The color of the seat shells in the modernized Lohrheide Stadium continues to cause discussion. SGW fans have now written an open letter to the city of Bochum.
The Lohrheidestadion, home to the top division soccer club SG Wattenscheid 09, is currently being modernized. Not primarily for the footballers; after completion in 2025, the main aim is to provide a top-level athletics facility for training and competitions.
Over 30 million euros will be spent on the stadium alone – the entire renovation of the site will cost almost 55 million euros. There were protests from SGW fans around the Wattenscheid team’s Oberliga home game last weekend against SF Siegen (0:3).
The reason: the looming blue seating, the colors of rival VfL Bochum. One poster read: “Don’t take it to extremes – no blue seats in the Lohrheide.”
A few days later, the fan groups and fan clubs of SG 09 Wattenscheid sent an open letter to the city of Bochum. The letter emphasizes that most events in the stadium will continue to take place with Wattenscheid participation in the future
The fans are aware that the modernization is not for soccer. Nevertheless, some sympathy is expected, the letter states with regard to the wishes of the athletes: “The blue color request for the tartan track is unattractive in our eyes, but acceptable. After all, these are the club colors of TV01 and the tartan track is used by the track and field athletes and not by the soccer club. Where our understanding ends, however, is when large parts of the seating shells are also to be kept in blue, as was recently shown in pictures of the converted stadium and published in the WAZ. It was certainly foreseeable that this would not go down well with the supporters of SG 09 Wattenscheid and VfL Bochum, whose relationship has always been tense, and we would have liked there to have been coordination between the city, our club and its supporters in advance.”
Hence the supporters’ clear demand: “We, the supporters of SG 09 Wattenscheid, are therefore clearly calling on the city of Bochum to reject the choice of blue for the seats in the rebuilt Lohreide Stadium and instead, as before, to use a neutral color. No club using the stadium now or in the future should be favored in this respect. As is so often the case, supporters of the sports community feel ignored and not taken seriously when decisions are made by the town hall. The fact is, however, that it is a taboo for the black and white fan scene to dress their own home ground in these colors and we will not accept this so easily!”