Playing football in the Prater: The Jesuits attacked the ball and opponents – DiePresse.com

The meadow is called Jesuitenwiese because the Jesuits used to play football here. They threw off the burden of the order’s strict rules by attacking the ball and the opponent. Broken bones and concussions were not uncommon when Jesuits played against Jesuits. Their motto “Seek and find God in all things” also applied to football. Godless mockers on the sidelines said that the Jesuits were kicking and abusing God at the football game. Ignatius of Loyola, the order’s founder, is said to have been a gifted striker with a fine blade and an excellent nose for goal. In his diary he wrote on March 27, 1544: “Tears before mass, many during mass, entirely focused on reverence, vision of divine being in spherical form, like the other times so far.” Jesus wasn’t averse to football either – he insisted on twelve apostles in order to have a substitute on his team… Sorry, I went a bit off track.

The path across the Jesuitenwiese begins next to the kiosk, leads across the meadow and then through the forest directly to the Ernst Happel Stadium. In 1992 I was with a friend, who is now long dead, at the funeral of Ernst Happel in Hernals in the cemetery behind the graveyard stands of the Sport Club Stadium… The kiosk at the beginning of the path of course always played a role; after kicking, one’s thirst was quenched there while the game was analyzed. I’m talking about the kiosk when it was still called “Buffet Heinrich”. In the meantime there has been a new takeover, the kiosk has grown a lot, it is now called “Zur Kernigen”. Before that there were just a few simple wooden tables and wooden benches in the front… Mr. and Mrs. Heinrich were moody, which in Mr. Heinrich’s case was also related to the level of his drunkenness, which in turn affected his wife’s mood. While one day we – my wife, our son and I – were dear friends who were greeted happily and addressed on a first-name basis, the next day we were annoying customers who were grumpily dealt with and greeted.

»We didn’t have any substitutes. The opponents entered the field and my heart sank.”

Here on the right, a few steps from the kiosk, I did regular goalkeeper training with Philipp, our son’s name. The two trees there were the goalposts, I shot the ball, Philipp dived for it, I sent it into the corners, the boy was tireless… Behind him was the elementary school where he went for four years. For a while we were here almost every evening for goalkeeper training… Then we had dinner at home, usually watching The Simpsons (one episode satirized European football by showing a deadly boring back and forth with the ball – reminiscent of the disgrace of Gijón). The training bore fruit, Philipp later became the goalkeeper for Celtic Hernals, a club that played in a league with teams like FC Hangover and Krügerl United. Once, when Philipp was in goal at a friendly match for the national authors’ team coached by Willy Kaipel (I was part of that team for years), he saved so well that Kaipel asked me how old Philipp was. When he heard that he was already 15 and didn’t play for a major club, he said: “That’s how talent is wasted in Austria.” – The father was proud and thought about the goalie training on the Jesuitenwiese. As you know, Willy Kaipel is not just anyone, he is the “Mr. Sport Club”, was a goalkeeper at various clubs, in the national team squad, he was a coach, among other things. As an assistant coach for the suspended Otto Barić in the legendary Rapid game against Celtic Glasgow… But who am I telling that to?

The authors always played here on the left side… That was long before the Austrian national authors’ team was founded in 2006, of which Willy Kaipel is still the coach today. I was active from 2006 to 2012, then unfortunately my knee stopped working… On the Jesuitenwiese back then, there were not only authors there, but occasionally female authors as well (in contrast to the Jesuits, we allowed women to play). There were often injuries because the ground wasn’t ideal, and it still isn’t today, so people over-kneeled quite often, with more or less serious consequences…

When I was playing football over there on the first beautiful spring day of the year with little Philipp and his friends, I collapsed, it hurt, I couldn’t continue playing. The foot had swollen badly overnight, so I dragged myself to the trauma hospital. There I saw several men who were limping or could only move forward on one leg. When I registered, I said to the nice hospital employee: “I think I’m not the only one who played football yesterday on the first day of spring.” He rolled his eyes. Yes, many had done that, including old idiots like me, because I was already over 40 – after a long winter without much exercise, let alone training, we had all flocked to the meadows to finally play football again. In my case, the diagnosis was: torn ligaments and splintered bones… Nevertheless, I still struggled violently as I kept announcing: “I had to be 40 years old to finally know what I wanted to be when I grew up: a professional footballer.”

Here on the left I often played with a Vorarlberg game. There are images stored in my head that I will never forget: There was smoking on the pitch, even during the game. One took off his glasses before making the header, then put the glasses back on. One leg was bandaged from the ankle to the thigh, the knee was surrounded by a plastic protector that reminded me of ice hockey – this player also repeatedly stood out during the game because of his loud cries of pain.

The games between CF Chelsea and Bumm Bumm Klub took place here on the right. I was a player at Chelsea FC, where a former professional footballer also played, who ran the Chelsea music venue, where you could and still can watch football well… I was now with a team with a well-known name, to whom I even owed a game abroad in Germany. The opponent there was a team from the environment of a recording studio in Bremen, all well-rested, sober young men who, like Chelsea FC, had not spent the previous evening in the Chelsea bar and from there took a rented bus to Bremen from midnight. The atmosphere on the bus was great, there was plenty of liquid provisions, no one thought about sleeping, it would hardly have been possible given the noise that was going on. Arriving in Bremen early in the morning, we had no choice but to pass the time in various restaurants until the game in the evening. Only a few of the team took a short nap in the waiting room of the main station. The match, which kicked off at 7 p.m., was a disaster. We lost hugely without even having a chance to score. Our goalgetter had to throw up on the sidelines shortly after kick-off. A friend who was traveling with us said during the break that it was pathetic what we were doing and that it wasn’t fun to watch us. After the game, when celebrating, the team was as quiet as I had ever seen it before and would never see it again, completely broken and disgraceful.

The Soccer Sissies, who I got to know because they were often training opponents for the national team on other pitches, preferred to play back here, near the forest. Sometimes so many players came to the meetings that four teams were formed. Two played against each other on one side of the path, the other two on the other side. I remember games in the evening sunlight in which Philipp also played. His mother was lying in a hammock nearby between two trees, reading a book, sleeping or watching us. What beautiful spring and early summer days! After what must have been a two-hour game, we sat at the kiosk again, one of the Soccer Sissies sang along to the guitar, I had a balloon with me and joined in musically. I inflated the balloon, held the opening closed with my fingers, and let the air escape so that a rich palette of strange sounds rang out. It was music that I created with the bright musical instrument balloon… In other words: exuberant joy of life with balloon after exuberant joy of playing football. Calling all parents: Give your children the opportunity to play football, the game is a bringer of luck and brings people together, a magical kingdom, a shout of joy, a fountain of youth… Okay, okay, that was too much, always keep the balls nice and flat! I want to whistle back again, otherwise you’ll run away from me across the meadow. And because of my stupid knee, I wouldn’t be able to run after you.

By the way, my last game with the national authors’ team was at a charity tournament for the Cape Verde Islands. It was under the honorary protection of Didi Constantini, who was present. The author Rosemarie Poiarkov played on our team (it was rare for us to have a woman on, but it did happen occasionally). We were both on the defensive, “Bulwark” is something different. One game was over, I was looking forward to the break. My knee was really hurting, so they said no break, we’ll be right back at it. I groaned because we didn’t have a single substitute, let alone a female substitute. The opponents entered the field and the sight of them literally made my heart sink. Without exception, they were big, muscular, toned African powerhouses. Rosemarie, who is more of a Zniachtl like me, stood by me and said: “I’m scared!”, to which I said: “Me too.” The game was a complete defensive battle, after which I could hardly walk and as a result I had a meniscus operation… But that was in another district, don’t ask me where.

I admit that I sometimes feel melancholy when I walk across the meadow, sentimental and even sentimental, for example when I see the two lonely trees that were once goalposts. But then I think: It’s great that it happened, memories are also present – to put it a little clumsily.