Linfield Exile: April 2007

Hancot plays football. For the first time in 2007.

12 of us from Berlin made our way to Chemnitz for our first tournament. We got there late, met our fellow Berliner Tschaika amigos and the organiser, Walter, got a few beers into us, then set off to the, erm, ‘rustic’ surroundings of the B-Hof (farmyard in German) – for rustic, read no electricity, no heating, no lights, no running water and just an elevated open hole for a toilet. The ammonia smell was overpowering, but drinking by candlelight and getting changed and finding our beds in complete darkness had its certain charm…

The others were wakened early by me on the Friday, leading to much grubling and cursing.

No time for (or place to have) breakfast, so off we went to the ultra-modern sports hall for the tournament.

The caretakers were, shall we say, somewhat over-zealous and over-protective of their hall – numerous warnings followed about no ‘street shoes’ anywhere near the hall, that clothes HAD TO be put in lockers, etc. I’d no hall shoes with me but managed to slip the net with my artificial pitch shoes.

We had apparently been given a good group. We had wanted to enter our team as ‘AFFI Berlin’, but as some of the members had played here before with ‘The Running Assholes’, that’s what they called us. Much to our amusement, they had problems with the name, and hence we ran out for our second match under the introduction of ‘Running Ass’. Onto the matches:

Sofa Kicker: 0-0

We were poor, missing a few gilt-edged chances, myself included, even though I shifted the blame onto Kr. in an after-match interview with Doughnut Boy. Sofa Kickers celebrated in frantic fashion after the game, as if they’d qualified for the World Cup, and we soon found out why: the organiser told us they’d never won a game before. Not good.

Flugrunde: 0-7 (SEVEN)

Oh dear oh dear. Conceding seven goals in 10 minutes is a bit embarrassing by anyone’s standards. I was appalling, two attempted passes across my own goal leading to 2 easy goals. I brought myself off in shame. To be fair, W. told us this team had won an earlier tournament and they ended up runners-up overall after penalties, but even so. Oh yeah, they were far too over-motivated in tackling, fouls etc, contrary to the supposed spirit of the tournament.

____ Bastards 3-2

Finally we scored, and managed to win. I scored two (great goals ;) ) and Hotte won the game with a cool penalty. My goals were controversial for our opponents, but only because they didn’t know the rules: a foul was given if the ball directly crossed the halfway line from a goal-kick, but was allowed to do so if taken from the keeper’s hands from open play. We took advantage of this to score, in ‘route one’ fashion, straight from Hotte’s throws: first one, I controlled it on my chest, turned, and volleyed it past the keeper; second one, I did a deft back-header to direct it past the onrushing keeper. Unfortunately the game was not as friendly as it could and should have been.

This result meant we had qualified for the quarter-finals! But first, a mini-tournament was organised for the 4 teams representing AFFI Berlin and Chemnitz. First up, the Berlin Derby against our friends from Friedrichshain, Tschaika Leningrad:

Tschaika: 2-3

This was my favourite game of the tournament, and the only one we really played that was played in the true spirit of AFFI, not taken too seriously, not over-competitive. Possibly that was due to the fact that we all knew one another and were familiar and supported the concept of fair play and fun enshrined in AFFI, I don’t know. We took an early lead thanks to an own-goal from Chrischi, later to be named Keeper of the Tournament, less I suspect to do with his keeping skills than with the fact it was his birthday! Nikita was filming, but didn’t quite film the goal, though his reaction is funny:

(film to follow)

We then went 2-0 ahead through St., but they fought back and scored three. Another attempted back-flick header from the Hancot only hit the post. See their first goal here and a lovely move by Charles le francais, Ronaldinho-esque, around 1m17 in, complete with me shouting ‘Ronaldinho!’, as well as the Hancot in action, white shorts and red socks, with some nifty moves:

(film to follow)

So we went into the losers’ game:

Affi Chemnitz II: 2-0

We won with a long-range beauty from St., and a goal from Marcel, slotting it home after a mazy run and square pass from the Hancot. I was back in the zone (literally!) They had a few players who were a bit reckless, shall we say, but the mood was generally fair and fun.

So onto the quarter final:

Compact: 1-1 (1-2 after penalties)

This was probably our best performance, an iron defence keeping out a technically superior team. Their attitude was poor, far too aggressive and win-at-all-costs, and the referee didn’t help. Our equaliser was a peach, straight from a corner, a seemingly mathematically-impossible goal from Jonas. We pressed on, it went to 5 minutes extra-time, and I almost scored with a nice over-the-shoulder turn and volley, but it wasn’t to be. Penalties. Hancot, who had caused Tschaika to be knocked out before thanks to missed penalties, refused to take. St. missed, Hotte scored, and Janine missed, and they scored their first two, so we were out. Too bad.

The semis and finals were unpleasant affairs. Bad sportsmanship, aggression, threats and dirty fouls were de rigueur. It left a bad taste in the mouth. The only positive was the refereeing of Hotte.

Overall, I had fun playing, but the only game I enjoyed was the Tschaika one. The organisers, in my opinion, have a bit of work to do. The message and what AFFI is about wasn’t clear enough; stronger action should have been taken against those teams openly threatening and going over the top (The Makkabi semi should have been abandoned, in fact, Makkabi imo should have been thrown out); there were only 3 teams with women players, none of which were from Chemnitz; and it seems what AFFI was all about – fair play, fun football, non-competitive, mixed football, among other things- were neglected, even though I feel that such a tournament is unique in Chemnitz and progressive in this respect. Much more could still be done though. I was disappointed with getting criticised by the organiser for putting up this flag:

It won't be brought next time, but purely from the point of view that it could be perceived as a national flag, not for any other spurious reasons. I won't be at the next tournament in the summer anyway, as I have to go back to London to work. Maybe a good thing.

We headed off into Chemnitz for something to eat, Borek, pizzas, burgers, chips etc, very nice despite Hotte moaning about how small his pizza was!

Karl-Marx-Stadt

The evening had a reading from Gerd from hi new book ‘Football versus Country Music’ and was very entertaining and well-visited, highlights being Matthaeus and his butchering of the English language. We weren’t up for the punk concert, so headed back to the Alternative Youth Centre, where they re-opened the bar for us to allow us to play table football and pool into the wee small hours.

I woke up early again on Saturday, we were then thrown out of the AYC (a great place to stay, comfy, showers, place to chill out etc) and after a short breakfast in a wee café nearby, we headed off home. An interesting few days.