Apparently 1500 people came from far and wide to see this sunny autumn kick-about against a team promoted to this division a year before. On a small and bumpy practice pitch Austria Salzburg needed a full 90 minutes to see off the home side Anthering with another shaky looking 3-1 away win.How far do you travel before you consider it a real away game? 15 minutes from Seekirchen. What constitutes a big crowd? How much parking do you need for a crowd of 1500 people? What is a fair price for a fourth division game? What do you do to ensure every spectator has a good view of the action? These are the questions that every self-respecting organiser needs to be asking him/herself.
Judging by the sumptuous parking arrangements Anthering was obviously expecting around 15,000 supporters and the club had slightly overestimated demand for space, by declaring a state of emergency and ordering all the local farmers to open their fields for away parking. This made parking a very pleasant affair and the 37-second walk to the ticket desk was also a blessing seeing as I still can’t walk properly after knackering my achilles playing indoor soccer a week ago.
Somehow I only got 4 Euros change for the tenner I handed over, whereas others only paid 4 Euros, or 5, but I guess this had more to do with the stress situation of having to deal with more than 150 fans at a single game, or simple inexperience. On the left clearly marked bogs and a bar meant that all the fundamental human rights had already been catered for, so that was another plus for the organisers. An opportunistic approach to the mobile beer sales involving several teams of one bloke carrying the beer and a fine looking lady taking the orders was politely received as such. We’re not stupid you know!
Our side of the pitch was around seven metres back-to-front and the locals had made an effort to set up terraces with their best Euro-standard wooden pallets, which was nice, but after climbing to the dizzy heights of 3 pallets I was just about able to see the heads of the players warming up the other side of the 2 metre high tennis court style mesh fencing. Metal of course, not green plastic coated, so your eyes constantly focused on the fence, not on the field.
So basically we were in a cattle pen again and even though it was nice of Anthering to set up a bar and toilets, a ‘spectator’ is someone who watches something occur. All but the largest of the Austria fans were restricted to a perfect view of a fence. A fence is not an event, it’s a thing. An old fence is not something I would normally consider paying 6, 5 or even 4 Euros to look at, but I did yesterday. The Great Wall of Anthering is situated within the magnificent old Roman coliseum known as the ‘Haunsbergarena’. Haunsbergarena’ I find is a bit rich for a shrine to bargain basement fencing with holes in it and pallets robbed or borrowed from a local warehouse!
Of course, on the one hand when you consider our reputation you can understand why most clubs don’t want us to use their facilities, but if they don’t intend to let us see the game it’s not exactly fair to ask for an admission fee. Or did I pay €6 for the parking? The cute and, for a village of 80 people, slightly megalomanic 150-bed, sauna centre and two restaurant cricket pavilion clubhouse was cordoned off behind the Anthering goal and I’m sure the locals were looking forward to hot pizzas and a perfect view of their next home defeat.
Anyway, apparently the game kicked off so we all strained to see what was going on and all I could really ascertain was that we were spending more time in front of the Anthering goal than in front of our own. After 8 minutes there was a whistle for something – apparently a foul on Cavic – which was apparently in the box. So penalty it was, apparently. I actually saw Bernd Winkler move to take it and because all the Austria fans and players put their hands in the air and cheered, and the Anthering players looked like dogs that had been beaten with sticks, I assumed it was 1-0 to the Austria – which it was.
As the pitch looked small anyway and the view was ballsed up by the daft fencing it was hard to gain a sense of perspective and passes across the field from one side to the other looked like passes to players standing next to each other. What with the emotional hangover from Saalfelden still subduing the Ultras and the general inability to get a clear view of the action, the first half hour was a fairly quiet affair. Not unpleasant, as I was able to drink my one and only beer and hold a pleasant conversation with a young lady, while occasionally glancing up when somebody shouted something rude to the Anthering players.
Austria Salzburg had the better of the first half, but as usual we looked dodgy when the opponent got behind us and on another day we could have gone in behind at the break. Ivan Pecaranin got jealous when Anthering’s Bernd Pichler was yellow carded on 31 minutes, so Ivan was shown a yellow card on 33 minutes to stop him from whingeing. The game continued to be a sub-average game on a small, sub-average pitch until Bernd Winkler apparently scored his second to put Austria two up after being set up well, apparently, by a Cavic cross. We sort of saw the goal, but it was a bit like when one of the shelf stackers in a supermarket sends a whole row of whiskey bottles crashing down two aisles away.
So half time, and without having seen much of the game, we could see Anthering had obviously invested more heavily in the mother of all dandy brand spanking digital scoreboards than in playing staff, so at least we could read the score. Basically, Anthering is a perfect example of a club playing one division too high for its resources with normal average home crowds of 175 its hard to see where the money for the Rooneys and Ronaldos is going to come from. Not from pizza sales to away fans.
Second half. Nice to see a few of the players from the resurrection years; Olli Trappl, Peter Weiss. Maybe others were there too, but I didn’t want to lose my perfect view of the fence by chasing the autographs of the rich and famous. The present bunch were making hard work of a must-win and although there was plenty of action in and around the Anthering box it was the usual list of wasted opportunities that had Did Emich jumping about like a rabbit on whizz.
His mood can’t have been helped by a Nico Mayer attempt to outcool himself by wasting a great shooting opportunity with some silly showboating. On 62 minutes Robert Oberhauser came on for Heli Rottensteiner and a few second later Anthering caught Austria napping. At least the rest of the game would be a bit more exciting, but when Stefan Federer made it 3-1 just five minutes later the game seemed to go from hard to see to hard to watch.
The most exciting feature of the second half was an intellectual one, with me and Raph pitting our wits and knowledge of the offside rule against the linesman on the far side. As we are not allowed to criticise the officials directly, as this would be tantamount to free speech, I would simply like to say that we really enjoyed Mr Weiss’ performance. On a day like yesterday we would have probably missed the target anyway, but on another day it could have been 6-1.
Anthering still made us look daft at the back a couple of times but on balance Austria Salzburg had the lion’s share of the game and Anthering were only going to get a consolation goal – if that. Something Anthering’s Mario Ausweger felt would be best resolved by ‘apparently’ slamming Toni Feldinger on the way past, unfortunately directly in the line of sight of the ref, who gave Ausweger a big bright red card and made Ivan all jealous again but the referee didn’t see why Ivan should have one. The game ended four minutes later at 3-1.
37 seconds later I was in the car and thinking how privileged I had been to have seen the Great Wall of Anthering for the paltry sum of €6. You may laugh, but today’s shitty wire fence may be part of tomorrow’s world cultural heritage site…….Maybe!
See you in Maxglan at the SAK game!
SV Anthering – SV Austria Salzburg 1-3 (0-2)
Austria Salzburg played width:
Trappl; Urbanek, Schmidt, Pecaranin, Milic; Rottensteiner (62. Oberhauser), Federer, Mayer, Feldinger; Cavic (73. Schleindl), Winkler (78. Kopleder)
Goals:
0-1: Winkler (8., Elfmeter) (Assist: Cavic)
0-2: Winkler (42.) (Assist: Cavic)
1-2: Niedermüller (59.)
1-3: Federer (67.) (Assist: Mayer)
Shots total: Anthering 6 / Austria 18
Shots on target: Anthering 3 / Austria 8
Shots blocked: Anthering 0 / Austria 0
Corners: Anthering 2 / Austria 8
Fouls: Anthering 25 / Austria 25
Offsides: Anthering 8 / Austria 17
Yellow cards:
Anthering: 2 (Pichler, 31./Foul; Hamzic, 57./Foul)
Austria: 2 (Pecaranin, 33./Foul; Federer, 81./Foul)
Red cards:
Anthering: 1 (Ausweger, 87./Tätlichkeit)
Austria: 0
Anthering, Haunsbergarena, 1500 Zuschauer
SR: Louis Hofmann; Assistenten: Roland Ganglmaier, Reinhard Weiß
