This is my first article for @pete's „moan day contest“. Thank you for holding this competition and cheers to this week's judge @writingamigo. If somebody wants to join our creative writing battle please check out pete's post, where he explains all about it.
I was looking for some photos of my moaner of the week, but I couldn't find any which is not copyright protected. Therefor some other images will need to do the trick today.
And here comes the story...
Last Monday only a very few of the fans of the honourable Hamburger Sport Verein (HSV) would have thought they would see a new face taking the seat on the coach's bench this weekend.
And despite the first relegation to the 2nd Bundesliga, nobody really expected that Christian Titz, who is still very much respected in Hamburg, would have found his place on the long (and maybe never-ending) list of coaches hired and fired by the HSV. At least he is not alone on this list, in the last 10 years another 15 ( !! ) coaches have signed up there, Bruno Labbadia and Rodolfo Cardoso even twice.
Yes, the coaching position at HSV is like a hot seat, but it was rather surprising that Christian Titz would be kicked out right now. Titz took over the job from Bernd Hollerbach (who only managed to stay there for 3 months) at the end of March when Hamburg was fighting to avoid the first time being passed down from the German Bundesliga. But even Titz could not prevent the very first relegation in the history of HSV, which is one of the founding members of the German "Fußball Bundesliga" and the only team that had been a member of the top German league without any interruption. Even though his team suddenly began to win in the last games of the past season and surprisingly and unexpectedly there was something life life and passion seen again in the club, it had not been enough in the end and HSV had to tackle the difficult course into Bundesliga 2.
In spite of everything, the fruit of Christian Titz's work could already be felt, he created an atmosphere of awakening and not of destruction, and he managed to keep some of his team's top performers. He and the players were already aware that the 2nd Bundesliga would not be a piece of cake, whereas the officials wanted to check off the unexpected interlude in League 2 quickly. Their belief was, that such a thing must just not happen to the big and glorious HSV, but nobody in the mighty Hanseatic city wanted to hear the fact that mostly the club leadership was to blame for this mess.
In the season preparations Hamburg practised against the German champion from Munich, as if they wanted to demonstrate that they don't belong in this league at all and that they are still destined for greater things. They still dream about the good old times when HSV was the king of Europe. Well, that was back in 1983, some writers here on Scorum weren't even born at that time.
However, this kind of behavior took revenge very quickly, the first matchday showed clearly where Hamburg would have to go.
A 0:3 in their own stadium against Holstein Kiel brought the team and the whole club very quickly back on the ground of the facts, and even when they could cheer some wins in the following games there was already something gloomy and disturbing in the air. On the 6th matchday at the 0:5 against Jahn Regensburg Hamburg again hit rock bottom, an embarrassing debacle on their own ground.
In the 3 following games, they could collect some points again and were still in 5th place in the table with only 2 points behind the leader from Köln. Still in a decent situation, so as not to lose sight of the big goal "Wiederaufstieg".
But that wasn't enough for the bosses of HSV any more, and a week ago coach Christian Titz and also the fans and supporters of the club where woken up by some very cold shower. Titz was immediately suspended and the club already presented and introduced his successor Hannes Wolf.
On the weekend Wolf took already place on the coach bank and could cheer a 1:0 victory against Magdeburg. The HSV is now on the second place and equal on points with the table leader from Köln, and next weekend there will be the great showdown of the two teams who were just relegated down from the Bundesliga.
The next game will be the first big test for the new coach, a game Christian Titz was looking forward to as well. His steady hand finally led to the fact that the HSV has not totally collapsed and could keep itself in the top section of the 2nd Bundesliga. But 2 points behind the leader of the league were not enough for the arrogant bosses of the club, they already have big goals for "their" HSV, and Christian Titz had to serve as a fall guy in the end.
We can only hope for the team and the fans that this decision will not take revenge. And I really want to thank Christian Titz for the ungrateful job he took on and the good work he left behind.
And don't forget that nobody can ever take you of this glorious list of HSV-coaches anymore. It's for eternity!
Good luck for the future mate!
頑張ってください Ganbatte kudasai!
(Japanese cheering, which can be translated like, „Hold on“ or „Do your best“)
Thank you for stopping by today. Good luck to all other contributions to pete's contest. Hopefully it motivates more people to write and post some good quality articles, especially when English isn't our first language.
Cheers to everybody, from a German stranded in alien lands!
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