Heidenheim - a small town where football has long played a major role: The local FCB fan club there, Red Stars 78 is older than the local Bundesliga team. In April, FC Bayern will play at 1. FC Heidenheim for the first time. FC Bayern members' magazine "51" travelled ahead to Baden-Württemberg and discovered that life in this football community has changed since the club gained promotion.
Famous customer always comes in on Thursdays
Every Thursday, says Eberhard Bosch, he pulls on one of his Bayern jerseys. This is how the man who founded the Heidenheim Bayern fan club Red Stars 78 Heidenheim e. V. with a few friends over 40 years ago awaits his customers in his small supermarket in the small Swabian town. Most people are familiar with his red and white Thursday outfit. But does everyone know why he does it?
There is one of Eberhard's customers who probably does have an idea. He drives past the mini market at 134 Giengener Strasse several times a day on his way to his workplace, a football pitch. Every Thursday he stops in front of the shop to buy the new "kicker" magazine. The name of the Thursday customer: Frank Schmidt, coach of 1. FC Heidenheim since 2007 and whose team are enjoying a surprisingly impressive debut season in the Bundesliga.
FC Bayern the visitors to the smallest Bundesliga stadium
Eberhard and Frank Schmidt have known each other well for years. They joke with, tease, understand and respect each other. Eberhard Bosch says: "Frank is already dreaming of picking up a minimum of one point." At the beginning of April, FC Bayern will pay their first vist to the smallest of all Bundesliga stadiums, which many still refer to it by its old name, Albstadion, because everyone used to take the Bundesjugendspiel (national sports) exam here.
„We've been around longer than FCH.”
Eberhard Bosch, Red Stars founder
A Saturday in March. The sun is shining. In front of Heidenheim Castle, which towers over the city, around a dozen members of Red Stars 78 meet up with the "51" editorial team for a short tour of Heidenheim ahead of the 3:30 pm games. They want to show us around the city and tell us how their lives as FCB fans have changed since the start of the Heidenheim boom.
Fan club is older than 1. FC Heidenheim
The Bayern fans are approached by passers-by in the castle car park. "Who are we playing today?" they ask. Or: "Good luck against Augsburg." Then the fan club members have to explain: yes, they're also wearing red jerseys, but they're not Heidenheim fans - and they're not travelling to Augsburg, where Heidenheim are playing this Saturday.
"So what are you doing here?" they're asked again. "We're Heidenheimers," they answer proudly. And Eberhard says: "We've been here much longer than FCH." Only very few people realise that 1. FC Heidenheim have only been competing under this name since 2007.
Tour of Heidenheim with the Red Stars
While the Red Stars look out over Heidenheim's old town from the main landmark, the castle, the tranquil weekly market is being held there. The region is characterised by both Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Here, children and young people discover VfB Stuttgart or FC Bayern at an early age. The jokes here are often just as robust as the food: Linsen mit Spätzle (lentils with pasta), or Zwiebelrostbraten (fried beef with onions in gravy). Everyone knows everyone here, especially in the small community of football obsessives.
Heidenheim players come and go at Café Melange, the local fan pub, with a metre-high red and blue FCH flag hanging from the façade. The landlord is also friends with the Red Stars and has an FCB season ticket. If he has to choose, he keeps his fingers crossed for 1. FC Heidenheim, he says. Ten years ago, things were different, say the Red Stars. They're familiar with biographies like this.
Couple met in the Südkurve
In the 1970s, 1. FC Heidenheim was still called HSB. Eberhard, the founder of Red Stars, recounts how he used to go to the stadium with his friends to watch association or Oberliga matches. At some point, that wasn't enough for them, and the Olympiastadion in Munich and men like Hoeneß, Rummenigge, Beckenbauer and Müller lured them away. In December 1978, eight friends from Heidenheim founded the Red Stars to meet like-minded people.
Around ten years later, Eberhard met his future wife, Brigitte, in the Südkurve - where else? In 1988, she moved from Milbertshof to Heidenheim. In the 1990s, Brigitte and Eberhard had a daughter, Daniela, who naturally also became a Bayern fan and took over as chair of the club from her father in 2018. Her mother Brigitte, as ever, remained treasurer of the club.
Red Stars 78: The fan club as a family business
Like many other FCB fan clubs, the Red Stars are a family business - and then again, they're not: they now have around 200 members. Brigitte says: "We don't accept just anyone." And she tells how in the early 2000s, after the TV channel DSF reported on a fan club visit by Alexander Zickler, the Red Stars even had to stop accepting new members. The Red Stars were looking for people who had an idea for a joint venture, who would get stuck in and not just be consumers.
In addition to the Bosch family, Flo, Maddin, Caro, Blacky, Jürgen, Klaus and the second board member, Dennis, are also taking part in the guided tour of the town. Whenever FC Bayern play at the Allianz Arena, the Red Stars meet in front of the Heidenheim stadium, the meeting point before the bus journey to Munich via the A7 Autobahn. On this matchday against Mainz, however, they've donated their tickets to their friends from the Red Froggers fan club in Eppisburg - and are watching the football in their clubhouse.
On the way there, Jürgen and Caro tell us that after Heidenheim were promoted, there were discussions among the Red Stars as to whether they should also show FCH matches. They personally no longer like the red and blue team since their son was forced to leave a youth team. "There were definitely two camps." But after all, they are an FCB fan club, so of course only FCB are shown.
3.30 pm: Kick-off, around 30 people have gathered in the "Bunker" at Ziegelstraße 13, which is located deep underground, where ice used to be stored to cool beer in the summer, hence the name. Bayern deliver a perfect afternoon against Mainz, the Red Stars can't stop cheering and the bunker is transformed into a party cellar. "Harry Kane, Harry Kane, Harry Kane ...", they chant again and again.
FCB is their passion
Among them is Martin, 35, who suddenly introduced himself here in the bunker five years ago with the words "moin, I'm Maddin" because he had to flee Lübeck, in the far north, after the end of a long-term love affair. "That's the best thing that ever happened to me, because it meant I made friends here," he says.
Or Blacky, 38, standing at the bar and who says with conviction: "FCB and the Red Stars aren't a passion, they're my life." His joy when Harry Kane made it 7-1 and Leon Goretzka scored to make the final score 8-1 prove that he's deadly serious.
Football brings people together. Beyond the borders of the town, but of course also in Heidenheim itself - about which almost all Red Stars say it's a village. This is where people meet: in the pedestrian zone, in the old town, at big-screen events in Café Melange. That's why the small, young FCH and the big, venerable FCB are closer than they first appear.
Heidenheim coach's congratulations after FCB win
FCH chairman Holger Sanwald is also a member of FC Bayern. According to all the rumours in Heidenheim, coach Frank Schmidt has had an affinity with FC Bayern since his youth, as have other members of the coaching staff and one or two players in the current Heidenheim squad. In the case of Marc Schnatterer, long-serving FCH captain and now coach and club ambassador, it's even been documented. And it's no wonder: Heidenheim is located in the immediate catchment area of FC Bayern - and is in the process of writing its own history in German football. That's something worthy of great respect.
Heidenheim had already faced FC Bayern once on their journey to the top flight. Only a Lewandowski penalty to make it 5-4 for FCB in the dying seconds knocked Heidenheim out of the 2019 DFB Cup quarter-finals at the Allianz Arena. Naturally, the Red Stars were also there with two buses to celebrate the late FCB victory. After returning from Munich late at night and stacking the empty drinks crates from the journey in front of Eberhard Bosch's supermarket, a car suddenly pulled up with a famous Allianz Arena visitor inside: Frank Schmidt. He'd actually turned round, says Eberhard Bosch, to congratulate him and his Red Stars on their win. Stories like this only happen in a village.
© Photos: Sebastian Lock
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