"Project no longer imaginable today"

Created: 06/27/2022, 10:00 am

By: Wolfgang Krzizok

Impressive picture: flanked by many club delegations, Pastor Richard Greul celebrated the festive service on the Langengeislingen soccer field in front of numerous guests.

© Elfriede Ludwig

FC Langengeisling was founded in 1920, and the club actually wanted to celebrate its 100th anniversary in a big way in 2020.

Langengeisling - The focus should be on the inauguration of the new clubhouse, but Corona had put a big spanner in the works for the Geislingers.

With a two-year delay, the festive consecration has now been made up - with a proud FCL chairman Sepp Kaiser and a priest Richard Greul in the best of moods at the center.

A grand procession escorted the minister and altar boys from the church to the FCL grounds, where an altar for open-air worship was set up on the football field.

"Emperor Sepp told me a football game lasts 90 minutes to tell me how long I can need for the service," said Greul with a grin.

"But as an old football professional, I know that there can also be an extra time of two 15-minute periods and then a penalty shoot-out - and that can take a long time."

In his sermon, FCL member Greul confessed that he was not a gifted footballer and not at all an enthusiastic athlete.

"My principle has always been: Do sport or stay healthy," he said with a smile and then drew a link to the parallels between sport and church.

"Both require enthusiasm." In sport you usually need a team.

"And we in the church need the large community of believers," said Greul.

He urged those present not to forget the people who are on the fringes of society.

Clubs in particular would do a lot for integration.

"A team sticks together, in good times and bad," Greul concluded, before - after 45 minutes plus "injury time" - he blew the referee's whistle and shouted "Half time!".

FCL chairman Kaiser was happy about “a wonderful picture of all participants in the pageant.

The pastor had to leave his house anyway, so we thought we'd go with him," he said with a grin.

He congratulated Greul on his anniversary, "because exactly twelve years ago today you were ordained a priest in Freising Cathedral".

Kaiser thanked the Erding town band and the Langengeisling church choir for the musical accompaniment "and thank God for the glorious weather".

God's blessing: After the service, Pastor Greul (3rd from left) blessed the team cabins with the support of altar boy Lydia Angermaier.

Among those present were (from left) Deputy District Administrator Rainer Mehringer, Bavaria's Family Minister Ulrike Scharf, FCL Chairman Sepp Kaiser and Mayor Max Gotz.

© Elfriede Ludwig

While around 250 guests stormed the small marquee, the guests of honor, above all Bavaria's Minister for Family Affairs Ulrike Scharf, made their way to the church consecration of the cabins and finally up to the "Blauer Hirsch" club restaurant.

There, Kaiser addressed a greeting to the guests of honor and thanked everyone who had worked on the construction of the new clubhouse, from his colleagues on the board to the construction companies.

Especially in the city, "because having so much trust and taking so much money in your hands is not a matter of course".

The project cost around 3.2 million euros.

The FCL chairman also emphasized the interaction with the city master builder and the chamberlain.

This was the only way to complete construction from May 2018 to October 2019.

There was great praise for FC Langengeisling from Deputy District Administrator Rainer Mehringer.

"The district cannot make up for everything that volunteering has done here," he said.

Erding's Mayor Max Gotz took the same line, stating, regarding the grant from the city, "that the citizens' money is well invested here".

That was the end of the second half of the inauguration ceremony.

And after 90 minutes plus extra time, we could move on to the comfortable part.