The U23 of FC Schalke 04 lost 2:5 against 1. FC Bocholt. Towards the end of the game, all spectators had to leave the stadium due to a severe weather warning.

Sportingly, the match in the Regionalliga West between the U23 of FC Schalke 04 and 1. FC Bocholt (2:5) had long been decided, when in the 89th minute the warning alarm of the Parkstadion made itself felt.

Immediately, the stadium announcer announced that all spectators in the Parkstadion had to leave the stadium grounds. 730 fans had turned up for the opening game of the regional league, a good 300 of them from Westmünsterland. And while heavy rain started almost simultaneously just a few seconds later and the first lightning strikes could be heard in the area, about 50 supporters from Bocholt refused to leave the grounds.

Despite repeated requests from the security personnel, they simply stayed in the park stadium and followed the game to the end. And that lasted for almost six minutes. Because although, for example, in the abandoned match between S04 II and Preußen Münster last season, the game was interrupted after the warning message, referee Ivan Mrkalj decided not to interrupt the game but to play it to the end. With 90 seconds left in the game, perhaps an understandable decision.

But why he allowed more than four minutes to be added on at a score of 5:2 for Bocholt will probably remain his secret. After all, he was also playing with the health of the players entrusted to him.

The reason for the warning message was a thunderstorm that occurred around the stadium. This activated the thunderstorm warning app. “The warning app counts strikes in the range of five to ten kilometers,” Schalke’s former security officer Martin Krahe told RevierSport on the occasion of the Münster game. “After that, the system is triggered – or not. If something is triggered again in this time of 20 minutes, it updates itself and calculates down from 20 minutes again. “