Some 70 kilometres away, club president Jens Gruttke gazes over the training ground of Motor Rochlitz. “We’ve been hit harder than in 2002,“ he says. It is also the second time that the traditional club just south of Grimma has experienced such devastation. The waters had even risen 20 cm higher than the first time around, and because the ground is situated in a basin in the middle of the town, it was a week before they began to subside. “The playing surface was completely destroyed. We had three pitches at the time; we’ll be lucky if we even have one ready to use from next summer. Until then we’re playing and training at a club nearby, paying 75 Euros per game. It all adds up and it’s a heavy financial burden on the club.”
Eleven years ago, when the last of the water had gone, the relief money had been used and a promise had been made to raise the embankments, Frank Müller and Eintracht Sermuth built themselves a wonderful new home. Included in the 2.3 million Euro-development were a bowling alley, a restaurant, a dance hall and a gym. “At that time, nobody thought that we would have floods again so soon,” says Müller. Before 2002, the last time the area had seen floods to the same degree had been way back in 1954. Back then, the locals took safety precautions. Concrete walls, 60 cm high, were built into the ground floors of buildings, intended to provide protection against surges of water at ground level. Up to a height of two metres, supposedly. The water level climbed higher and higher, though, and the walls collapsed. At Eintracht Sermuth, the central heating, toilets and showers, the gym in the basement – everything was destroyed. Hundreds of tonnes of sludge were deposited on the club’s two pitches. “We knew it would be a race against time,“ recalls Müller. On the Saturday, 150 club members arrived. Using snow ploughs, hoses and some even their bare hands, they cleared the mud from the pitches. “People from the area that we’d never seen before came in their cars and started helping us. That was when I said to myself: You can’t give up,“ remembers Müller.
”Grateful for all the help we get”
Eintracht Sermuth and Königsblau Gohlis prospered in the reunified Germany. At BSC Motor Rochlitz, however, it was a different story entirely. Star Radio was a local radio station with a small studio in the town, but when the Berlin Wall came down, listening to Star was the last thing people wanted to do. Companies closed down and Rochlitz lost a third of its inhabitants, its population dropping from 10,000 to 6,500, as people left to go west. And since most of those to leave the town were young, Rochlitz today does not have even a single youth team. “We’re a men’s club, that’s all,” says Gruttke. “We’re grateful for all the help we can get.”
Football is doing its bit to help. Just a few days after the floods, the German Football Federation and the League Association donated over two million Euros to the rebuilding effort. FIFA and UEFA also made contributions, and the final aid count totalled 2.2 million Euros. Every club where damages to facilities amounted to 60,000 Euros or more received a grant of 10,000 Euros. As many as 149 clubs lodged claims to the DFB for financial assistance, with the total damage declared reaching 22.9 million Euros. “The scheme also included the principle of solidarity,” explains DFB vice president Dr. Rainer Koch. “If a club receives private donations, they need not fear that what they have received will be deducted from the grant they can claim. That would be punishing people for charitable work.” Yet even with such generosity, not all the damage can be repaired. Jörg Gernhardt, vice president of the Saxon football association, says “58 clubs in Saxony submitted a claim for financial assistance. Saxony’s proportion of the total damage for the entire country is 53 per cent.”
In Gohlis, it is hoped that the final game of the season can be played on a new pitch, the turf for which is due to be laid even before the region’s first snowfall. Kay Arnold is optimistic it will take place, but that is not all he is hoping for. “After the floods in 2002 we suddenly enjoyed a boom in membership.” In their effort to have a new astro-turf pitch laid, BSC Motor Rochlitz have submitted a claim via a Saxon building society of over 350,000 Euros. Until that money arrives, however, everyone must do his bit. Back in Sermuth, the club is likely to move to a new location with better security from floodwaters. In fact, the ball could be rolling as early as the summer of 2014, thanks to the help of the government, private donors and of course to help from the DFB and DFL. Assuming the average level of compensation from the public relief fund is at 80 per cent, the actual average can be raised to around 90 per cent when one factors in the money donated by the footballing relief fund.
Floods have left their mark
Still, in spite of the rebuilding effort, the floods have left a reminder, in people’s communities but also in their hearts and minds. “I think climate change has something to do with it,” says Arnold. “The summers here are much hotter than they used to be, and there is always more rain. The embankments often need to be made raised.” Arnold’s house in Gohlis was spared the destruction, despite his neighbourhood needing to be evacuated. Nevertheless, the damage done to Königsblau’s football pitches has been immense. Sermuth’s Frank Müller shrugs, a tired look on his face. “Perhaps it [climate change] does have something to do with us being hit with these floods again. But then it’s again perhaps it’s chance, and perhaps nothing else like this happens for the next 200 years.” After the floods in 2013, Müller contracted pneumonia and spent a long period on sick leave recuperating at home. “I won’t be doing this a third time, and my grandchildren shouldn’t have to go through something like this again.”
[bild1]
The floods of June 2013 – the second so-called ‘flood of the century’ after those in 2002 – caused considerable damage to large parts of Germany, with numerous associations and clubs affected. Both the German Football Federation and the League Association immediately donated one million Euros, with FIFA and UEFA also each contributing 200,000 Euros. So how are things looking now, six months after the waters abated? The DFB-Journal visited three clubs in Saxony whose struggles against the flood and its effects epitomise those of so many others. Even now, they are still suffering from the consequences.
Two areas of low pressure developed over Slovenia and Italy, then moved over the Alps, combining to create one threatening weather front. Spring had already seen its normal allowance of rain, while in May, some areas had experienced the heaviest rainfall since weather records began. Then came the floodwaters in June. Meteorologists spoke of an extreme natural event, the kind only seen every 100 years or so. A total of 55 administrative districts issued catastrophe warnings, while 19,000 soldiers and more than 75,000 fire fighters worked round the clock. Every news bulletin centred around people assembling sandbags to prepare the defences. Such was life at the start of June for the people in the threatened areas. For three football clubs in Saxony – Königsblau Gohlis an der Elbe, Eintracht Sermuth and BSC Motor Rochlitz an der Mulde – it was the second ‘flood of the century’ within eleven years, and it meant ruin all over again.
Frank Müller: “This club is my life’s work”
We began by making our way to the flooded area between the river Elbe and the river Mulde. It was an away game and not an easy one at that. Every other place name ended in ‘itz’ and our satellite navigation didn’t help much as we’d had to go via what felt like 20 diversions or more. What we then saw revealed to us just how furious the waters were. The bridge we needed to cross to get to Eintracht Sermuth’s pitch (where we were due to play) is still closed off today – over six months since the flooding. So we park at the side of the road. Frank Müller is already there waiting for us. He’s a small, wiry man in his mid-fifties, a guy you could tell was once a very good footballer.”
”At four in the morning the fire service called at my door. I needed to get up quickly and start helping to put steel flood barriers in place,” says Müller of the night and early morning of 1-2 June.
When he was five years old, his father enrolled him at the sports club Eintracht Sermuth - then still called Traktor Sermuth. At the time, his father Eberhard ran the club, and Frank’s brother is now the president. Frank learned to play football here and went on to coach the first team. He is still coaching, his son has just graduated to the veterans’ team and his grandchildren are now taking their first footballing steps at the club. For 56-year-old Frank, Eintracht Sermuth is not simply a life’s endeavour; it is a legacy from one family generation to the next. So he did not hesitate for a second when he realised he was needed. He got into his car, drove to the ground and together with other members who’d hurried to Sermuth’s aid, began filling the doorways with sheet walls to keep the water out.
Founded in 1897, the club’s ground is situated just outside the Sermuth area of the town of Colditz, right at the point where the Freiberg and Zwickau sections of the Mulde river meet. What is normally a picturesque and idyllic setting was a completely different sight altogether, as wave after wave of floodwater lashed the banks. By 10.00 am that morning, Frank Müller knew all was lost.
To a different club on a different river. Directly beside the pitch of Königsblau Gohlis there is a highway, one that normally brings fast-moving traffic into the city of Riesa on a daily basis. However, in early June, the lines of traffic functioned as an artery through which the mass of water from the Elbe poured over the club’s training ground. Within hours, the entire facility was under water. On 7 June the water level of the Elbe had risen to 1.8 metres, up to the chin of a person of above average height, and the pitch had become a giant swimming pool. “I was elected club president in 2002,” says Kay Arnold, now 40, with a wry smile. “So for me it’s already the second time I’ve witnessed the floods. To be honest I’d wanted to give up my role at the club and spend more time with the family.” Then the waters arrived, and now the current treasurer has to continue. At least he has first-hand experience of what needs to be done.
[picture2]
"Hit harder than in 2002"
Some 70 kilometres away, club president Jens Gruttke gazes over the training ground of Motor Rochlitz. “We’ve been hit harder than in 2002,“ he says. It is also the second time that the traditional club just south of Grimma has experienced such devastation. The waters had even risen 20 cm higher than the first time around, and because the ground is situated in a basin in the middle of the town, it was a week before they began to subside. “The playing surface was completely destroyed. We had three pitches at the time; we’ll be lucky if we even have one ready to use from next summer. Until then we’re playing and training at a club nearby, paying 75 Euros per game. It all adds up and it’s a heavy financial burden on the club.”
Eleven years ago, when the last of the water had gone, the relief money had been used and a promise had been made to raise the embankments, Frank Müller and Eintracht Sermuth built themselves a wonderful new home. Included in the 2.3 million Euro-development were a bowling alley, a restaurant, a dance hall and a gym. “At that time, nobody thought that we would have floods again so soon,” says Müller. Before 2002, the last time the area had seen floods to the same degree had been way back in 1954. Back then, the locals took safety precautions. Concrete walls, 60 cm high, were built into the ground floors of buildings, intended to provide protection against surges of water at ground level. Up to a height of two metres, supposedly. The water level climbed higher and higher, though, and the walls collapsed. At Eintracht Sermuth, the central heating, toilets and showers, the gym in the basement – everything was destroyed. Hundreds of tonnes of sludge were deposited on the club’s two pitches. “We knew it would be a race against time,“ recalls Müller. On the Saturday, 150 club members arrived. Using snow ploughs, hoses and some even their bare hands, they cleared the mud from the pitches. “People from the area that we’d never seen before came in their cars and started helping us. That was when I said to myself: You can’t give up,“ remembers Müller.
”Grateful for all the help we get”
[bild2]
Eintracht Sermuth and Königsblau Gohlis prospered in the reunified Germany. At BSC Motor Rochlitz, however, it was a different story entirely. Star Radio was a local radio station with a small studio in the town, but when the Berlin Wall came down, listening to Star was the last thing people wanted to do. Companies closed down and Rochlitz lost a third of its inhabitants, its population dropping from 10,000 to 6,500, as people left to go west. And since most of those to leave the town were young, Rochlitz today does not have even a single youth team. “We’re a men’s club, that’s all,” says Gruttke. “We’re grateful for all the help we can get.”
Football is doing its bit to help. Just a few days after the floods, the German Football Federation and the League Association donated over two million Euros to the rebuilding effort. FIFA and UEFA also made contributions, and the final aid count totalled 2.2 million Euros. Every club where damages to facilities amounted to 60,000 Euros or more received a grant of 10,000 Euros. As many as 149 clubs lodged claims to the DFB for financial assistance, with the total damage declared reaching 22.9 million Euros. “The scheme also included the principle of solidarity,” explains DFB vice president Dr. Rainer Koch. “If a club receives private donations, they need not fear that what they have received will be deducted from the grant they can claim. That would be punishing people for charitable work.” Yet even with such generosity, not all the damage can be repaired. Jörg Gernhardt, vice president of the Saxon football association, says “58 clubs in Saxony submitted a claim for financial assistance. Saxony’s proportion of the total damage for the entire country is 53 per cent.”
In Gohlis, it is hoped that the final game of the season can be played on a new pitch, the turf for which is due to be laid even before the region’s first snowfall. Kay Arnold is optimistic it will take place, but that is not all he is hoping for. “After the floods in 2002 we suddenly enjoyed a boom in membership.” In their effort to have a new astro-turf pitch laid, BSC Motor Rochlitz have submitted a claim via a Saxon building society of over 350,000 Euros. Until that money arrives, however, everyone must do his bit. Back in Sermuth, the club is likely to move to a new location with better security from floodwaters. In fact, the ball could be rolling as early as the summer of 2014, thanks to the help of the government, private donors and of course to help from the DFB and DFL. Assuming the average level of compensation from the public relief fund is at 80 per cent, the actual average can be raised to around 90 per cent when one factors in the money donated by the footballing relief fund.
Floods have left their mark
Still, in spite of the rebuilding effort, the floods have left a reminder, in people’s communities but also in their hearts and minds. “I think climate change has something to do with it,” says Arnold. “The summers here are much hotter than they used to be, and there is always more rain. The embankments often need to be made raised.” Arnold’s house in Gohlis was spared the destruction, despite his neighbourhood needing to be evacuated. Nevertheless, the damage done to Königsblau’s football pitches has been immense. Sermuth’s Frank Müller shrugs, a tired look on his face. “Perhaps it [climate change] does have something to do with us being hit with these floods again. But then it’s again perhaps it’s chance, and perhaps nothing else like this happens for the next 200 years.” After the floods in 2013, Müller contracted pneumonia and spent a long period on sick leave recuperating at home. “I won’t be doing this a third time, and my grandchildren shouldn’t have to go through something like this again.”
Rochlitz’s Jens Gruttke points to a long corridor on whose walls were hung photographs of the successful relief effort following the floods in 2002. As yet there are no pictures from 2013. “We haven’t got round to it yet,” he says. The replastering of the walls starts at knee-high level, where the water has hung up its own pictures.
