Handball at HSC Coburg in the 2nd league: Everyday life gets in the way

It’s been over six weeks, but Jan Gorr is still present in the scene. At the annual helper festival, a few days before the first home game of the new season, it was not the volunteers but the HSC Coburg players who stood behind the food distribution and served sausages. And during this role reversal, when “the boys slipped into their aprons,” as Gorr puts it, the helpers should also be introduced to the new entrance music. And only the helpers – but Gorr watched as two or three fans sneaked into the hall. “They weren’t helpers, just normal spectators. “They just peeked in because they were curious,” says Coburg’s managing director.

When Gorr, 46, tells the story, he laughs. It was mid-September, the season was young, and Coburg piqued people’s interest. The new entrance music, a new team with many young players, a new coach in Anel Mahmutefendic, who came from Gummersbach, that attracted the fans. And now, after the first nine games, Coburg is ninth in the second division. Four wins, two draws, three defeats. Mediocre, average, gray. Or maybe not?

It may seem that way at first glance at the table, but Gorr makes it clear: “There were one or two skeptics before the season because the team is very young, but the boys took the wind out of their sails.” The Coburgers are ninth, but with one more win they would be third. That’s why Gorr says: “I’m a bit cold right now, but not in a figurative sense – just because of the time of year.”

The nose is running, but so is the matter with Mahmutefendic and the new team. In general, Gorr emphasizes that he is happy with how the first few weeks are going, but he shouldn’t expect any big jumps yet. More than half the league is fighting for the first places. Coburg wants to belong to this group of candidates, but it’s not as if they would openly talk about the Bundesliga at the HSC.

When the Upper Franconians were last first class, they quickly reached their limits and were relegated last. They are now in their fourth year in the second division. The Bundesliga is the goal, but in the medium term. Basically tomorrow, not today. But isn’t that what those responsible talked about a few years ago?

“It’s a fine line that we’re walking on in terms of personnel,” says Gorr

“We had to push it,” explains Gorr and then talks about, among other things, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. These are tough times and it’s not exactly easy to find sponsors. That’s why the team has been rejuvenated and is now giving itself time. “In order to get promoted, all the conditions have to be right: financial – and you need a well-coordinated team that has experience,” says Gorr, “that was our big plus when we got promoted.”

That was in 2016 and 2020, but they don’t currently have that in Coburg. Rather, Felix Jaeger, Jan Schäffer and Arkadiusz Ossowski are missing with injuries, three players who give the team support when they are on the floor. “It’s a fine line that we’re walking on in terms of personnel,” says Gorr. Janis Pavels Valkovskis, for example, took advantage of the circumstances, a young backcourt player who has become Coburg’s best goalscorer. But when you look at the big picture, it becomes clear that the HSC has to take a detour again on its targeted path to the Bundesliga.

First the upheaval, then injuries: it’s everyday life that gets in the way and now requires patience and forbearance. Against this background, Gorr doesn’t want to paint anything black, on the contrary. “The league is so balanced, I don’t even know who will take the second relegation spot,” says the managing director. Not that Coburg is afraid of slipping into the bottom of the table, but what Gorr wants to say: There are no things to be taken for granted – especially not when it comes to promotion.

“If you look at the distance to the top of the table, you can see that it is already within sight. But for this to be the case throughout the season, we have to learn quickly and gain experience working together,” says Gorr. He calls the impressions that the team has left so far “quite good”. A rating that sounds like a C+. So there is still work to do for the Coburgers, but Gorr is not afraid of that. On the whole, the team cuts a decent figure – and not just in aprons when the annual helpers festival is coming up.