Philip Waechter has had a ritual for almost 26 years. The Frankfurt illustrator and graphic artist draws a postcard for every day and depicts situations from his everyday life in small pictures. Inspired by the artist Leonore Poth, shortly before the turn of the millennium, Waechter decided to record his experiences in this format and create “a kind of photo album, a memory album”: small moments and encounters, vacations and meetings with friends, the birth of his son – and experiences surrounding his favorite club, Eintracht Frankfurt.
“Eintracht is a constant that has appeared again and again on the cards,” said Waechter, who visited the Frankfurt stadium for the first time with his father and brothers in the winter of 1974 when he was six years old. The foundation for a life as an Eintracht fan was laid. Since then, a lot has happened in the Riederwald sports community. When Waechter drew his first card on January 1, 2000, Felix Magath had just become Frankfurt’s coach and on the pitch Uwe Bindewald and Alex Schur were still fighting to stay in the league instead of for international starting places.
Waechter selected 97 drawings from 20 years
During an exhibition celebrating the club’s 125th birthday last year, a selection of Waechter’s postcards were on display for the first time in the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum. Its director, Matthias Thoma, then had the idea of making the drawings available as a book. For “Only the SGE. 20 years with Eintracht Frankfurt” Waechter has now selected 97 drawings from the past 20 years, from promotion to the Bundesliga in May 2005 to the Champions League draw in August 2025.
The fact that the Frankfurt native has been a fan of Eintracht since his childhood is evident in every drawing in the booklet. He always looks with a loving eye on the club, on an eventful two decades with heavy defeats, unexpected victories and great triumphs. Drawing these was particularly difficult, says Waechter. Major events like the Europa League victory are too powerful to be captured in a single image. “For some experiences, the small format of a postcard is not appropriate,” he says. But as an Eintracht fan, he couldn’t leave them out.
It’s the moments apart from the successes in the stadium that make you smile when you leaf through the pages. When Waechter thinks about Eintracht’s relegation battle in April 2016 while scrubbing his balcony. Visiting friends, but with his thoughts on his favorite club. While on vacation, you can also keep an eye on what is happening around the SGE from afar. “It’s the everyday life that you share with your club as a fan and that’s all part of it,” says Waechter, who regularly attends Eintracht games in the stadium with his season ticket.
The drawings are bridges into the past
“These little encounters; talking about whether the new Eintracht jersey is good or ugly, and which transfer would make sense now and why this or that striker is selected and not the other. This enthusiasm for football is much more than winning the cup and also much more important.” For other fans, the drawings with dates can also serve as “bridges” that “make you remember what you did on this or that day.”
Encounters with greats from the club are also recorded in “Nur die SGE”. Bernd Hölzenbein meets Waechter by chance on an escalator in a Frankfurt subway station, Timothy Chandler while shopping and Ioannis Amanatidis in the hardware store. All of the encounters that Waechter depicts happened exactly the same way. “Nothing is made up,” says the illustrator. “Amanatidis actually bought a bucket of paint and I thought how great it was that he would probably put on a painter’s smock at home and paint his own apartment.”
Waechter’s small works of art are created using ink pens, colored pencils and watercolors, which can only be created by those who are familiar with the SGE. With just a few strokes, clear lines and the right words, he captures what it means to be a supporter of Eintracht Frankfurt.
“It would be best if I always did the drawings in the morning of the next day, but I can’t do that,” says Waechter. “Sometimes it’s drawn straight away, sometimes it takes two or three days” until the postcard is finished. At the beginning of January there will be 9,500 cards. Waechter keeps them all, after years they are bundled up in a cupboard. “That’s an incredible amount, but in terms of volume it’s actually okay. A year takes up about 20 centimeters.”
The Frankfurter won’t stop, the project should continue. “Now there is no going back, I will do this for the rest of my life,” said Waechter. The last page in the Eintracht booklet is empty, reserved for what is to come.
Only the SBU. 20 years with Eintracht FrankfurtPhilip Waechter, ed. Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, 108 pages, Henrich Editions, 18 euros
On December 14th from 11 a.m. Philip Waechter will be at a book signing at the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum. The museum is celebrating its 18th birthday with a party on this day.
