Recently, rumors surfaced that the regional league club Sterkrade-Nord is considering a possible withdrawal of its team. Sports director Patrick Hagen comments on this.
Spielvereinigung Sterkrade-Nord are second-last in the table of the Landesliga Niederrhein 2 and have one foot in the Bezirksliga. They are 16 points off the relegation places alone. Accordingly, the team no longer plans to stay in the league.
The Nordlers have had to contend with many injuries throughout the season. Most of these are long-term injuries. The personnel situation reached its peak last Sunday.
In the 2:1 defeat against VfB Speldorf, four players from the old men’s team and one youth player had to fill out the bench. “Two players were also seriously injured again during training. One even had to be taken to hospital by ambulance,” said Nord coach Sercan Baloglu. The premature diagnosis: Achilles tendon rupture.
Baloglu revealed that he had approached sporting director Patrick Hagen in the recent past: “I asked him what the situation would be regarding a possible withdrawal from the game. Many players, myself included, no longer see the reason to continue under these circumstances. How long is that supposed to last? You can’t compensate for the number of long-term injuries.”
Rumors are now circulating that the board will meet on Monday evening (March 25) to discuss, among other things, a possible withdrawal from the national league.
Head of Sport Patrick Hagen confirmed the planned evening, but it would not be about match operations: “Somehow this rumor came up, but that’s not the case. We will play the season to the end – that is the clear decision of the board. There was never any discussion at board level about withdrawing.”
Sporting director Hagen continued: “We are looking from game to game to see how we can put a team on the pitch. It won’t be easy, but I can’t really get on board with withdrawing from the game. There have to be other options and we want to use them.”
He also revealed that “we are already planning for the district league, even if relegation is not yet mathematically certain.” A new sporting director is to be introduced at Sterkrade-Nord later this week. Then the team from Nord will move on for now. On Thursday (March 28), the Spielvereinigung will host league leaders SF Niederwenigern.