OL 10/11 Game 9: TeBe vs. Anker Wismar

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

Tonight at 8pm the Oberliga gets rolling again as our players return after their break for international games Anker are currently 5th in the table and have a good away record so far. Although TeBe are still stuck in the relegation zone, our recent performances have shown that we are good for a surprise or two and have sorted out many of our sloppy defensive errors that let so many goals in at the start of the campaign.

But we cannot expect any favours from Wismar. A few years ago the club lost a major investor overnight, who consequently took his players with him. What he did owning players without a team I do not know. Perhaps they cleaned his house for the rest of the season. The subsequent second/ third team that Wismar threw together were unlucky enough to play an on fire Borussia who put nine in on the night in TeBe's biggest league win in my memory. In the end the goal difference didn't help us and the only winners from the result were BFC Hühnerhof, who also were slaughtered 8-0 at the beginning of the season by their hate rivals Nordsachsen. By winning by that one extra goal their embarrassment in the GDR derby was not the worst result that year.

A draw would be a good result... but who knows what the football Gods have in store for us tonight.

Tonight is also the start of the FARE action week against prejudice and discrimination in football. To mark this, TeBe and their fans have teamed up with the German LGBT organisation LSVD to make a statement against homophobia in football.

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

TeBe lost 0-2 with both goals falling in the first 11 minutes. The rest of the game was a little uneventful really and the weather cold. Even the FARE action was a little disappointing. More perhaps later...

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

Having missed the last games, I was excited about this home match against Wismar. Norbert's match reports and the comments from other TeBe fans had given a rather more optimistic view on our current situation than I had expected and the results had also spoken for themselves - a well earned draw against top of the table BAK last match and a win against another struggling team the week before. Last night was therefore a bit of a disappointment.

At the start of the match Germany's LGBT organisation LSVD presented TeBe fans with a banner for their fan blocks calling for more tolerance and respect for non-heterosexuals in football, Then, during the half-time break, there was an interview about the subject as a little warm up for a discussion evening on the subject later in the month... and that was it. Anyone who got a beer before the game or used the toilet in the break would have missed it. But the problem is always the same for TeBe during this action week: as we already have perhaps the most politically correct group of 200 fans in the country, it is always going to be difficult to make a challenging statement on any subject that brings a necessary critical self-reflection among our fans. For football as a whole the subject and action is very positive and forward thinking, for us it means that we have yet another banner against homophobia and are organising a talk on a subject that many of our fans are experts on in their own right.

But to the game... what I saw in part was actually a rather interesting 0-0 with good chances for both sides and some serious improvement compared to our earlier matches this season. TeBe forced some saves from Anker's keeper - one finger save from an amazingly struck free-kick was especially great for Oberliga standards - and held it together at the back better than the start of the season. The trouble of course was that I am ignoring the first 20 minutes in which Anker punished us from the start and a revenge for the 9-0 really looked like a possibility. The first goal a header from a corner skillfully tapped in after a minute or two as many fans were still entering the stadium, the second goal came after 11 minutes for anyone who missed the first. Holding out for a 0-0 draw is an admirable tactic and respect for the achievement against BAK but holding out for a draw is useless once you have already conceeded two goals. Perhaps we just needed to hang in there and plug the holes before we could build confidence to go forward but there was no real immediate response from TeBe after going down. After half an hour the game had certainly evened up. We were lucky not to have conceeded a penalty, the referee not seeing a foul that I could hear the crack from in Block E, but the referee's anti-authoritarian disposition meant that any break down the wing from TeBe could be dealt with by knocking us off our feet - most hideous fouls resulting in a free kick or in very rare cases a booking. The second half was also ok but we rarely looked like scoring and turning the game around looked impossible. Anker also took the foot off the gas and any improvement by the end may have just been the opposition shutting up shop and looking ahead to the rest of the season. I didn't really notice any great impact from new players or any more attacking style. Certainly (aside from the first 15 minutes) our defence has tightened up and we did not seem to lack any fitness in the closing stages but we were still outplayed and a victim of our own mistakes.

I expected we would lose and was only hoping for a draw, but the game was pretty much over after 2 minutes and the final nail banged into our coffin after 11. After that we played well enough but after that was already too late. We have improved for sure but as long as we continue to give the opposition games, we remain our own worst enemy. The Belfaster is here in two weeks time and before that we have to seriously shape up!

P.S. I don't really care for Ultras or fireworks but the highlight of the second half was a little pyro show from the 20 fans that had travelled down from Wismar. They set off perhaps two or three little smoke bombs and the game was delayed for a minute at the most. All harmless stuff but sadly the German football association judges such events in the same category as the Italy vs Serbia violence last week. 20 fans from Wismar would not earn our club 200 Euros if they drank like fish and once we have paid for toilets and security we are already struggling to break even in optimism land. Their firework show - however safe, however entertaining and however well intended - will cost us at least a few hundred Euro that we really do not have at the moment because the rules state that it is our responsibility to search everyone thoroughly enough that this doesn't happen, a infringement into fans' personal rights that we do not want to carry out every other week during the season. Perhaps that was shit of the Anker fans, perhaps it was their understandable right as grown adults to have their fun? Certainly this stupid system of fining almost bankrupt clubs for such non-events has to stop.

[bronski]

as we already have perhaps the most politically correct group of 200 fans in the country, it is always going to be difficult to make a challenging statement on any subject that brings a necessary critical self-reflection among our fans. For football as a whole the subject and action is very positive and forward thinking, for us it means that we have yet another banner against homophobia and are organising a talk on a subject that many of our fans are experts on in their own right.

right. but as long as we have guests like yesterday, chanting "votzen berlin" ("cunts berlin") and, of course, "lila-weiß ist schwul" ("purple white is gay") I don't mind some redundancy...

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

but as long as we have guests like yesterday, chanting "votzen berlin" ("cunts berlin") and, of course, "lila-weiß ist schwul" ("purple white is gay") I don't mind some redundancy...

To be fair though this does not bother me so much: "Cunts" is not family friendly but rather harmless - it is perhaps more a question of niveau rather than a seriously misogynistic hatred, a problem for their own fan scene to deal with; "Purple White is Gay" is also often sung with a certain irony and some humour - we do perhaps have the most LGBT friendly fan scene in Germany. I don't think either of these things are wonderful but I do not necessarily see the hatred, prejudice or discrimination in them that leads to exclusion and violence towards non-heterosexuals. Far more worrying in football is for me the homophobic abuse that players receive for making mistakes, being slightly off form, having long hair or just for playing for the wrong team... which is why i love this little video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evnZci_2p5I

That sadly may never have been shown.

[Norbert]

"anti-authoritarian disposition of the referee" 8) , thanks for the good match report Doughnut Boy - this time I missed the match due to family business. Maybe the last two matches poored us a bit sand into our eyes. I hoped that we could manage to make steady wins or draws for at least some games - and now that defeat!

The task to avoid relegation will be very difficult - throughout the whole season. Maybe until the very last game of the last matchday. But nevertheless the team´s performance against Altlüdersdorf and BAK gives me the believe that it is not impossible.

[ping-pong-alex]

The Belfaster is here in two weeks time

great news

[Belfast Lila-Weisser]

The Belfaster is here in two weeks time

great news

JUHUUUUU! Freue mich tierisch drauf, it's been far too long...

Bis zum 29.!