It’s on days like these you have to rely on your luck to find a football ground. Although finding Henndorf itself is not a big issue, an outsider might be forgiven for expecting to see a couple of posters or sandwich boards advertising the game. Driving down the main road there’s an innocuous turn-off to the left and a list of signs; one of which benignly hints at the possibility of finding the ground. Simply signposting the route to the ground with the words ‘football pitches’ does not tell the navigator or driver which football pitches.
Having guessed that in a village the size of Henndorf it was likely to mean the football pitch, we doubled back at the petrol station and took the turn-off. However, the only people we saw down this idyllic country road were dog walkers, families and sporty fifty-somethings. Had I been driving myself I would have turned back as there were no signs anywhere, but as luck would have it part of the road led to the top of a hill where we finally saw a bibbed parking security attendant and rightly assumed we’d found the place by dint of luck rather than design.
The sight that awaits is an ode to Austria’s secret political leaders, the Bürgermeisters! Feudal earthly deities hell-bound on creating monuments to their own existences. All over Austria you’ll find football grounds, training centres, community centres, town squares and shopping centre roads bearing the name, or at least the investments of this or that mayor. I’d be surprised in the extreme if this wasn’t another example of targeted benevolence. A luxury all weather pitch leads into a Man-From-Uncle-like ultra modern sports facility buried under a carefully architecturally sculpted mountain of earth. On the other side of the building there’s expensive concrete terracing built to entertain maybe 600 spectators, which is great but considering the average gate of under 200 and the unlikeliness of progressing beyond this division, the money might better have been spent on a cycle path network, a roundabout or a hard water filtration system.
Moaning aside it was actually all very nice to be at the top of such a well appointed piece of real estate with a real view of the action on the pitch. With the late autumn warming us from the rear it was easy to forget that the air temperature in the shade wasn’t more than abour 4 degrees centigrade. As it was the last game before the winter break I decided not to come in my own car so that I could help Henndorf fill their coffers with my beer tokens, so before I took up a standing position at the grassy bank top of the terracing I grabbed a beer.
The game kicked off about five minutes late so we didn’t miss any of the action. Austria Salzburg were on top from the word ‘go’ combining well from the back and soon finding themselves in front of goal. Henndorf didn’t seem to have any real idea of how to get forward and were only able to string together one or two passes, other than that they were fairly destructive; the only real exception being our old friend Milan ‘I Milan’ Pavlovic, whose passes are often so graceful and perfectly weighted that they can turn a game on its head in a couple of seconds.
However, as Milan Pavlovic has the movement radius of a dinner plate it requires a good team to keep him fed with the ball. Henndorf, as their position in the division suggests, is not a team of football artists and athletes so, as good as he is, Pavlovic can rarely receive the service he requires, nor provide the service expected. As Austria Salzburg found their feet a lot faster it was no surprise when an Austria was challenged in the box and managed to make it look worthy of a penalty and Bernd Winkler converted on 14 minutes to put the away team 1-0 up.
With Milic, Schmidt, Oberhauser and Urbanek gelling well for the most part, somehow even Pavlovic’s best timed passes were snuffed out at the point of arrival, or we managed to get enough bodies behind the ball to force the ball back out of the penalty area. Not much later Mario Schleindl put on a sprint at the other end, did his little Mario dance to get into a shooting position, and the score had soon been doubled. 2-0 on 32 minutes.
Henndorf had a few half chances but failed to make anything count as Stefan Huber continued to show that despite his size, he’s a brilliant goalie and a worthy representative for Alex Trappl. Towards the end of the half Henndorf’s main striker, Markus Kopfsguter saw yellow for questioning a refereeing decision. A couple of minutes later a clear cut corner for us went the other way and Heli Rottensteiner saw yellow for explaining the situation to the referee: ‘Excuse me referee, with all due respect, I fear there may have been a miscarriage of justice as regards your honourable decision to award a goal kick when even a blind dog could have seen that it should have been a f*+#ing corner for us!!!’ One or two Austria fans also tried to impress the issue upon the ref but as refs don’t make mistakes, it was futile.
Half time 2-0 and by now I had already seen the bottom of my third beer, so the game was becoming less relevant and the fun factor more so. I toddled off to get the next beer as Christian was sitting tightly on his wallet. After witnessing the Austrian inability to queue up I had to wait 5 minutes before I finally got my beer. On the way back up and had a quick word with QPR Harry. Who’s QPR Harry? Who are you if you don’t know who QPR Harry is! With his amazing business contacts and stunning powers of persuasion I’m sure he will be able to find the sponsors for the new Austria Salzburg women’s team everybody is talking about. Come on Harry!
Second half started without Heli who was swapped for Zarko Cavic at half time. It also started without me as I began to lose my powers of concentration. 20 years ago 3 beers an hour were a par for the course start to an evening drinking session. At the age of 44 I should be doing something more respectable and domesticated on an early Saturday afternoon than getting shitfaced with people half my age, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Most things do.
I was taken by surprise as a roar went up on 48 minutes as, apparently, Lubo Neubauer had stretched our lead to three. I have no idea whether it was a tap-in, a world class bicycle kick or a diving header, but it was a goal. 3-0 to Austria Salzburg and just as I was down to the last dregs of the fourth beer Christian finally turned up with another beer. Then I was able to celebrate Lubo’s goal in a liquid fashion. And somewhere around this time our new found friend Airport Barbara appeared. As the sun’s elevation had long since ceased to warm up the shady terracing, she’d opted for a sunny spot with the alcoholics. Hick!
4-0 for Wurnt Binkler, err Berndt Winkler on 60 minutes, and there was no doubt as to the outcome of the game. According to the SFV website there was a substitution on 61 minutes. Off – Mario Scleindl, on – Ivan Pecaranin. But then a strange thing happened. The clock went back to the 60th minute and Henndorf pulled a goal back. This was the first time I had ever seen anybody mess with the space-time continuum since Xandi Seywald had unpacked his junior time traveller’s kit. It was however impossible to check the clock as some Austrian brain had mounted it on a small wooden hut facing away from the terracing, so for most of the game we had no idea how long there was to go. Anyway, still 4-1 to the Austria. Not that Henndorf didn’t have any chances, but they never added up to anything clear cut and at full time 4-1 was a fair reflection of the game.
The general consensus was we should get tanked at the clubhouse bar, or maybe that was just my general consensus. It has to be said, there have been some clubs that apart from taking your gate money on the way in, they didn’t really want us anywhere near their villages and couldn’t wait to get us out of there. Then there are places like Piesendorf where the locals are quite happy to let you take over their clubhouse for an evening and stand around and talk to you. Henndorf was another one of these nice places. The people at the bar were friendly and despite the crowding there didn’t seem to be any frayed tempers. The combination of alcohol and alcohol gets you into lots of conversations, so I spoke to a number of Austria fans I’ve never talked to before. I got into a conversation with a bloke from Tyrol about Austria Salzburg. I ended up bumping into Markus Kopfsguter in the toilets, who I taught English to 12 years ago when he was about 19 years old.
Then I cornered Alex Hütter about the idea of a women’s football team. As the new Austria Salzburg team was put together over a period of a few weeks in the summer of 2006 I can’t accept any excuses about needing a year and a half to organise a ladies’ team. There’s a saying in English and German, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way! Ultimately, it’s time we moved out of the dark ages and did something nobody would expect of us; something progressive. Once one big-name club, and that’s what we think we are, starts its own team, all the others have to follow suit. There would also be new openings in sponsorship, as companies not usually associated with football would be interested in becoming involved. If you can find sponsors, you can find training facilities. If we expect women to pay to watch football they should be given an opportunity to play it themselves. Think about it: Alexandra Trappl, Marion Schleindl, Antonia Feldinger, Petra Urbanek... let’s make it happen!
See you in five months!
All the best - Roger
Union Henndorf - SV Austria Salzburg 1-4 (0-2)
Austria Salzburg played with:
Huber; Urbanek, Schmidt, Milic, Oberhauser; Rottensteiner (46. Cavic), Mayer, Neubauer, Feldinger (72. Kluth); Winkler, Schleindl (65. Pecaranin)
Goals:
0-1: Winkler (14., penalty) (Assist: Mayer)
0-2: Schleindl (32.) (Assist: Rottensteiner)
0-3: Neubauer (48.) (Assist: Schleindl)
0-4: Winkler (69.) (Assist: Neubauer)
1-4: Deutinger (71.)
Shots total: Henndorf 12 / Austria 21
Shots on target: Henndorf 4 / Austria 11
Corners: Henndorf 4 / Austria 7
Fouls: Henndorf 10 / Austria 34
Offsides: Henndorf 14 / Austria 4
Yellow cards:
Henndorf: 2 (Kopfsguter, 38./criticism; Federspieler, 68./foul)
Austria: 2 (Rottensteiner, 40./criticism; Mayer, 72./unsporting behaviour)
Henndorf, 700 spectators
Ref: Reuf Sahilovic; Assitants: Mario Schober, Nurettin Seker
