Today we are in Hünfeld for a clash between the 5th and 16th placed teams in the Oberliga Hessen (5th tier).
Hünfelder SV have spent the last two decades oscillating between the Oberliga Hessen, where they are now, and the division below it (Verbandsliga Hessen Nord).
Hanau 93, however, can (at a considerable stretch) claim to have been (…almost) the first Champions of Germany. Although the use of that title is usually dated from 1903 onwards, when the first ‘official’ championship was awarded, the first “attempt” to decide any kind of ‘German Championship’ came in 1894, in the form of a challenge match between Viktoria Berlin (see pic below) and Hanau 93.
However, Hanau were unable to afford the trip, and the game wasn’t played until 113 years later, in 2007, when the so-called “Forgotten Final” was re-staged (or, rather, staged) with Viktoria emerging triumphant and thus being crowned the ‘moral’ champions of 1894.
The town of Hünfeld (pop.16,000) is officially designated ‘Konrad-Zuse-Stadt’ after this guy.
Zuse was the inventor of (arguably) the world’s first functional computer – or (less arguably) the world’s first commercially produced freely programmable computer, namely the Z3, built in 1938 and first presented in 1941. Unfortunately the Z3 was destroyed by bombing in 1943, but its
successor, the Z4 (natch) can still be seem at the German Museum in Munich.
Hanau (just 15 miles east of Frankfurt) has a population of just over 100,000 and is famous as the birthplace of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm.
Jakob and Wilhelm were of course ‘The Brothers Grimm’ – the celebrated folklorists so memorably portrayed by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon in the year 2000.
