FOOTY FAIR

Throwback Thursdays: The FC Schalke 04 Scandal

2016-08-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

FC Schalke 04, one of the more famous names in German football, were involved in a scandal nearly ninety years ago that for a brief moment looked to have put the club's existence in jeopardy.

Prior to the start of the Bundesliga in 1963-1964, German football was comprised of a collection of sub-regional and part-time leagues.

In the late 1920's the regional Western German league saw the emergence of a powerful side from Gelsenkirchen who at that stage called themselves FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04.

The club won the title in 1929 and 1930, but on 25 August 1930, the league banned fourteen players of their players for receiving illegal payments.

After an investigation by German football authorities, it turned out that the club had paid the players ten Reichsmarks instead of the maximum five for away matches.

In an era of strict amateurism in German sport, along with economic hardship in the country, this was considered an outrage and the league had no choice but to come down heavy on Schalke.

The players, including star striker Ernst Kuzorra, were banned for the entire 1930-31 season. In addition to this, eight members of the Schalke board were suspended and sadly club treasurer Willie Nier committed suicide by drowning himself in the midst of the scandal.

It was a dark period for the club, but they would return with a vengeance by winning the 1932 and 1933 titles after the ban had run it's course.

Although Schalke have had their ups and downs in the decades since, in terms of membership they are still the second largest club in Germany behind Bayern Munich.

Time Lapse in Schalke - From Sunrise to Sunset (Video)

2015-09-14T16:00:00.000-04:00

German Bundesliga's Youtube channel has released another amazing match day time lapse video. After featuring Borussia Dortmund's game day experience previously, the league has done the same for Schalke. If you ever wondered what match day looks like in Gelsenkirchen, this is your chance.

Stoke City Over Schalke? Come on!

2015-08-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

The question "Can he do it on a wet, windy Tuesday night in Stoke?" was posed by former Sky Sports analyst Andy Gray after watching a rampant Lionel Messi destroy someone in the Champions League a few years back.

It smacked of the age old British prejudice that those "fancy foreigners don't like it up 'em", but it's nonsense really as Messi has played in all conditions and come up against all manner of opposition who have tried to kick him across the pitch, but still done the business.

But the other aspect of that question is the aspersion it casts on Stoke, in that's it's a cold, wet and harsh place that will destroy most mortals.

Certainly Bayern Munich legend and notorious bad boy Stefan Effenberg was questioning why Xherdan Shaqiri would move their in favour of a transfer to Schalke this week and really tore into the winger.

Following Shaqiri's £12 million move to the Britannia from Inter Milan on a 5 year deal, Effenberg let rip with the following:

"I do not understand Shaqiri’s move to Stoke at all. You have been badly advised if you go there.

You have to ask yourself where you can reach your sporting goals as a footballer.

That should be the challenge. Schalke would have been perfect for Shaqiri.

Earning €1million more or less should be irrelevant. When you can make €6million at Stoke or €3million at Schalke, you pick the latter.

You play Bundesliga football in a great stadium, get your desired return to Germany and play for a great club that you can help move forward.

But Stoke? Come on, I cannot understand the player, his agent, his parents or his brother.

This is a shame and a sad state of affairs. Only because they are throwing around cash? Is it really all about money for footballers these days?"

Hard to see Effenberg invited to watch a match in Stoke anytime soon, even on a wet, windy night.

Hertha BSC's Anis Ben-Hatira Stars as Spider-Man

2015-03-17T16:00:00.001-04:00

As he put away Hertha BSC's first goal against Schalke 04 this past weekend, midfielder Anis Ben-Hatira had only one thing in mind: donning a Spider-Man mask as a shout out to a young fan suffering from cancer.

Coming only a week after the Bundesliga implemented a new rule banning players from donning masks to celebrate goals, Ben-Hatira chose to ignore the certainty of a yellow card and acknowledge Yannik, an eight-year-old Hertha fan who has been fighting Leukemia in hospital.

After learning of the youngster's illness, and taking the time to visit him in hospital recently, Ben-Hatira had posted the following on Social Media:

"We decided to fight against his illness together. In such moments I realize: a healthy person has 1000 desires. A sick person just one.

“Cute guy: you promised me to recover and I promised to stay on your side while the chemotherapy.

“I will visit you regularly. In less than 6 months we will stand in front of the fans in the Olympic stadium and celebrate your recovery!”

While visiting the young fan, the Hertha midfielder had worn a Spider-Man masked as the two had joked around for pictures displayed on Ben-Hatira's Instagram account.

Sure enough after scoring against Schalke, the player ran over to the sidelines to retrieve the mask of the wall crawling Marvel comic book hero and put it on to honour young Yannik.

Despite his yellow card it was a touching act or kindness from the player.

As luck would have it, Yannik was well enough to be in attendance at the match and later joined Ben-Hatira on a lap of honour in front of 60,000 cheering supporters at the Olympiastadion.

The match between Hertha and Schalke ended 2-2, but some days the final result of a match isn't the most important thing and this was one of those days.

The Harsh Realities of Champions League - Week 5

2014-11-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

As we do after each week of play, we take a look at the clubs that were less than impressive during week 5 of matches in the UEFA Champions League.

Olympiacos

After a bright start to their group stage campaign with wins against Atletico Madrid and Juventus in their first two of three matches, Greek side Olympiacos have dropped in form drastically suffering their second straight loss, a drubbing in the hands of Spanish champions Atletico by a final score of 4-0. The Greek defense could not get a single thing right it seemed as the first three of the goals were crucial defensive mistakes, while the last goal of the match could also be seen as a defensively lazy play. Atletico's newly aquired Croatian forward Mario Mandžukić was the pain in Olympiacos' back on the evening, surely sending the Greek side to compete in Europa League action as the only way they could still qualify for the next round would be the combination of them defeating Swedish side Malmö FF whom they lost 2-0 to at the Swedbank Stadion, and they would also need help from group leaders Atletico who would have to win in Torino against a Juventus side that have lost just once in their home stadium all year in both domestic and Champions League competition.

Liverpool

Oh boy, where to start on this one? Liverpool is making its fourth appearance in five weeks on our 'Harsh Realities' list, as Brendan Rodgers' side is just not good enough this year. With a perfect opportunity to level themselves on points with Swiss side Basel for the second spot in the group, The Reds blew it once again and find themselves going into a must win final group match against that same Swiss club that they lost to in Switzerland just a few weeks ago. This week against Bulgarian side Ludogorets Razgrad it was trouble from the very start as Liverpool conceded within the first five minutes after goalkeeper Simon Mignolet spilled a ball he surely should have kept. But it looked as if the English club would come out with the win after all as Rickie Lambert and Jordan Henderson put Brendan Rodgers' side up 2-1. With two minutes from full-time however, Liverpool's season would be summed up to a tee as the home side would equalize after a successful corner-kick conversion. To make the next round of this year's competition Liverpool would need to defeat FC Basel by more than 1 goal in their week 6 meeting, a feat they were able to accomplish last (and only time this season) on August 31st when they defeated Tottenham in league action.

SL Benfica

Before yesterday's match against Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg, Portugal's defending Champions were sitting just 1 point behind second place AS Monaco and tied on points for third place with the Russians. But after their 1-0 loss at Zenit, followed by Monaco's 1-0 win in Germany against group leaders Bayer Leverkusen, the Portuguese side find themselves out of the competition entirely, without even a chance to qualify to the Europa League as they are now guaranteed to finish last in the group. To make matters worse, Zenit's winning goal was scored by Portuguese midfielder Danny. The last time Benfica has exited European action this early in the year was during the 2008-09 season when they finished last in their UEFA Cup group, playing their last European match on December 18th.

Schalke 04

Sitting 3 points behind group leaders Chelsea, Schelke looked like a decent squad even after their 4-2 loss to third place Sporting Lisbon in match-week 4. But this week their position in the next round of this year's Champions League is looking a lot less guaranteed after total annihilation at the hands of Jose Mourinho's side Chelsea, on home ground by a final score of 5-0. The German side was able to get a good result during first week play at Stamford Bridge, holding the London side to a 1-1 draw on September 17. But on home soil things were very different, as Schelke conceded 3 times before the half and then twice more in the second forty five. Facing Slovenian side Maribor may seem as a fairly easy task for the Germans, but with Chelsea guaranteed top spot in the group it is hard to imagine Mourinho fielding a full-strength squad against Portuguese side Sporting in week 6 action, with the Lisbon side needing just a draw against the Londoners to make sure a higher finish than Schalke.

The Nightmare of SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin

2014-10-31T08:00:00.002-04:00

Every league has had a team whose results were so scary that they gave their respective fans worse nightmares than anything Freddy Krueger could devise.

In England, there was the case of the 2007/2008 Derby County side who only recorded one win all season in the Premier League and registered a laughable 11 points as they were relegated by March.

Italy's Serie A had a similarly awful side in Catania, who in 1983/1984 won only one match themselves on their way to recording a dismal 12 points in the league.

But Germany may have these, and the other major European leagues, beat when it comes to having a top flight side who was so horrifically out of their depth they've become the stuff of legend.

The Curious Case of SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin

Prior to the 1965/1966 season, Hertha Berlin had found themselves in hot water due to breaking the then young league's salary rules. The club was dumped out of the Bundesliga, leaving no West German top division side in the capital.

Thanks to the delicate nature of Cold War politics in Germany at that time, the league's governing body felt that there had to be a side from Berlin in the Bundesliga and made moves to assure that would happen.

With the league expanded to 18 teams from 16, there were three spots open in the top flight; The spot vacated by the relegated Hertha and two new spots made possible by the expansion. Karlsruher SC and FC Schalke 04 were promoted to fill two of the openings and it was decided that a third side must come from Berlin.

The top two sides in the relatively weak Regionalliga Berlin, Tennis Borussia Berlin and Spandauer SV, both decided to pass on the chance of promotion to the Bundesliga and this left the way open for the third place SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin to move up.

As Tasmania 1900 had only taken their place in the top flight two weeks prior to the season starting, they had scant time to prepare for the coming challenge or to recruit adequate players for the step up through the divisions.

Despite all of this, they would win their first match of the season 2-0 over Karlsruher SC at the Olympiastadion. It was a great start to the campaign, but if thoughts of maintaining their survival entered the players or fans heads after that match, they were in for a shock.

The rest of the season was a harrowing as slasher film, as the club would win only once more on their way to becoming the worst team in league history.

Collecting only 8 points under the old two points for a win scoring method, which would only improve to 10 points under the current three points system, they are ranked at 52nd of the 52 side's that have ever graced the Bundesliga in it's history.

During that rotten season they went 31 matches without a win at one point, and compiled the worst ever goals for and goals against with an eye watering record of 15 for and 108 against.

After initially drawing huge crowds of 81,500 and 70,000 to their first two home matches, the Berlin football viewing public quickly realized that this team wasn't worth turning up to see and by January 1966, they set a record for the lowest crowd ever to attend a Bundesliga match with 827 people, who had nothing better to do that day than witness Tasmania get pummeled.

The club were relegated back to the Regionalliga Berlin at the end of the season and never returned to the Bundesliga before declaring bankruptcy in 1973.

Gone but not forgotten, their 'ghost' returned to haunt Arminia Bielefeld in 1999/2000 when the club tied Tasmania's record for most consecutive losses with 10. Their fans began chanting "Tasmania Bielefeld!" as the club slumped to this dubious record.