Germany

[rld]

Dan Stocks is the new national coach, following on from Uwe Jansen who is now a Development Officer for Germany. Dan is highly rated young coach in England having come through the Hemel Stags set up and has German heritage via his grandmother on his Dads side. Dan has recently turned down a role to work with a professional club due to work and family commitments as well as wanting to put more time in to helping Rugby League in Germany as well as the German Exiles team that he set up in the UK. Dan also went to Barcelona with the RLEF to help deliver a coaching programme so he is the right person having been involved as a player since 2005. Dan usually comes across 4 times a year to run camps and training sessions usually alongside Uwe and others in Germany.
Bob Doughton (Cologne) and Leo Berngruber (Bad Reichenhall) will assist him alongside Paul Szehofner (Telford) who will concentrate more on educating match officials and is a qualified ref with German heritage as well. Uli Scholz (Heidelberg) has joined us as treasurer.
David Griffiths is still with us but has recently had meningitus so has not been very active since 2008. Neil Harmon the former Leeds, Warrington, Halifax Prop who now works with a couple of SL academys and Celtic Student teams via his 1 rugby Coach company is also still in regular contact and sends us Email coaching sessions as well as allows us to be involved in his Question & Answer sessions with some of the worlds top coaches. For more info on Neil see his website at 1rugbycoach.com/

We are very disappointed with 2008 and feel we let our standards and goals slip. Certain internal problems and our failiure to get a domestic scene going has made us more determined to make 2009 a big year on the domestic scene. Alongside the Internationals and the States of Origin series we will be seeing a small local domestic programme running around the Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe and Heidelberg area. We also just received an Email from somebody wanting to build a team in Schweinfurt-(between Frankfurt and Nürnberg) and so we are hoping that from that we can build in 2010 a good domestic scene which will then see the best players featuring for the States of origin and from that will be picked the National players.

We have had a testing time with us all being volunteers except Uwe Jansen who was recently appointed as a development officer for Germany in a partnership with the RLEF. Uwe is a part time officer and has been involved as mentioned as setting up a domestic league in his area and has also around 40 U18s in Heidelberg who are playing games and training as well. We have finally official recognition which took 18 months to get due to red tape, the legal people moving offices to another town and the guy who was doing our case dieing in a paragliding accident! This has tested us as we had problems getting a sponsor as we had no tax number and no official bank account-had to be in my name which created further problems when receiving grant money etc. However Alpenstoff Beer from bad Reichenhall took the chance with us thanks to Leo Berngruber and Andreas Kettner and despite the financial problems in Germany especially amongst industries like brewerys they have decided to stick with us for another year. We also have a new sponsor on board in Protec365 e.K who do Mouthguards for various sports like American Football, Ice Hockey, Boxing as well as Rugby League now.

The website is now in the past month or so available in English and German and we have various articles from an Interview with Henry Paul to the latest rankings. The more people that visit the site as well as click on the amazon and google adverts the better as we get a little bit of money from that-so get clicking on www.rugby-league.de

Thanks to our sponsors once again

www.alpenstoff.de
www.protec365.de
1rugbycoach.com/

[Druzik]

Thanks for all that Simon.

I'll post that up on other sites to spread the word if you dont mind.

[Druzik]

German national coach Dan Stocks has announced the German national squad for 2009. 19 players have been called up to attend the National Training Weekend, who have played for Germany in the last couple of years. However there are a further six places that are still up for grabs. The aim of Dan Stocks is to have a squad consisting of a healthy mix of young and experienced players who are at the peak of their form in Rugby League, both at domestic and international level.

To qualify for the national team you need to have played for Germany already or have played an active role with Rugby League in Germany or the German Exiles team based in England. In addition certain conditions must be met. Players MUST have one of the following:

1 )German citizenship,
2 )German descent (grandparents rule)
3 )or at least three years of residence in Germany.

Players must NOT have represented any other country in Rugby League. There will be no more than 5 players who live abroad, but have German ancestry in the squad.Without the correct paper work, then players will not be chosen to be in the squad of 25.

In preparation for the 2009 Rugby League European Shield, a training weekend will will be held on 23 and 24 May. This is a compulsory training weekend for those already in the squad, but remains open to others already playing Rugby League who may wish to attempt to gain a place in the squad and those who simply want to learn more about Rugby League as a number of trainers will be in attendance to cater for different levels of experience.

The training weekend will take place in Kaiserslautern, at:

TuS Hochspeyer
Kirchstrasse 80
67691 Hochspeyer

The training starts on Saturday at 10.00 clock sharp. Players should be ready for training and on the pitch at 10.00. The training program runs all day until around 17:00 clock. On Sunday the training will commence at 09.00 and finish at 14:30; there will then follow a trial game. A physiotherapist will be present and individual fitness programs will be available to all players.

Under 16s and Under 18s games are currently being played in Heidelberg. On top of this, a couple of teams around Baden Württemberg, Hessen and Rheinland Pfalz will be playing against each other. This will then lead to the States of Origin Weekend where Bayern, Nord Rhein Westfalen, Baden Württemberg and Hessen/Rheinland Pfalz will be battling it out on the 27 and 28 June in Nürnberg.

Germany will then travel to Olomouc, in the east of the Czech Republic, to play against the Czech National team on the 4th July. This will then be followed on the 18th July at 5 PM, when Germany will host the Italians in Hürth, just south of Cologne. A German National Reserve team, that will feature mainly players who missed out on playing for the National team earlier, will travel to Brussels on the 8th August to play a Belgian XIII.

For more detailed information go on to the German Rugby League Website at www.rugby-league.de

[Druzik]

Event:German States of Origin Rugby League Weekend
"Bayern, Baden Württemberg, Hessen/Rheinland Pfalz and NRW battle it out to be Champions of Germany"
What: Sporting Event
Host: Rugby League Deutschland
Start Time: Saturday, June 27 at 12:00pm
End Time: Sunday, June 28 at 3:00pm
Where: Nürnberg

[Druzik]

U 16 competition:
Heidelberg Lions vs. Rohrbach Hornets 26:20
Rohrbach Hornets vs. Heidelberg Lions 20:62

U 18 competition:
Heidelberg Lions vs. Rohrbach Hornets 32:32

Senior 24.05.09:
Germany A vs. Germany B 28:24

Next Oslo 9s 30.05.09

[rld]

Italy had to endure a 17 hour bus trip on the Friday after getting lost a couple of times and well done for them in not just bring 18 Squad players but also 6 players for the Development game.Very hard physical but fair game that either side could of one. Italy having a bigger team and having seasoned Professionals in Cyril Armani (Carcasonne) Remi Fontana (Carpentras), Gaetan Tomaso (Montpellier) alongside former Pros in Jason Dubsa Fisher and Marco Ferrazzano were expected to win by a big score and they made the most of the chances that came their way-Germany made simply too many mistakes in the first half that allowed Italy to take a big lead early in the 2nd half. The young guys like Teenagers Micky Reinhold, Fabrice Fehlemann and man of the match again for Germany Jimmy Keinhorst alongside the veterans of Dan Stocks, Kris Keinhorst, Guillaume Stocklen and Simon Cooper clawed themselves back in to the game as they found belief and confidence midway through the 2nd half but left themselves too much to do in the end sadly.

The young German lads put a great show on especially in the 2nd half, added by a very noisy home crowd. Germany just lacked experience and a little bit of luck to sneak a shock win. With again 15 players under 26 years old and 5 of them being Teenagers the boys showed little fear against the Italians. This coupled with a Development game between Euro Celts and Germany Development which saw a couple of 16 and 17 year olds playing their first ever competitive game of any form of Rugby meant that the weekend was a big success in many ways for Rugby League in Germany

Big rap to the Referee who is probably the best Ref Germany have ever had. Cliff Tamou a Kiwi living in the Wigan area for 19 years allowed the game to flow and his communication skills were simply brilliant. The players from both sides felt the game was a great one partly due to Cliff doing so well. Thanks mate.
Italy claimed the win and congrats to them again and was good night after with the Italians and Germans mixing well. German Trainer Dan Stocks had his longish beard cut off by his wife Kaye, whilst Italian Player Matt Sands had two of his dreadlocks cut! As you can guess a great day was had by all and as usual, Bob Doughton as ever organized things very well and had the local TV crew in the german dressing rooms before the game and filming all the way through the game. A loud vocal crowd around 200-250 turned up and got well in to the game chanting "Deutschland, Deutschland" alongside Bob organizing Music and somebody explaining the rules to the crowd in German during the game.

Highlights should be on the RLEF website around Tuesday.

More good news is that the first ever Rugby League club the Calbach Racoons (half an hour North of Frankfurt) has been set up. They have NO Union players and only want to play League! In the space of 3 weeks they have 19 Adults and 13 U18s. Max Schöngen who found the game 6 months ago whilst studying at Oxford Brookes is the man behind this story. An Article will go up in the coming weeks on the RLD website in more depth.

Hessen Rugby League has been set up alongside this. Hessen is the State around Frankfurt going North towards Cologne. Nico Koch and Joachim Frera from the city of Frankfurt are working with Calbach to produce a state team as well.

Bene Rehm is heading a group of players who are building "Heidelberg Rugby League Club". They are working alongside Uwe Jansen the development officer. There is much potential especially with under 20s in this area.

And then we finally have a Bayern State team being developed by Tom Lawrence, Micky Reinhold (Bad Reichenhall), Christian Gabriel (Nürnberg) and a couple of others. So things are looking good for League in Germany. NRE/Cologne are a little bit behind these areas but there should be some positive news coming out from there in the next 12 months as well

[sportsmad]

sounds like it was a good game. interesting to see that italy comlimented the game but called for greater competition in order to progress to the next level. any idea of the crowd number?

[Ryan N]

Germany is progressing nicely. Europe is actually. Rugby League will be throughout every country in Europe, to different degrees.

[Druzik]

Coops its a shame that I wasn't there, that sounds like an absolute cracker of a match to be had.

The score was much closer than last years and looks like the development is coming through nicely.

250 crowd is also on par with last year so at least that is holding steady.

[rld]

We even got a TV report on the local Cabel Channel in Cologne

koeln.center.tv/cms/index.php?id=42

In Heidelberg on the 15th August, Heidelberg will do battle with Hessen and Bayern. Its planned to be 13 a side event. As some people maybe aware All 3 areas have been set up recentlyand have facebook groups.All 3 are being run mainly by Germans-Benedikt Rehm is running things for Heidelberg Rugby League. Nicolai Koch, Joachem Frera and Max Schöngen are running Hessen State Rugby League. Whilst Christian Gabriel, Micky Reinhold alongside Englishman Tom Lawrence are running the Bayern State Rugby League.

Calbach Raccoons (about 40 minutes North of Frankfurt in the state of Hessen) have been set up as the first Rugby League Club in Germany by Max Schöngen. They have no plans to play Union and all are new to any form of Rugby. Calbach will look to try and play games against clubs from other European Lands as well as play club teams in Germany in 9s or 13s. Its hoped this team will play outside of summer well-we just need to find them teams to play. Due to many of the team being students they do not have much money so travelling long distances is a problem at the moment. A more detailed report will be put on the RLD website in the coming weeks. The website address is www.rugby-league.de

So from 2005 when the first game was played when an 8 v 8 game in Heidelberg occurred on the 23 July, we have in 4 years seen Germans playing and wanting to build clubs. Teams as ever come and go like in Karlsruhe for example. But things finally look like developing in Germany where regular games will be held in 2010.
2009 has seen already Germany A v B in the near of Kaiserslautern as well as the Bavaria v Rest of Germany in Nürnberg. Hopefully next year a full proper time table will be announced early in 2010. Developing Rugby League is hard work and very costly especially when players live over 600 miles away from each other like in Germany. By forming State sides we feel this is easier to build and grow

If anybody feels they can help us by offering something that we can raffle off at events or send us a contribution to help cover travelling costs then please send a PM. We do get a small amount from the RLEF but this does not go far sadly.

[Druzik]

Coops you have my email mate, give me a line and I will see what I can do down this end of town in Australia, maybe an NRL jumper or something.

[Druzik]

From Simon Cooper

Bad Reichenhall claimed the spoils after facing a 7 and a half hour trip to play Calbach Raccoons in Büdingen north of Frankfurt-and faced a similar trip back home. Both sides featured guys new to the sport. And both sides gave everything in the heat with a temperature of 30C. The game was the first ever Rugby game to be played in the Büdingen area and was watched by a decent crowd of around 30 people in the small village of Calbach which is next to Büdingen.

Bad Reichenhall had the experience of Simon Cooper, Micky Reinhold and Christoph Huber which saw them home. But Cooper and Reinhold were forced to play at Stand Off and Hooker as the rest of the team was inexperienced. With both backrowers playing out of position, Reichenhall were a bit off the pace for the first half. Reinhold still grabbed 6 tries and Cooper 4. But the way the new guys like Bjorn Gunst tried and added to the team was also important as well as experienced Union players like Sebastian Goetzinger. A great team effort got Reichenhall a good victory rather than any stand out players as the inexperienced guys ran well with the ball and got stuck in the tackling despite being raw.

For the Calbachers Max Schöngen who started up the club 2 months ago which is now the first ever Rugby League Club in Germany (No ties to Rugby Union) was the inspiration behind much of the things Calbach did. But he was not lacking in support or effort as the big Calbach props led by Sebastian Vermaat who made his German debut earlier in July often making good in roads with their size and power. The village got behind the Calbach team and turned out and really enjoyed the game that was completely new to them all and want to see more Rugby League played in the village. So if any teams fancy a tour then the Calbach Raccoons will certainly look after you well. They will be strengthened as well as a couple of Union guys who play in Frankfurt and Heidelberg are on Holiday at this time.

[rld]

We have finished playing this year and have seen more games played that nay other year with 2 Full Internationals, 1 Reserve National game and 7 Friendly games. Calbach Raccoons, Heidelberg Lions, Rohrbach Hornets and Blau Weiss Bayern(Mainly Bad Reichenhall with odd players from Nürnberg, Munich & Ingolstadt) are the 4 clubs to have been involved this year. There was also a North v South game as well as a 9s team playing in Oslo at the Scandinavian 9s.Next year we are looking for U18s, U16s as well as open age sides who fancy coming to Germany in the summer to play games as well as hosting our own domestic games.

Calbach Raccoons are a new club this year that feature players that have no previous Rugby League or Union experience. They are based north of Frankfurt near the town of Büdingen. They have produced a short Promotional DVD that will be given to Youth and Sports Clubs in the local area.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KpZGarLzU0&fe

[sportsmad]

seems steve has been a busy man. this is his blog from Germany. If you ahve any problems in me posting content from another site just let me knwo daniel.

In the first of a series of 'State of the Nation' articles rugbyleague.com's globe-trotting correspondent Steve Mascord reports from Germany on the rise of Rugby League in the country and the man behind this growth.

Stay logged on for more of the same as Steve continues his round-the-world tour in which he will take in the Gillette Four Nations, the rugbyleague.com European Cup and more besides.

State of the Nation: GERMANY
Established: 2004
Playing number: 100
World ranking: 19
National population: 82,060,000

By STEVE MASCORD in Berlin

IN his own words, Simon Cooper left England at age 28 because "I didn't like it anymore".
"It's an island. It's very inward-looking, compared to Europeans,'' the man who heads Rugby League Deutchland told rugbyleague.com.
"If you want to travel anywhere, you have to fly or take a boat. Living in Munich, I can catch a train and in four or five hours I can be in the Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Switzerland. There's a lot more freedom to travel.
"And some of the weather is better....''
Just 28 at the time, Cooper headed for Munich, where his father Kuhne had been born and raised. He got a job in a food warehouse and - as dictated by his upbringing in Halifax - started looking for a game of rugby.
It was another player who suggested that if he didn't want to play union, he should look at setting his native game up in the new country.
That was five years ago. The going since then has been tough - but he's slowly making headway. The competitions he's set up are short, small and localised with playing numbers not estimated above 100.
"In summer, most of the other sports aren't playing so we normally run from the end of May to about the end of August,'' he explained.
But unlike many other developing RL countries in Europe, Germany does not rely largely on rugby union players. He's stopped relying on British servicemen, too, because they don't stay long. Cooper is finding a rich vein of talent instead in handball, a major sport in Germany.
"Handball players are probably better rugby league than rugby union players,'' says Cooper, "because handball is a very technical sport using the hands but they are also quite agile and quick.''
Cooper - who uses the internet as his primary recruitment tool - has a development officer, Ewe Jansen, in Heidelberg which has five rugby union clubs. The city now boasts an under 18s league team, an under 16s team and two union teams that play league in the summer.
Max Schoengen is another enthusiast based north of Frankfurt, while American Steve Be Santo is working in nearby Schweinsurt .
"We played our first international in Bad Reichenhall, which is in the mountains ...,'' he says, in reference to the snow-capped peaks mentioned in the Discord blog this week.
Next year, Cooper is aiming to play a national championship involving four states. He'll also visit Australia. The trip will allow him to meet the RLIF's Colin Love and Tas Baitieri but he will source Germany-qualified NRL players, hopefully.
Hull FC's Shaun Berrigan and Celtic Crusaders Anthony Seibold and former Kangaroos Sam Backo have already shown interest.
"We don't want guys who will just stick on the shirt and we never hear from them again,'' he said. "We want guys who will ... try and help out.
"I get a little bit of help from Halifax - every now and then they'll send me some t-shirts. I've got some contacts at the North Queensland Cowboys, they send me DVDs.
"We get a grant from the European Rugby League, the form comes out in October. We get around 5000 euros, which doesn't go too far...''
Still only 35, Cooper is Germany's most capped player with eight appearances. But he has decades of off-field service for our game ahead of him and his ambitions are not in the stratospheric realm of national comps and television coverage.
"Realistically, it's to try and have a small league around the Frankfurt-Heidelberg area," he said. "That's got to be our first aim, as well as try and bring in an under 18 league and an open-age league. Then try and work our way down, under 16s, under 14s...
"I would say you're banging your head against a brick wall for 80, 90 per cent of the year. But when we played Estonia in 2006, we had guys travelling from Bad Reichenhall, 36 hours across Europe, to play the game, that makes it worth it.
"We had guys begging to play for Germany this year ... it's things like that that make it worthwhile. It is hard to start rugby league in any country where they have not heard of rugby at all.
''You don't have the structures to fall back on like you do in Australia or England.''
But if Germany ever get to play England at international level, the comments of Rugby League Deutchland's founder about why he left home might just end up on a dressingroom wall.

[Druzik]

Oct 18, 2009 12:22:46 GMT 10 sportsmad said:

seems steve has been a busy man. this is his blog from Germany. If you ahve any problems in me posting content from another site just let me knwo daniel.

In the first of a series of 'State of the Nation' articles rugbyleague.com's globe-trotting correspondent Steve Mascord reports from Germany on the rise of Rugby League in the country and the man behind this growth.

Stay logged on for more of the same as Steve continues his round-the-world tour in which he will take in the Gillette Four Nations, the rugbyleague.com European Cup and more besides.

State of the Nation: GERMANY
Established: 2004
Playing number: 100
World ranking: 19
National population: 82,060,000

By STEVE MASCORD in Berlin

IN his own words, Simon Cooper left England at age 28 because "I didn't like it anymore".
"It's an island. It's very inward-looking, compared to Europeans,'' the man who heads Rugby League Deutchland told rugbyleague.com.
"If you want to travel anywhere, you have to fly or take a boat. Living in Munich, I can catch a train and in four or five hours I can be in the Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Switzerland. There's a lot more freedom to travel.
"And some of the weather is better....''
Just 28 at the time, Cooper headed for Munich, where his father Kuhne had been born and raised. He got a job in a food warehouse and - as dictated by his upbringing in Halifax - started looking for a game of rugby.
It was another player who suggested that if he didn't want to play union, he should look at setting his native game up in the new country.
That was five years ago. The going since then has been tough - but he's slowly making headway. The competitions he's set up are short, small and localised with playing numbers not estimated above 100.
"In summer, most of the other sports aren't playing so we normally run from the end of May to about the end of August,'' he explained.
But unlike many other developing RL countries in Europe, Germany does not rely largely on rugby union players. He's stopped relying on British servicemen, too, because they don't stay long. Cooper is finding a rich vein of talent instead in handball, a major sport in Germany.
"Handball players are probably better rugby league than rugby union players,'' says Cooper, "because handball is a very technical sport using the hands but they are also quite agile and quick.''
Cooper - who uses the internet as his primary recruitment tool - has a development officer, Ewe Jansen, in Heidelberg which has five rugby union clubs. The city now boasts an under 18s league team, an under 16s team and two union teams that play league in the summer.
Max Schoengen is another enthusiast based north of Frankfurt, while American Steve Be Santo is working in nearby Schweinsurt .
"We played our first international in Bad Reichenhall, which is in the mountains ...,'' he says, in reference to the snow-capped peaks mentioned in the Discord blog this week.
Next year, Cooper is aiming to play a national championship involving four states. He'll also visit Australia. The trip will allow him to meet the RLIF's Colin Love and Tas Baitieri but he will source Germany-qualified NRL players, hopefully.
Hull FC's Shaun Berrigan and Celtic Crusaders Anthony Seibold and former Kangaroos Sam Backo have already shown interest.
"We don't want guys who will just stick on the shirt and we never hear from them again,'' he said. "We want guys who will ... try and help out.
"I get a little bit of help from Halifax - every now and then they'll send me some t-shirts. I've got some contacts at the North Queensland Cowboys, they send me DVDs.
"We get a grant from the European Rugby League, the form comes out in October. We get around 5000 euros, which doesn't go too far...''
Still only 35, Cooper is Germany's most capped player with eight appearances. But he has decades of off-field service for our game ahead of him and his ambitions are not in the stratospheric realm of national comps and television coverage.
"Realistically, it's to try and have a small league around the Frankfurt-Heidelberg area," he said. "That's got to be our first aim, as well as try and bring in an under 18 league and an open-age league. Then try and work our way down, under 16s, under 14s...
"I would say you're banging your head against a brick wall for 80, 90 per cent of the year. But when we played Estonia in 2006, we had guys travelling from Bad Reichenhall, 36 hours across Europe, to play the game, that makes it worth it.
"We had guys begging to play for Germany this year ... it's things like that that make it worthwhile. It is hard to start rugby league in any country where they have not heard of rugby at all.
''You don't have the structures to fall back on like you do in Australia or England.''
But if Germany ever get to play England at international level, the comments of Rugby League Deutchland's founder about why he left home might just end up on a dressingroom wall.

Nah its OK, actually I spoke with steve about the germans the day before he jetter off... he was only in Berlin for a day in transit to Padova... I think he is trying to match some of my European jet setting ways.