Despite the general incredulity attached to the fact that Hallwang vs Austria was the only game in the division to have been scheduled for 12 midday, it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing at all. For me it was a pleasant cycle ride of 25 minutes and a chance to salvage some of the day after the game. The ground itself is a typical clubhouse affair built at the top of a grassy bank leading down to the pitch with lots of benches up the shallow part of the embankment.
I doubt there were really 1500 spectators. You never know in Austria as official figures tend to be only vaguely related to actual results. Here it’s a question of accountability. Who has the report what to whom. For the princely admission fee of €7 and €3 for a beer we were treated to a well organised arrangement of mobile beer sales, beer and food stands and easily accessible toilets. Standing at the level area at the top of the hill there was a good view of a relatively knackered-looking pitch. A steep six-foot grass slope led down to the benches on the flatter slope around the pitch; and as this area wasn’t as efficiently served with beer there was a constant stream of people coming up and down the steep bit to get their beers and sandwiches from the top.
As the game got underway we noticed there was still no Vasilij, our new striker, who’s still injured apparently. On the other side Hallwang were without Denis Andric, who looked a handful when we played them in Maxglan, but my sources informed me he’s been kicked out for disciplinary problems and will not be playing for Hallwang again. Not a big worry for us.
As with all the wood and mud arenas we’ve played at, any atmosphere the Ultras manage to generate is often swallowed by the botanic vastness of the biodiversity around us. So with the Ultras gently chuntering away into the grass somewhere way down to our right, we were enjoying the sun at the top of the hill and some top class football. Ha ha! Although after just 3 minutes Bernd Winkler put us 1 – 0 ahead and we could have been forgiven for thinking it was going to be a walkover. In the first 15 minutes we dominated play and Hallwang were restricted to tentative counter attacks.
Counter attacks are our Achilles and this, combined with blind and naive faith in the ability of the referee to read the game and to blow when we want him to blow, left the whole of the team looking stupid as Hallwang got behind us and we waited 3 or 4 seconds for an offside or foul decision that never came. Without any resistance it was fairly easy for Hallwang’s Lukan Kuon to level the score on 17 minutes.
Goals and goals against usually trigger a rush, or at least a peak, in beer purchasing. This was no different. A young and relatively tall bloke came past us with that purposeful look in his eye so we opened like the waters in the bible. Surely enough, after a couple of minutes he came back with a beer in each hand and proceeded to lose his footing and slip down the steep bank in front of us holding the beer out at arms length with such skill and elegance you’d have thought it was his favourite party trick. Mild applause was followed by a rude awakening as after ten seconds every face in the area turned round and everybody was mouthing the words “*****ing ‘ell – DOG S**T!”. Surely enough the back of his jacket bore a long brown stripy imprint of some German Shepherd’s last meal and a similarly biblical corridor opened up behind him. It took a good half hour before there was enough of a crust on the offending mess below us to take the edge off the appalling stench being emitted from the slope.
Like last week we were just convincing enough to keep people believing that a goal was on the way. Unlike last week the goal never came. There was lots of puffing and panting and offside decisions and strange decisions and fouls blown the wrong way and advantage not played; then I realised I recognised the ref other games I’d seen this season. Suffice it to say – I personally was not in complete agreement with every decision he made, but as he looks like he’s just turned twenty you have to give him a chance. As one of his lines-boys can’t have been older than 15 I suppose we should have given him the benefit of the doubt too. It’s just it’s hard to be fair when the ref seems to be chewing up a game you want to win.
At half time the respect gap to the dog s**t below was maintained and with the sun shining it was hard to keep the conversation on the football, and after having witnessed the first half there was no great justification for limiting conversation to football, either.
Second half. No great improvement. Basically it was all about Hallwang breaking up our rhythm with pushes and fouls and faked injuries, and playing that horrible sneaky counter attack football that we absolutely hate to see because we fall for it like suckers every time. Our real struggle wasn’t against Hallwang. The real task was to try and get the referee to stop blowing up for anything and everything, which of course he didn’t. Every time there was the slightest bodily contact there was a Hallwang body on the ground and the referee had his whistle in his mouth.
None of this was really changed by the introduction of Feldinger, Leitner and Schleindl, although a goal did look a bit more likely. We were trying but it was one of those days on one of those pitches against one of those teams with one of those refs... Even when the ball did cross the line, or so we thought, the whistle came, then he decided it wasn’t a goal and let play go on although half of the players were standing around either arguing or confused. A few minutes later Hallwang’s goalie, Florian Kreuzwirth, threw himself dangerously through the air and we thought we’d got a penalty. No. Our favourite ref decided nobody could fly that dangerously without being fouled, so he gave a foul.
One team wanted to – but couldn’t. The other team could have done it better – but didn’t want to. And that’s how it all ended in a frustrating 1 - 1. Hallwang showed that they were more interested in saving a point than going for the win. We showed you can’t always get what you want, however as the Rolling Stones said: ...but if you try you might just get what you need: Unexpectedly* Eugendorf thrashed our nearest rivals Saalfelden 4-0 – in Saalfelden, thus stretching our lead in the table to 6 points!
Roger Lord
(Last week on Wednesday morning Tom Hofer (Anif) bet me that Eugendorf would beat Saalfelden and I laughed at him. It’s so good to be wrong!)
SV Hallwang - SV Austria Salzburg 1-1 (1-1)
Austria Salzburg played with:
Trappl; Urbanek, Pecaranin, Milic, Hirsch; Rottensteiner, Federer (63. Feldinger), Neubauer, Mayer (74. Schleindl); Winkler, Cavic (63. Leitner)
Goals:
0-1: Winkler (3.) (Assist: Neubauer)
1-1: Kuon (17.)
Shots: Hallwang 5 / Austria 19
Shots on target: Hallwang 2 / Austria 7
Shots blocked: Hallwang 2 / Austria 0
Corners: Hallwang 2 / Austria 12
Fouls: Hallwang 23 / Austria 25
Offsides: Hallwang 7 / Austria 1
Yellow cards:
Hallwang: 6 (Löffelberger, 14./foul; Gimpl, 21./foul; Kirzenberger, 40./foul; Stefan Weber, 46./unsporting behaviour; Scheffenacker, 53./foul; Freundlinger, 68./unsporting behaviour)
Austria: 4 (Hirsch, 29./foul; Feldinger, 79./foul; Rottensteiner, 76./foul; Schleindl, 88./foul)
Hallwang, 1500 spectators
Ref: Sebastian Gishamer; Assistants: Franz Schickbauer, Markus Tiefgraber
