26th Match Day of Regional League Southwest TSV Steinbach - SV Elversberg Haiger-Sportpark Result: 2:0 (0:0) Attendance: 1,794 (100 Guests)
This weekend we travelled to Steinbach in Haiger with Elversberg amid the carnival week! It was an almost four-hour-bus-ride that would take us to a village located somewhere between Gießen and Siegen.
The double-deck bus was scheduled to leave at nine o’clock in the morning; The Elversberg fans started showing up at the bus stop at 8ish and most of them dressed up with different colourful costumes and some drinks in their hands. And we? We dressed up as football fans. Boring, we know, but we are sadly not fun people.
A police car welcomed us as the exit of the Autobahn to Steinbach and led our way to the Haiger Sportpark. After paying 8€ for a student ticket, we entered the stadium and found ourselves in the away block, which was basically just four rows of staircase. The “stand” was only built last season after they promoted to the 4th-tier Regional League for the first time.
TSV Steinbach were founded as a non-league club in 1921 and played in lower leagues for a very long time. In 2000s, they secured a sponsorship from a brakes manufacturer and have since then been a big spender in order to build a better team. They managed to promote six times in eight years.
After they promoted to the fifth league Hessenliga (or Oberliga) for the first time in the season of 2014/15, they became the champions of the league in the same season and promoted to the Regional League in season 2015/16. Before the game against Elversberg on Saturday, they were on the 4th place of the league with eight points behind Elversberg.
Steinbach’s fan group Supporters Steinbach gathered themselves on the opposite of the away block before the game and started a few small chantings with about 5 people.
Meanwhile, Elversberg arrived with about 100 colourful fans yelling the carnival chant “Alleh Hopp!” The away fans were in a nice carnival celebration mood and some of them were already drunk by the time when the match was kicked off.
One drunk man lost his balance and fell on the stand. He broke his nose and was advised to go to hospital, but he insisted that he wanted to stay and watch football. So, he just stayed and kept on drinking until the end! Dedication.
This little incident distracted us a little bit in the first half, but nothing much happened anyway. As the second half started, Elversberg still could not find a way to adapt to the pressure from Steinbach. After 50 minutes into game, the hosts finally found a way to score, not once, but twice.
Steinbach’s goallkeeper probably played one of his best games of the season on that day as he blocked all Elversberg’s attempts. But the away team could only blame themselves for not being able to create chances.
The game ended two goals down for the Saarlanders and it was frustrating for the fans. The league leader Waldhof Mannheim lost three points a day before and FC Saarbrücken also couldn’t get any points on the same week. Only Steinbach managed to take the advantage from the situation and took Saarbrücken’s third place. Currently, Steinbach are only 5 points behind Elversberg.
But there was nothing we could do, we could only look forward to next game and hope that Elversberg could quickly find their consistency before the winter break again.