed in the one stand, facing the pitch, so there’s no banter between the fans.  Also, the home ultras were somewhat towards the corner flag..and sounding like 20 at best.  They didn’t even have a cheerleader, his (it’s always a ‘he’) perch being taken by kids.  Best view in the ground.

No Man's Land; them their away fans beyond.

It was an entertaining game.  RW looked slick, with their one-touch passing and breaking at pace, while Sportfreunde had the luxury of going a couple of goals up.  I claim the glory here.  Just as I was wondering how many times a team can kick a ball backwards or square, the centre half launched one forwards and the stocky centre forward held off a couple of weak challenges to drive it past a static keeper.  HT, 1-0.

Lotte's bugler.

2^nd half, I pondered whether Sportfreunde could hold on.  I was really pulling for them, village side and all, but they couldn’t get out of their own half – till they did, and they scored (header off a corner).  I still fancied Erfurt’s chances though.  They were just too quick and slick not to score.  Yet their hopes rested on one mad moment.

A free kick was crossed into Lotte’s box and the ref gave a penalty.  Not just a penalty, but a sending off.  Now, if the rules of double jeopardy no longer apply, does that mean it was violent conduct?  Cos it was at the far end and all I saw were players.  There wasn’t much in the way of arguing about it though.  2-1.

Erfurt line up the penalty.

RW went on to equalise with 15 mins left, a flick on bundled in at the back post.  Sportfreunde looked completely swamped and there was only going to be one winner, yet the game petered out thereafter.  Someone must have turned the heat down on the stove, cos the pans had been bubbling.

I wonder how deliberate this was, but a 7pm KO meant perfect timing for the 9:04pm hourly service to Osnabruck (no special buses put on).  No souvenirs either, he’d packed his table away outside the main stand.  I’d meant to have a look pre-match, but once I’d bought my match ticket I only had one thought: the toilet.  Oh well.  I thoroughly enjoyed Sportfreunde; it was certainly a very different 3.liga day out.

Lotte banner.

The Damage:

€10 ent

€3 beer

€2.50 wurst

= €15.50

The Tunes:

Deserter’s Songs (Mercury Rev)

The Libertines (The Libertines)

Uh Huh Huh (PJ Harvey)

Mixmag Aug15 (Black Coffee)

FRIMO Stadion panorama.

Osnabruck thataway.

Home ticketbooths.

Sheltered carparking.

Rear of the stadium.

Behind the main terrace.

I spy...a Rot Weiss team coach!

The old curve.

Outside the ground, pre-match.

The teams come out.

The kids hog the best view.

Looking towards the away fans.

Match action.

The view down the terrace.

Lotte fans wave their flags.

Goodbye!

Rot-Weiss Essen 1-1 Sportfreunde Lotte, Friday 1st August 2014 (Regionalliga West)

Old floodlight, new stadium

Rot-Weiss Essen 1-1 Sportfreunde Lotte (Regionalliga West), att: 10,260
Platzek 26’                Batarilo-Cerdic 51’

I’m an idiot. An over-confident idiot. The very worst kind of idiot. Despite having bags of time to get to a 7:30pm KO, setting off from nearby Dortmund at 5ish, I never got to this game till half time. In a nutshell: slow train to Essen, quick (failed) nip to Schwarz-Weiss Essen to have a look at their stadium but it looked like a jungle out there and I didn’t have time to get lost; by which time, all the Rot-Weiss shirts at Essen station had disappeared. This had repercussions, despite knowing to get on Line 2 to Bergeborbeck, as the train trundled through the industrial Ruhr, I realised I’d gone further than I anticipated, so I jumped off at the next station (Kray Nordbahnhof). Turned out I was too early (though, in a way, it didn’t matter, since the train was branching a different way at Gelsenkirchen). I thought I’d simply go back to Essen and start all over again. Perhaps there was a shuttle bus at the station for latecomers? I checked the timetable at one of those fabulous DB machines (far superior to the English versions).  Everything was all over the place. I needed a bus, a walk, a U-bahn and a tram.  Christ.

The Main Stand.

I wasn't going to get to the tram station nearest the stadium till nearly half time.  Luckily, He was obviously looking out for me, cos after a couple of stops, four punks in RW scarves got on the bus, so I simply followed them.  Instead of whatever the DB machine told me, they took me on line 101, where, by the time they got off, a couple more fans had entered the picture. Perhaps a HT entrance at RW is not so rare - or a 7:30 on a Friday is no time for a kick-off!

The away end.  I PROMISE you there's 46 of 'em.

The stadium is brand new (2012) replacing a previous one in more or less the same position (a la Blackpool...or Wembley...or Carlisle if it ever gets finished).  Charmingly, they've left one of the old floodlights still standing, just outside the new-build.  The ticket booth was still open and, whether it was my English accented attempt at German, or just that it was HT, the mature lady who served me charged me half price - €5.  THERE'S customer service for you.  I have every intention of going back purely because of this.

I wonder who decided the ratio...?  And how?

While I could see the away end was empty, which was tempting, the booth was at the home end, so I elected to stand on that terrace.  Once past the turnstile, the concourse was packed.  No worries - there must be plenty of room on the terrace. It was busy there too, most of the crowd choosing the home end terrace.  I'd expected a crowd of 6-7000 for this 4th tier game, in the end it was 10,260, of which the best part of 6000 were behind that goal.  They certainly weren't in the away end, where I counted 46 Sportfreunde fans (twice - just checking!)  Those away fans in the seats were easier to count: nil.

Half time at Rot-Weiss.

I found the stadium a bit odd.  It seems they've knocked down a cosy, if ramshackle stadium of 20,000 for something big, bright and white, all high roofs and open corners.  While one end houses a large terrace, opposite, the stand is split between seats and standing.  I'm not sure how many teams in Regionalliga West will fill that, but RW obviously have pretensions to reaching the higher echelons again (they were in Bundesliga 2 until 2007).

The home end

I stood right at the top of the terrace.  No beer or wurst - I couldn't miss any 2nd half action. Sportfreunde looked the better team and certainly their attackers gelled , playing some excellent one-touch stuff.  RW meantime looked very 'English', with 2 up front, one a lumbering wreck and the other even worse.  They could barely hold a ball up between them while long hoofs up front merely left the midfield miles behind play.

Was this an afterthought?

Then, a ball was played through the RW defence and the Lotte forward shrugged off the challenge and blasted a half volley past the head of the keeper.  Shearer-esque.  I nearly burst into a round of applause but no-one else in the home end looked amused.  Too timid to ask, I had to guess the score from people's demeanors.  I'd say 0-1. (No scoreboard in the new stadium.  When you DON'T need one, they're everywhere.)

Come on Rot-Weiss!

RW had tremendous support.  Constant chanting, despite no response from the away end and a home performance where the closest they came to scoring was a 20 yarder which skimmed into the keeper's arms.  At the end, the RW players were made to listen to 5 minutes of chanting before crawling themselves off.  I revised my score prediction to 1-1 (which it turned out it was).  Surely these fans wouldn't have stuck around to show their adoration for a big city team who'd lost to some village minnows?

That's my boy block!

Afterwards, I wouldn't get a sew-on badge (sold out) but I'm worried I am developing a new crush; pin badges showing the stadium.  I am up to 3 - Borussias Mönchengladbach and Dortmund, as well as RW.

The Damage: 
ent: €5 (!)
postcard / badge €5.50
badge: €3
Beer: €3
bratwurst: €2.50 (after the game, obvs)
= €19

The tunes:  
The Death of Cool (Kitchens of Distinction)

Nice angles at Stadion Essen

Back of the Main Stand

The home end under lights.