East German glory game hits the Wall

WHEN the city of Leipzig came alive with a burst of colour for its final World Cup match last night - the visit of Argentina and Mexico - you could have been forgiven for thinking you were witnessing the latest outpouring of passion in one of Germany's footballing hotbeds.

How wrong you would be. Football is supposed to reflect society and once the World Cup is over and this country reverts to some kind of normality, Leipzig and the rest of eastern Germany will take on the same footballing profile it has had since unification - a virtual non-entity. When the new league season starts in August, Leipzig's state-of-the-art Zentral stadium, first built in 1956 but heavily modernised for the World Cup at a cost of £60m with a spectacular new roof and integrated floodlighting, will play host not to some high-profile Bundesliga club but to Sachsen Leipzig, a fourth division outfit playing to average crowds of 1,500.

Time was of course, when things were very different. Almost perennially, the likes of Lokomotiv Leipzig and Dynamo Dresden were established forces in European club competitions during the 1970s and early part of the 1980s, Lokomotiv actually reaching the 1987 Cup Winners Cup final when they lost to 1-0 to Ajax. The club still exist, albeit under a different name, but these days are buried in obscurity in the German sixth division playing at a run-down stadium on the southern edge of the city.

It's the same throughout the eastern part of Germany where clubs that were once state-owned and flourishing have been left to survive on past glories, their collapse mirrored by the region's economic problems while the cash-rich western Bundesliga continues to thrive. FC Magdeburg, who famously beat AC Milan to lift the Cup Winners Cup in 1974, now play in the fourth division. Next season, Germany's highest league will include only one club from the east, Energie Cottbus, situated close to the Polish border and just promoted back into the top flight.

"East German clubs were heavily supported by the state and by the trade unions. Dynamo was a police club and Lokomotiv was funded by the railway unions," said Margot Dunne, a BBC journalist who specialises in eastern European football. "But they suddenly found themselves thrust into the dog-eat-dog world of football in a market economy. The people who ran them had no experience of making business decisions. It was pretty grim, a world they were simply not equipped to cope with."

Yet old allegiances die hard and many among the older generation of former East German fans who followed football before the Wall came down still worship Jurgen Sparwasser. His goal against West Germany 13 minutes from time in a politically-charged 1974 World Cup group game in Hamburg - the only time East Germany ever beat its then hated capitalist rivals in a full international - was hailed as a major coup by the communist state and remains an iconic footballing moment.

"West Germany went on to win the 1974 tournament but for the east, that one game was the zenith, their crowning moment," says Dunne. "Ironically it meant Germany didn't have to meet Brazil on their way to the final. Who knows what might have happened had the result been different."

It is no coincidence that Leipzig is the only stadium in eastern Germany being used for the World Cup unless you include Berlin's uniquely atmospheric 75,000-capacity Olympic stadium which, though renovated at a cost of £165m, still retains much of the original architecture evoking memories of Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games. Equally notable is the fact that of the 32 countries taking part in the World Cup, only one, Ukraine, was happy to have its headquarters in the east, at Potsdam just outside Berlin.

With unemployment in east Germany standing at over 20% in the most impoverished areas, it is no surprise that forking out for season tickets is not at the top of the priority list. Dynamo Dresden still retain crowds of around 25,000 even though they have just been relegated to the third division but they are the exception rather the rule. Lokomotiv Leipzig, who these days go under the name Vfb, are gradually moving back through the divisions but it's a long climb.

The general consensus is that it will take large amounts of money, patience and luck for any club in eastern Germany to create a sustainable infrastructure.

Not surprisingly, when Hansa Rostock, a proud flagship for east German fans, were relegated from the Bundesliga a couple of seasons ago, it was a desperately black day.

"Last season there was not a single east German team in the top division," recalls Dunne, "Will football in that part of the country stage a revival? I doubt it. A flourishing team depends on a vibrant economy."

Taken from the Scotsman