One in a Million
By: Abby | September 27th, 2009One of the first times (and still one of the few) I read something in-depth about Hertha Berlin was in Simon Kuper’s Football Against the Enemy. There’s a chapter in there about a Hertha fan from East Berlin and his troubles with the Stasi, all relating to football. Like the rest of the book, it’s a fascinating look at how football, politics, and culture all intersect.
The chapter concludes with the Berlin Wall coming down. 59,000 people, East Berliners, came to the next Hertha home game, only to find out later that the directors of the East Berlin clubs, at the time just barely ex-Communist and Stasi chiefs, had been invited guests. Hertha management were proud that they came. 16,000 showed up for the next game. The momentum was lost.
I’ve been thinking of that chapter for the past few weeks. It seems to fit with the trends of Hertha history. Through skill or luck something is built up, momentum is gained and fans attracted, only for incompetence or misfortune to destroy it again.
What looked like a new dawn last season now seems to be just a continuation of that trend. A talented coach, a hardworking team, and management that came from the club and was no longer willing to pile up debt made it seem like Hertha was finally getting its act together. But, well, that’s the thing about football- one should never get your hopes up too much.
So where are we now? I still don’t know. I’m not sure where the team is going or where it can go. I’m tempted to just throw up my hands and say that I need to just start enjoying Hertha as a continuing farce but I know that’s just me trying to detach myself from the hurt. This is a hard club to love, I’ve found. There is beauty and drama, hope and history, if you’re willing to be patient, but it isn’t easy. (Yet I have no intention of giving up. They’re mine.)
Anyway. Another bad loss today. I should have a proper match report tomorrow instead of this sort of rambling. See you then.
Category: Team News
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No shame in losing away to a good team, but our defense was again inexcusable. Hope someone’s got Hans Meyer’s telephone number.
Posted from
Germany
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Nice post, the comparison is both informative and illustrative. Sticks in the mind.
Unfortunately, there’s now one more thing Hertha won’t be sticking with: http://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/ticker/hub/fussball/index.html?item=2077421
I’m actually disapppointed. I wanted to see Lulu succeed with the “little” team that could. So much for the experiment.
Posted from
United States -
Most Hertha fans, I think, wanted the team to stick with Lulu. But since he’s an unknown quantity when it comes to relegation battles, there was little choice. Now we just have to hope it’s Meyer, and not Röber. Let the battle for survival begin!
Posted from
United States
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