Aue. Heiko Peter, head of the ski division at the FC Erzgebirge Aue sports club, will be buckling under the long, narrow boards today and “guaranteed to go on the slopes”. Cross-country trails aren’t groomed or rolled, but they’ll find a way through the snow somewhere nearby.
It’s like a mockery of the man from Schneeberg and his two dozen department members that after several mild winters, of all things, a ten to 15 centimeter thick snow carpet invites you to do some sport, where pandemic and lockdown prohibit joint tours.
Peter’s club colleague, archer Maren Unger, has not seen anyone in her department since mid-October. The 56 amateur athletes have been making do with WhatsApp messages or by email since then.
Second largest Saxon sports club
“Of course there is very little personal contact,” says Unger, and the 55-year-old admits: “But at temperatures below ten degrees Celsius, our material no longer works precisely. We are then completely dependent on the hall and the training hall is closed. “
Like the archers, it is currently faring for all popular sports departments at Erzgebirge Aue, the second largest Saxon sports club after Dynamo Dresden. Badminton, billiards, women’s football, judo, weight training, athletics, wrestling, swimming, skiing, tennis, swimming for the disabled: all amateur sports are in hibernation due to the lockdown that has now been extended to the end of the month.
The forced break also affects the 44 young people in the youth performance center football. “We had to bring everything down to zero,” reports Michael Voigt, who celebrated his tenth anniversary as managing director in Aue at the beginning of the year.
Around Christmas, the new corona infections in the Erzgebirgskreis with its almost 335,000 inhabitants soared again, there were incidences above the 500 mark.
500 new members during the pandemic
The weekly average is now a little over 300. “The situation has stabilized a bit, but the exit restrictions still apply,” says André Beuthner, press spokesman in the district office of the Erzgebirgskreis with the large district town of Aue-Bad Schlema, which has around 23,000 inhabitants as the center. The streets are quiet, hardly anyone is out and about.
The current 9,129 members of the sports club also currently have no goal. From a purely statistical point of view, almost every second person in the town near Erzgebirge Aue is organized; the large club currently has around 500 more amateur athletes in its ranks than a year ago. An amazing increase for Corona conditions, which Michael Voigt explains with the local characteristics.
He speaks of a “great cohesion”, as can be derived from the word buddy. In this region of former silver and ore deposits not far from the border with the Czech Republic, the cheeky aspect is still very important, even if “bismuth” and uranium mining as the most important economic factor and as a supporter of the company sports community disappeared completely after 1990. “Saving the club was a grueling challenge back then,” the 48-year-old knows, and it almost sounds as if a lockdown is something cute compared to that.
Sponsors have been loyal for decades
Even now, the club members and partners in the Ore Mountains remain true to their sporting homeland, they never get the idea of running away. The phrase “once mate, always mate” is more an attitude to life than just a motto. “Because the people of the club are close to their hearts, and that has been confirmed over the years,” emphasizes Managing Director Voigt, and he states: “We have sponsors who have been on board for thirty years.”
In addition to the mate mentality, as expressed in the club’s coat of arms with a purple background and the ubiquitous “Glück auf”, the everyday greeting of miners, the second local peculiarity is the forward-looking club policy in recent years.
The makers in Aue around their President Helge Leonhardt were of course unable to predict the pandemic and its consequences. However, they knew exactly how their registered and non-profit association, under whose roof the professional footballers are run as a separate economic unit, can be made future-proof.
“Investment backlog” is a foreign word in Aue
“Of the ten years I’ve been here, we built for nine years,” reports Voigt. Investments in your own sports infrastructure, which have now received their special weight in the pandemic – as a psychologically valuable message to the members: Look, our club is alive and will have a secure future despite Corona!
A center for billiards players and archers is on the plus side, as is the athletics facility that opened last summer, including a functional building. The very latest achievement is the purchase of a property in the Bad Schlema district and its conversion into a Ringer stronghold with three mats, fitness rooms and a sauna.
The sports facility is open to both Bundesliga athletes and all other fighters. Club President Leonhardt is certain that the department will have excellent quarters “for the next three decades”.
The word of investment backlog is a foreign word at “Wismut Aue”. Incidentally, one of the main reasons why the number of club members has even increased compared to last year.
Internal communication about focus
In addition, with a total budget of around 20 million euros per year, one is financially relatively independent. An economic good that is particularly important to the people of the Erzgebirge in view of the pandemic and lockdowns. Always provided that the buddy character can still be relied on and cancellations remain the exception.
So that the numbers remain stable even in times of athletic passivity, the office is now focusing more on internal communication within the club. Regular video switching with the division heads and contacts of the members via social media represent an important “normality in the abnormal”.
For Voigt, this is a crucial part of the philosophy of life and reflection at FC Erzgebirge during the pandemic – just like the common cheer, trembling and fingers crossed during the games of professional footballers who are allowed to continue playing in the 2nd Bundesliga despite lockdown.
Fan for both emotional and rational reasons
The unequal treatment causes stomach ache for some. “In my opinion, that’s not solidary. Why is the Bundesliga allowed to play when restaurants and all of our popular sports and a lot of other things have to close, ”comments Heiko Peter, the head of the ski division, critically.
He is split – because, on the other hand, he knows about local economic issues, which archer Maren Unger describes without frills. “The money comes in through football,” she says. The club is not only a fan of professional footballers from an emotional point of view, the patriotism also has rational reasons.
The team is currently in sixth place in the table and is, if you will, number three in East German football behind RB Leipzig and Union Berlin. “If our footballers are doing well, then the whole club is doing well, and that’s good for the entire region,” says District Office spokesman André Beuthner, summarizing the situation.
Germany-wide unique constellation
This is precisely why regional politicians have used around 20 million euros – without funding – to completely modernize the arena in Lößnitzgrund between 2015 and 2018 and to expand it with a fan shop and the performance center for young footballers.
Incidentally, the owner of the neat stadium is the district. “This constellation,” says the man from the district administration and himself a member of FC Erzgebirge Aue, “is certainly unique in Germany.”
