Ahead of Sunday’s home match against Waldhof Mannheim, things are getting emotional for some Essen fans.
In September 2023, the city of Essen had an agenda that should also interest fans of Rot-Weiss Essen. At that time, the district council decided to rename a section of the access road to Hafenstraße as Georg-Melches-Straße. The Georg-Melches-Initiative had submitted the request.
The request has now been granted. Following the decision, there was an opportunity to lodge an objection to the naming of the street, but this was not done.
50 years ago, on August 5, 1964, Rot-Weiss Essen named its “Stadion an der Hafenstraße” after the club’s father Georg Melches. The stadium was demolished in 2013 and since then RWE has been playing in its new home, which is now called “Stadion an der Hafenstraße”.
But RWE co-founder Georg Melches will continue to be represented around the stadium in the future. With the Georg-Melches-Straße. It is to be inaugurated on Sunday – before the home match in the 3rd division against Waldhof Mannheim.
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This was confirmed by the GMS initiative on social media. It says: “Dear members of the GMS initiative, dear friends and representatives of Rot-Weiss-Essen, before our next home game on Sunday, November 12, 4.30 pm against Waldhof Mannheim, there will be a road inauguration that we can be very proud of. We have succeeded in renaming the access road to the stadium along the “Kleine Gruga” to Georg-Melches-Str.”
The schedule therefore looks like this
14.00 hrs: Meeting point for all participants is the “KLEINE GRUGA” (open-air museum), at the entrance to the stadium on Hafenstraße.
2.20 p.m.: Welcome of the guests and laudatory speech for Georg Melches by Georg Schrepper (club historian at Rot-Weiss Essen).
2.25 p.m.: Speech by Essen’s Lord Mayor Thomas Kufen, who officially unveils the previously concealed street sign after his speech. As part of the unveiling, the “Knappenverein Bergmannsglück” will sing the Steiger song