When the hall lights go out briefly before the game, Tobias Radloff always sounds a bit solemn for a moment. “Ladies and gentlemen,” says the moderator, who otherwise tends to exaggerate: “Please stand up for your state capital.” And clap your fingers sore. For their players, for their club, for their VC Wiesbaden (VCW).
The 37-year-old Radloff, a self-confessed local patriot, is not the only one who gets caught up in the noise. Players like Liza Kastrup and Lena Große Scharmann also love it when the hall turns into a cauldron. And the ritual works, because the small volleyball club, in which only women and girls do sports, can rely on a regular audience of almost 2,000 spectators who have come to the games since they were promoted to the Bundesliga in 2004 – it almost doesn’t matter how good they are or badly the “VCW girls” are acting. In the coming season, the spectacle on the web will even be performed at European level.
“Accidentally Fourth”
Because the still untitled VCW has surprisingly qualified for the Challenge Cup. “Accidentally fourth,” as Radloff puts it. After a winning streak in the second half of the season, coach Benedikt Frank’s team rushed into the middle of the league elite after years of starvation. The only problem of success: The VCW, which sees itself as a “training club”, drew the attention of the competition with its performance and has to see with which staff it can tackle the European adventure. So far, only the contract extension with Libera Rene Sain has been communicated. Only three other players should probably stay.
Driving force on the sidelines: VCW hall announcer Tobias Radloff
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Image: picture alliance / HMB Media / Ulrich Scherbaum
The city’s highest-ranking football club is based less than four kilometers from the city and is also trying to achieve a milestone in its club history this season. SV Wehen Wiesbaden (SVWW) is about to be promoted to the second Bundesliga for the third time. And at the same time to establish itself as a “real” Wiesbaden club. Which seems almost as difficult.
In the all-time table of the third division, the SVWW holds the top position by far – but this is only a success at first glance. Acting for 13 years in the intermediate level under real professional football and over local sport is not what was once the claim when the “village club” was promoted to the second division for the first time in 2007 and moved to the state capital. But only in three seasons, most recently in 2019/20, did the “Wehener”, as they are still called in Wiesbaden, play in the second division.
Striving for promotion to the second division: Wiesbaden football players like Ivan Prtajin (left) and Max Reinthaler
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Bild: picture alliance / rscp-photo
Now the jump should work again, and this time for the long term. Wiesbaden should finally become a football city. Five games before the end, the SVWW is in second place, four points ahead of the non-promotion places. To be one of the 36 top football locations in the republic would be “an incredibly important marketing tool for the city,” says Stefan Bloche, one of the club’s three managing directors, who is responsible for marketing the Brita Arena.
“Move something” as a claim
15,295 spectators fit in there, but even in the top game against leaders Elversberg (7526) it was not even half full. Less than 4,000 spectators came to ten of the 16 home games. “It gets a little better from year to year,” says Bloche about the Wiesbadeners’ commitment to the SVWW. The stadium, not far from the train station, is easily accessible on foot or by bike, which fits well with the club’s image, which tries to be “clean, sustainable and scandal-free”. “The W unites” is the motto of the association with the two hometowns.
Once a hockey professional, today managing director at SVWW: Stefan Bloche
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Bild: picture alliance/dpa
It is fitting that Blocher often meets with VCW Managing Director Christopher Fetting to agree on joint actions to promote the location. This also means that the players visit and support each other at their home games. “The more top-class sport Wiesbaden has, the more citizens are made aware of it,” says Bloche, convinced that successful athletes serve as role models and encourage children to emulate them. Two-man bobsleigh world champion Kim Kalicki and judo champion Alexander Wieczerzak were also among them.
Bloch, now 63 years old, has played 259 international matches with the national hockey team, was second at the World Cup and won a silver medal at the Olympics. Blocher once learned to play hockey at the Wiesbaden Tennis and Hockey Club (WTHC) and was considered the first professional in his sport. The WTHC still resides in the noble Nerotal and has also recently woken up after years of slumber and has made the leap back into the Bundesliga for the men, at least indoors. One reason for this was the cooperation with the European Business School based in Oestrich-Winkel, through which established players in student sports could be lured to Wiesbaden with scholarships.
“Move something” is Bloch’s claim. But he still doesn’t know in which league his club will play next season. “That’s what Wiesbaden sounds like” is Radloff’s battle cry when “Rock’n’Roll” is raging in the volleyball hall. He can be sure: Almost everyone who witnessed the last VCW season game will be there again at the first game in 2023/24 when it says: “Please stand up for your state capital.” It doesn’t matter what the players’ names are.