Friday, 27th February 2008 - kick-off time 19.00
Landesklasse Staffel 5 (8th level, 4th amateur division)
Result: 4:1 after 96 min. (47/49) - Halftime 2:0
Goals: 1-0 22nd Müller, 2-0 37th Bouzbouz, 2-1 49th Günçer, 3-1 82nd Lorentz, 4-1 91st Lorentz
Bookings: Köthen; Trybus, Müller, Frinze - Aken; Hädicke
Sent-offs: Aken’s Voigt due to repeatedly playing foul
Stadium: Stadion an der Rüsternbreite (cap. 4,000)
Attendance: 224 (about 30 away fans)
Match quality: 6.0/10 (slightly above average)
After a meeting in the morning in the Institute for Oriental Studies of the University of Halle-Wittenberg, I had enough time to watch a more or less legal live-stream of a Syrian first division football game (Al-Ittihad Halab 0:1 Al-Karameh Homs) and then returned to Halle. This time for moving on to Köthen, a small city 30km north of Halle, were an interesting amateur football match was to be played.
When we arrived at the stadium 90 minutes prior the game, we went to the club’s restaurant first. We ordered an excellent Schnitzel with fried eggs, roasted potatoes and a small salad for just 3.85€. The interior of the restaurant is very elegant.
Some minutes before the kick-off, we went to the ticket office and bought a ticket for 3€ and a match programme for 0.50€, each. The stadium named after the bordering street “An der Rüsternbreite” is an average amateur stadium that can hold about 4,000 fans on even ground around the pitch or on the paved terraces. Vis-á-vis the stadium, there is a sports hall that is the home of HG 85 Köthen, a quite successful handball club. Strangely enough, they played their Regionalliga match at 19.30 - since the clubs usually work together, some fans at the football ground complained about that kick-off time, saying that those guys that make the official fixtures must have been stoned.
The rain did not stop and the floodlight was weak, so I did not take many photos. Even weaker than the floodlight was the support of both sides. 224 visitors and neither enthusiasm, nor aggro. Just some intelligent remarks as “Du Vogel!” - literally “you bird!”, but in the sense of “you idiot!” or “Junge, Junge, Junge, doooo! Was der widder für ne Scheiße pfeift, doo!” - a typical complaint about the referee. All in all we can say that the visitors were at off-time, or as we Germans call it: “Es war tote Hose - it was dead trousers.”
Some of the abovementioned complaints of the fans against the referee were even justified, especially when the match official from Halle showed a Köthen player the yellow card because he stated that the player just dived, although it was absolutely obvious that a player from Aken pulled him to the ground with full force. The linesmen corrected the referee then, so that the yellow card for the player from Köthen was erased and that one from Aken got a yellow card instead. Due to it was his second card, he had to leave the pitch.
Within the first 15 minutes, Köthen did not have a single chance although ranked 3rd, while Aken was just ranked 13th. Elbe Aken missed the target a few times, and after Köthen had their first two chances, too, they went in front by an easy but clean goal by Müller.
Ten minutes before half time, the Moroccan Othmane Bouzbouz, voted most valuable player of the first half (15 matches) of the season by the fans of Germania Köthen, distributed another goal.
In the second half, Elbe Aken had the better start once again and therefore was able to score the goal which left the scoring side only one down. No doubt, the host awoke after that goal, although they needed a lot of time, until minute 82, to score on their own. But within 10 minutes, Lorentz decided the match.
Most of the match, Köthen showed that they are better skilled than Aken and they were the more active team, so the victory was justified.
After the match I took some photos in the city of Köthen, because the market square and the neighbouring streets are illuminated quite well and we had a lot of time until the train that brought us to Halle arrived. Changing the train in Halle, we were in Merseburg few minutes before 11 p.m.
Although the weather was shit, the day was good. The floodlight sucked, but the players were OK. The fans were boring, but the meal in the club’s restaurant great. And nonetheless a visit to Köthen can be recommended as a stop-over of one or two hours for tourists, because there are several interesting churches and other impressive buildings, especially around the market square, and the nice castle holds an interesting exhibition of stuffed birds.
Statistics
Ground No. 281 (new ground; this season: 51)
Sporting event No. 758 (this season: 125)
Kilometres that day: 115 (100 by train, 15 by bike)
Km this season: 17,940 (9,270 car/ 2,960 plane/ 2,870 bike/ 2,840 public transport)
Number of football matches since the last goalless draw: 1
Number of weeks since the last week without any sporting event (Aug 1st-6th 2006): 135
For more photos see:
http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x68/fchmksfkcb/090227CFC%20Germania%204-1%20Elbe%20Aken_Koethen%20bei%20Nacht/
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