Werner's Corner: Anger at Home

[FaraDian]

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Pforzheim and observe a football match hosted by the fairly new team of Schwarzwalder FV. This was suggested to me as a kind of homecoming, as many do not understand the vast differences among places in Germany. But having spent much of my youth in a destitute alpine village, I did not feel wholly out of place in the rather dreary confines of the Black Forest. The opposite, I imagine, is what the team intends their opponents to feel. Pforzheim is depressed and depressing. Only the home team and the home fans can thrive in such a place.

A display of this came very early, when the local team appeared to score a mere fifteen seconds into the game. Home fans venturing out on such a day appeared to be rewarded immediately, and then that reward was as quickly taken back. There was a bitterness in the stands, and even perhaps a bitterness on the field. Revenge is a great driver of men and clearly fueled the forceful shot Dian put into the net not too long later.

A concession early in the second half again stoked the fury of all and again would empower a goal by the home team. Their Rob Tucker is a very large man who bears down upon the goal with all of his size and emotion. I should not like to face him in a bar fight. But this night, the bars of Germany were all happiness on the backside of their anger. That evening is a story for another time.