Football from Vienna to Austria

Kick-Off:

• Basic Myth: Austria vs. Rapid, Café vs. Suburbs

1. Contrasts

Main Myth: Rapid vs. Austria:

Viennese football is influenced by the contrast Rapid – Austria and respective attributions concerning club culture and the style of playing (Rapid= Fighting, workers’ club ... Austria= Technique, café ...

2. Myths of Foundation

The adoption of the game by local milieus that are influenced by British football is crucial for the establishment of football in Vienna. The organisation of the game is in the hands of Vienna’s anglophile bourgeoisie. Soon language and style become “Viennese”.

2.1. Founding of the Game /Bourgeois Beginnings

• Vienna, WAC, Cricketer:

• Rapid – Erster Wiener Arbeiterklub, Austria/Amateure:

• Challenge-Pokal

2.2. Acquiring of the Game des Spiels /

British Influences• Sports vs. Gymnastica:

„Wider das Stauchballspiel und die englische Krankheit“ (Publication)

• •McJohn Leuthe: Caricatures

• •Football lexicon Vienna - Germany (e.g. Malwart – Goalie, Ecke – Corner, ...), Dialect: Cöp, Cornerfahndl,...

• •Scottish, English, Viennese style of playing

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3. Spectacle of the Masses

After World War I Viennesefootball developed into a mass phenomenon.

The game conquered the town – in

topography and media.

3.1. Topography of Viennese Football

• Wiener Stadion, • Hohe Warte, • Pfarrwiese• Building program of

Red Vienna: Karl-Marx-Hof vs. Hohe Warte, ways of transport

3.2. Commercialization / Professionalism

• Mass phenomenon Uridil-film „Pflicht und Ehre“, music „Heute Spielt der Uridil“, Uridil-novel,...

•Product placement and merchandising: advertisements, banner ads, products,...

•Football in discourse of the city: photos, carikatures, sports sections in daily papers, novells, film

•Workers’ football vs. professional league (since 1924)

3.3. Images of Women and Frauenbilder and Masculinity after

the War•War invalid, traumatized

audience •Metaphors of war in reports

on football•Views of audience:C contemporary images and

recent visualisation of women in masses. New

• images of women (bobbed hair,…), and sexism: caricatures and articles in newspapers

•Woman of canteen, washers, mother: quotes by Decker, Sindelar a.o.; Text:„10 Commandments of a professional player“

3.4. Danube Football

• Hungarian Stars (brothers Konrad, Schaffer)

• Reports by secret service about football migrants

• “Favoritner Ziegelbehm“ – Origin and social situation of players as well as their parents

• Master Hakoah

Vienna’s football of the interwar years lives from migration. Its specific style of playing is a hybrid of central European innovations from cities, such as Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava. 

4. From Viennas Wonderteam to Austrian Football

The Miracle Team and itsprotagonists are in the centreof Viennese footballMemories.After 1945, they become anelement of Austrian historicalnarration.

Continuities and break ups 

4.1. Success in Sports

•Image of the Miracle Team: Weekly newsreels and photos

•Austrian and international newspaper reports

•Phonographic archivs: Archive sound recordings (e.g. Radio broadcasting of Stamford-Bridge in 1932)

4.2. Popular Cultural Hype

• Feature film: „Roxy und das Wunderteam“

• Tippkickspiel? version „Miracle Team “

• Brand Sindelar: Fru-Fru, Ceschka-Hut und Alpina-Gruen-Pentagon-Uhr

• Radio star Willy Schmieger (Radio commentator of matches by the Miracle team): reports, biography

4.3. Early Globetrotters

• Tours: Photo series of the team in front of pyramids or in planes

• Hoardings trips and smuggling: Food, cigarette lighters, opium, police files

The success of Viennese football secured the clubs lucrative tour offers all over the world. 

4.4. Political Appropriation• Miracle Team and

National Socialism:„Anschluss“ ads, „reconciliation match“, calls to army, „Kicker“book without the mention of Hugo Meisl, burial of Sindelar, Gestapo reports 

• Miracle Team and Second Republic: The painting – retrospective sense to formation of identity

 

4.5. Continuity and Break Ups

• Biographies about conformity, expulsions, “Aryanization” (Sindelar), NS trials (Stojaspal), Concentration-camp card (Gerö), etc.

• Vienna’s football in Nazi era and during the War in NS-Zeit und Krieg: Rapid German Master – anti-Prussian

5. In the Stadium

Fan cultures are changing, from fans who are throwing hats into the air in the 1920ies to present choreography of fans.

 

6. Commerce and staging Media

Contemporary football happens on

TV and is determined byeconimical interests.

6.1. Football as TV- Sports

• Weekly newsreels (e.g. Sportclub-Juventus 7:0)

• Legendray matches on TV (Europacup-Finali, Derbies etc.)

• Around the first match on TV: newspaper cuttings before/after („Declining of audience“)

• Collective TV in football pubs like

Broadcastings of Chelsea, broadcasting of World Championships, betting offices, photos

• „Fucking ORF“ (Actions of Rapid Ultras), photos and media reports

6.2. Football and Economy

• Rapid shares• Ads on tricots: Austria Dress

with Logo of Schwechater• Merchandising (bedlinen ...)• Name of clubs (Memphis etc.) • The club as a corporation (VIP

Lounge)

6.3. From Player to Star

• Hair styles of football players and outfits

• Star portrita in magazine Bravo: Starportraits in Bravo: Poster

• „The Night Hawk“– Krankl as radio man: Photo/Audio

• Biography of Prohaska: From Simmering to San Siro: Book

• Legendary interviews

6.4. Globalisation: From Jacare to Vastic and Pehlivan

• Legendary legionaries• Austrian: yes or no? The second

generation and the naturalizes ones: : Krone 1998: Ivo, now you are a real Austrian!

• Football players as model of integration?

• Counter model of globalisation: Viennese players as stars abroad: Happel, Krankl, Prohaska, Krank’ls Golden Shoe

6.5. Singing Football Players

Krankl, Prohaska or Polster:A lot of football playersperformed on records –

somebecame (commercially)successful

7. A Second Culture – the non league footballand womens‘ football

Week in, week out, thousands of people in Vienna make a pilgrimage to football. The aim is neither Rapid nor Austria, but clubs of women and amateurs, youth clubs as well as divers hobby leagues.

7.1. Non League Football

• Important derbies: Sportklub-Vienna, FavAC-Simmering

• The Yugo-league“ on Schmelz

• Racism

• Integration live: black referee, second generation: Photo and CV

• From Simmering to world football (Polster, Prohaska)

7.2. Womens‘ Football

•Womens’ football as oddity

•Corselets for women from the 1970ies (Football causes breast cancer, discourse in media)

•‚Medical‘ arguments against womens’ football

8. Fans

Thank you!