SV Sonsbeck is having a very decent season. Most recently, SVS were guests at ETB and lost 0-3. The guests’ performance wasn’t bad at all.

Four wins, one draw, four defeats, ninth place in the table: SV Sonsbeck is doing absolutely fine in the Oberliga Niederrhein. Heinrich Losing’s team has a six-point buffer to the relegation zone.

Sonsbeck recently lost 3-0 to the in-form ETB Schwarz-Weiß. It was the seventh win in a row for ETB. The former captain of the Schwarz-Weiß – Losing played for the club between 2008 and 2011 – would have loved to have upset his old club.

Perhaps, as the 45-year-old at least indicated to the “Rheinische Post” newspaper, SV Sonsbeck would have got something out of it – provided the game had been played on a different pitch. “We play in the top amateur league and then we end up playing on an unacceptable artificial pitch. It was just much too small to play proper football. Overall, far too many random products,” Losing criticized the brand-new artificial turf pitch at Uhlenkrug.

ETB coach Damian Apfeld had already described it as a “very special place” before the 2024/2025 season, but not as negative. “Yes, the place probably has the minimum dimensions and is very small. For us, the place should be an advantage. After all, we train on the facility during the week and know the place inside out.”

And Apfeld has been proven right to date. Except for the 3-2 loss on match day 2 to newly promoted SV Biemenhorst, ETB has always left the new artificial turf pitch at the Uhlenkrug as the winner in the three other home games: 3-0 against Büderich, 2-1 against Nettetal, and 3-0 against Sonsbeck.

The next ETB opponents at the Uhlenkrug – Germania Ratingen, 1. FC Kleve, VfB Homberg and TVD Velbert will come before the end of the year – will be warned about the special conditions at the home games of the Essen team.