DFB Cup: Locomotive Leipzig as a contrast to glossy football

With one of the most beautiful coats of arms in the country: Lok Leipzig returns to the big football stage against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Foto: imago/ Picture Point

When the first round of the DFB Cup was drawn, Alexander Voigt was not part of the two-man delegation from 1. FC Lok Leipzig. But while his managing director colleague Martin Mieth and President Torsten Kracht were talking about the prominent opponent Eintracht Frankfurt in the “Sportschau” studio, he received the first ticket requests. “You can’t imagine how often the phone rang here,” says he, who used to work in Frankfurt himself, “from former colleagues there to friends from here – everyone wanted to be there.”

Voigt had to turn many people down, because instead of the 30,000 tickets that could easily have been gotten rid of, only a third are available next Sunday at 3:30 p.m. The Bruno Plache Stadium, opened in 1922, with its flat trusses and great wooden grandstand, only holds 11,100 fans, and that includes the 400 seats on the specially built additional grandstand. The idea of ​​moving to the huge Red Bull Arena was quickly discarded. Also because the owner of the tax-financed conversion, RB Leipzig, would have charged a high rent and understandably would have passed on the costs if home or away fans had caused damage. At least that’s what you hear officially in Leipzig when you address the question of the stadium.

An even more important reason that should have spoken against a move is that thousands of Eintracht fans would have been allowed access to the huge arena – along with the guests’ guests. And since the Eintracht Ultras have been good friends with those from Chemie Leipzig for years, there should have been exactly the security concerns that Managing Director Mieth had thought of when he threw his hands over the draw in the “Sportschau” after the lot became known head banged. For the “chemists” are attached to the “locists” in decades of practiced enmity. It is speculative whether it will also be lived out around the Plache Stadium on Sunday. One hopes for common sense and at least spoke to one’s own followers, says Voigt, one of the few full-time employees in the office, where almost exclusively people work who are also fans of the club: “We live like many other clubs Our size too, from the voluntary commitment of many members and fans.« One could complain about that, after all it is a funny football world in which the transfer of Harry Kane to FC Bayern is announced at the same time as the telephone call to Leipzig. Lok, after all (as VfB Leipzig) a three-time German champion, asks for donations on his homepage. For a medium-sized company that is willing to donate 10,000 euros as a sponsor, all available carpets will be colored red, as they assure Lok. Roughly speaking, the Kanes of this world should earn 10,000 euros in three hours.

For Lok, however, the drastic imbalance in the football world is no reason to complain. After all, one’s own image also grows as a consistent alternative to high-gloss football – which one can also experience in Leipzig in the immediate and equally unpopular Red Bull neighborhood. Many spectators come to the home games in the south-east of Leipzig who were already loco fans in the GDR and after the reunification. And the stadium itself hasn’t changed much at first glance either. Means: If it rains, you will get wet in Probstheida, unless you have secured a seat on the covered wooden grandstand. Yes, dear children, that’s how it used to be everywhere.

At Lok Leipzig, however, it is not only the old-school stadium and an old-school fan scene that create identity, which in recent years has attracted a lot of younger, ultra-affine fans, at least in the curve. The recent past is also a source of identity, because without the supporters the club would no longer exist.

In 2004 – 13 years earlier, the traditional name Lok had been given up – the predecessor club VfB Leipzig went bankrupt. As VfB they had played in the second division for a few years and even managed a first division season immediately after the fall of the wall: that was in 1993/94, in the end they were relegated last with a miserable 17 points. The debts from that time could never be got rid of, they were piled up in the toxic post-reunification mixture of lots of home-made dilettantism and the naïve belief in saviors from the West, which was typical for the time, when it was long too late , often turned out to be half-silky loudmouths.

But when football really hit rock bottom in Probstheida, around a dozen fans decided to re-establish the club. Under the name Lok Leipzig and of course with the old coat of arms, which is one of the most beautiful in the republic. What followed was the new start of the 11th league, district class C. From there, the march through to the premier league was successful. And since 2016 »die Loksche« has been playing continuously in the fourth-highest German league.

Viewed from Munich or Berlin, Lok may be just one of many traditional East German clubs stranded in the lower leagues. Self-awareness is completely different. Anyone who was about to say goodbye to their own club in the history books also likes to be rained on. And he sometimes even sees the regional league as a gift. But he certainly feels like Christmas when, for the second time in this young decade, a prominent first division team comes to the DFB Cup first round game in Probstheida. In August 2021 they lost 3-0 to Bayer Leverkusen. Two years later, Eintracht Frankfurt comes by with their new head coach Dino Toppmöller. And if the managing director has his way, the stress doesn’t have to be over by a long shot. Because on the one hand it cannot be ruled out that after the first round there will also be a second cup round for his club, says Voigt, who sounds quite serious. And on the other hand, Loksche will play again on Wednesday against FC Eilenburg for points.

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