Club World Cup-holiness and misdeed

A map of Germany is circulating on the Internet, divided into the influence of football fans, as if the football clubs are independent small states, the size of which is based on the number of their supporters. The Schalkeland is huge, as is the Werderland. The north is interesting: HSV-Country, of course, but on the left there is also the small kingdom of SV Meppen and right before the Hansa zone begins, VfB area is. Oha, this club, the Association for Movement Games Lübeck, really exists!

So far, he looked more like a funny invention by the ND editor Klaus Ungerer. This man has a lot of imagination; Among other things, he already worked for the satirical department of “Spiegel Online”. Ungerer comes from Lübeck, like Thomas Mann, and he is a dazzling stylist and imagner. In the ND feature sheet, he gave a glowed speeches about VfB’s abnormal power in northern Germany. If there were a Hanseatic justice in professional football, nobody would speak of the HSV, Ungerer believes, it simply means: “Only VfB.”

These Ungerer appearances were like those of the Lodovico Settembrini in Thomas Manns perhaps the most rugged novel “The Magic Mountain”, who led to the confused main character Hans Castorp to convey the “sun of enlightenment”. Settembrini puts “a beautiful warmth in his words” when he warns of “unity in certain basic guilds”, as Thomas Mann writes. With Klaus Ungerer there is such a basic guild in the universal admiration of VfB.

But let’s look at it sporty. What are the great success of this “sun of football”? Winner of the Schleswig-Holstein State Championship 1946/47, so, so, in which regional league 1966/67, according to Wikipedia, “the sixth best defensive”, Aha, and even in the promotion round to the Bundesliga in 1969, but without winning the last (fifth) place, HM, HM. VfB is boasting to be a record region, but stops: four years second division is available for the statistics, Oho. And a semi-finals in the DFB Cup, greatest success Ever, lost in Bremen more than 20 years ago after extra time.

It gets more exciting when you look at the money. That was gone more often. The club is two times, almost: at the end of 2024 VfB declares itself to be insolvent as “out of nowhere” (“11 friends”). The budget, which should last in the regional league until the end of the season, is all in November “the causes are still not clear” (“11 friends”). One million euros should be raised within two days, oh, no, no, no; But: works. Like a miracle in the run -up to Christmas. That is why this club is still very real. So there is no “painless exitus” as »Splendider conclusion «, as Hofrat Dr. Behrens, chief physician in the “Magic Mountain”, would say.

But you could do all of this in a very similar way and yet quite differently through the local rival of VfB. It bears the demanding name 1.FC Phönix Lübeck and is in 5th place, two places and two points in front of VfB in the final table of the Region League 2024/25. And who is in between, in 6th place? The SV Meppen. And behind it, in 8th place? The second team of the HSV. What would Settembrini say in the “Magic Mountain”? »Good and evil, holiness and misdeed, everything mixed! Without judgment! Without will! Without rejecting the ability to reject what is rejected! “But in Lübeck they Barmen:” After the rescue, it is not uncommon for the next bankruptcy “(” 11 friends “).

Christof Meueler has been a follower since school hours
of SV Darmstadt 98.