It’s the 14th minute of Wuppertaler SV’s game against Rot-Weiss Oberhausen. The autumn sky shimmers dull, the air is cool and clear, the suspension railway rattles in the distance. A player from the home team is rolling on the grass below. The way he grabs his shin, the pain seems awful, a fact that makes Hanns-Josef Ortheil, in a forester’s green jacket and a fan scarf around his neck, somewhat outraged: “There’s the first one already!”
The writer, author of books such as “Fermer”, “The Invention of Life” or “Der von den Löwen traumte” has been a fan of the WSV for more than 50 years. As a teenager he played as a defender in the team. “I was a stopper. The guy who was always at the back of the defensive line and thumped the balls away.” From his point of view, today’s game is about everything.
Wuppertal have lost the last few games, changed their coach and are approaching the relegation zone in the fourth division. And then they also play against Oberhausen! Ortheil glances to the right at the club’s fans, who are holding up a banner with a shamrock, the club’s symbol, and sighs: “Local rivals. It’s going to be a derby.” So probably a pretty rough match. Half-optimistically, he bets on a 2:2.
He follows almost every game, at least virtually. He also looks at the live ticker abroad, he knows all about past transfers and current quarrels. This in turn makes him a very entertaining stadium companion. He is not someone who scolds, bullies, rages. He prefers to classify. Once the number 20 limps a ball, Ortheil already provides the additional information: “It was really expensive, it only came last season.” As for the goalkeeper, he says that he was selected by the new coach, a move he doesn’t entirely agree with: “A very youngster, I think it’s risky.” It is striking how happy he is when players are lightning fast and move their opponents. “Wonderful” or “He’s just incredibly fast!” he then calls. To do this, he makes a camel-driver-like cranking motion with his right hand. In the 29th minute he jumped up and raised his arms: 1-0 for Wuppertal.
Wuppertaler SV game in the stadium at the zoo – the zoo is right next door.
(Photo: Mareen Linnartz)
Hanns-Josef Ortheil, maybe it’s worth mentioning at this point, doesn’t love football in general. As a sport, he finds it boring, unlike tennis, which he can watch for hours on TV. If it was up to him, the offside rule would have to be abolished immediately, he expects more excitement and “handball results” from it. He won’t be watching the national team’s game at the World Cup, he hasn’t before and certainly won’t now in Qatar. What Hanns-Josef Ortheil loves is Wuppertaler SV itself. The Union. It is an unconditional love and one that still warms him to this day.
Ortheil was in elementary school when he moved with his parents from Cologne to Wuppertal, his father had been posted there as a railway engineer. He played football with the other children at the “Freudenberg”, the WSV’s training ground, and later with the youth team in the stadium. On the weekends he cheered on the first team and waited at the gate for the players’ autographs. And maybe that’s the magic that football still has to offer, despite all the commercialization and corruption: it’s a game that everyone can play right away. A ball, a few people, let’s go. Ortheil benefited particularly from this. Here in Wuppertal, he was just the new guy, someone you didn’t know what he had left behind. For the first time in his life, he says, he was able to play “with other children without any problems” here in the Bergisches Land.
Ortheil is the fifth son of his parents. And the first to survive. Two of his older brothers died as infants during World War II, and two more were born dead. His mother flooded him with love, hardly left his side, but she didn’t speak, her experiences had silenced her. In an earlier encounter, Ortheil had told one how his mother silently handed the salesperson her shopping list in shops and he stood by, the child who was just as taciturn. He became a loner, school gave him trouble, he immersed himself in his piano music. The writer, who has written more than 70 books and received numerous awards, almost became a pianist. Because of a tendonitis he had to break off his education.
Today, when he takes the suspension railway to the stadium at the zoo, his heart beats faster, the memories set in, it was so long ago and then not again. It then feels as if he is traveling “to another, earlier world”. This afternoon, the 71-year-old is sitting in the main grandstand, block O, row 29, 17th place. Half-time break. The turf is loosened up a bit by an employee with a kind of giant fork, the stadium announcer gives birthday greetings to some Patrick, and at the break stand there are meatballs, grilled sausages and Krakauer for three to four euros. In “The White Islands of Time”, the writer recalls his first visit to the stadium, “the steep standing room, the sunlight falling from the side, the faint smell of bratwurst, cigarettes and beer, the waving flags, the WSV players, its Auf and Ab I hung as if they were “psychic fluctuations of a loved one”.
As a child he heard elephants trumpeting from the nearby zoo
Ortheil narrows his eyes and looks into the distance at trees glowing golden red. The big zoo is over there. There they are again, the memories: “When I was a child, I sometimes heard the elephants trumpeting from there.” A sound that didn’t calm him down at all, because the animals sounded as if “they were in a panic”. The booming chants, the cheers, it was incredibly loud back then, in the 1960s in the stands. “Hmm, run!” “Referee! Whistle!” “Hey, offside!” Wuppertaler SV played at a high level, had rustic stars like Horst “Schimmi” Szymaniak, who had worked in a colliery for eight years. Before the World Cup semifinals in 1958, he saw King Gustav VI. Adolf shook his hand in the eye and refused the usual servants, which he justified with a miner’s saying: “No kneeling, not even in front of crowned heads.”
It was the era of the proud district clubs, Schalke 04, Westfalia Herne, Borussia Dortmund and, yes, also: Wuppertaler SV. The world in the pot may have seemed gloomy and dark on weekdays – the smoking chimneys, the hard work underground, the corrosive air – on the weekends it seemed a little brighter. It was the time of a now long-gone FRG, with its longings and the penchant for self-deception, which included looking ahead and not looking back. At least since Germany became soccer world champion in 1954 and you were someone again. The stadiums were full, including the one in Wuppertal am Zoo, which can hold around 25,000 spectators.
Today, the stadium announcer announces sometime in the second half, just 2150 have come. The game is so slow that the older fan in the grandstand doesn’t like it at all. It’s still 1-0, Ortheil finds it increasingly “uncomfortable” here. He shifts back and forth in his chair, seems nervous and only lets himself fall back in relief when the final whistle is blown. Today he will go to his parents’ house in the Westerwald. Wuppertal has not been his home for a long time. The suspension railway sways on the way home over the Wupper, fans sing about the victory, passing Bayer’s chemical plants. In the past, says Ortheil, while looking down at the Wupper, you could “smell” the river, so many stinking drains were fed into it. “I saw the Wupper in color.” He walks to the train station, past the building of the Federal Railways Headquarters where his father worked, behind it the humanistic high school where he was a student many years ago. He walks past a past that has never quite passed for him.
No passion without accessories. Hanns-Josef Ortheil always has these items with him when he visits the football stadium:
The fanzine
With the stadium magazine, Ortheil is well informed about what is happening at Wuppertaler SV.
(Photo: Mareen Linnartz)
“The stadium magazine of the WSV is a must for the fans – the program booklet for the game! The title ‘nineteen54’ refers to the founding year of the club: SSV 04 Wuppertal and TSG Vohwinkel 80 merged back then. 1954 is of course an important year: Germany won the World Cup. I was very young, but I remember well that every boy wanted to play football back then.”
The scarf
Wuppertaler SV, a merger of two smaller clubs, has existed since 1954. A few years later, Ortheil became a member.
(Photo: Mareen Linnartz)
“I don’t even know how long I’ve had the scarf. A very long time. I wear it to every game. For me, being a fan is a form of discreet love. I found Wuppertal itself to be strict, Protestant and not very joyful “Strangely pastoral, the city of Johannes Rau. It was all about achievement, achievement, achievement, and everyone was very serious. At the humanistic high school I learned Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew. But at the weekend, in the stadium, I felt liberated. I sang with my friends and was happy when our team won.”
The gummy bears
If you’re nervous, you need something to snack on. Of course, “Wuppertaler Schwebis” fit best.
(Photo: Mareen Linnartz)
“The small Wuppertaler Schwebis made of wine gum are available exclusively in the tourist office right in front of the main train station. I always take a bag with me on the suspension train ride and every time I think about when I should open it. As consolation after a lost game – or already before a game to rule out defeat in your mind from the outset? Those are typical questions of conscience for a slightly insane fan.”
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