The GC owners from Los Angeles are cutting off old ties. This does not suit all fans. They want a song back and fear that the club will deny its history in the future.
Disappears from the Letzigrund: The Grasshoppers’ rubber haymaker will go down in history as a relic from Corona times.
Alexandra Wey / Keystone
A week ago, more than just a new season began for the Grasshoppers with their first home game against FC Luzern. “The new era begins,” was the club’s headline in a statement that was released shortly before kick-off. Since then, the waves have been pretty high by GC standards.
The announcement is a somewhat confusing mix of fundamentals and a few planned and already implemented changes to match days at Letzigrund. It is about “the ultimate goal of finally building a stable foundation for a sustainable and successful future” and also about the temporary decoration of supporting pillars “in order to create a nicer ambience”.
The most excitement was caused by the abolition of the club anthem. It is called “Das isch GC” and has been heard for two years. The song is about a GC that no longer exists, the club announced. The office is said to have received around a hundred emails from dissatisfied people. Almost 1,200 people who want to keep the song before the games in Letzigrund signed by Friday. a petition.
The Grasshoppers anthem since 2022.
Youtube
It is not surprising that a piece of music in particular triggers strong reactions. In the stadium, the emotionality of the music is combined with the emotions of football. Music is of course a matter of taste. Anyone who likes the mixture of kitschy lyrics and worn-out rock music between Gölä and the Toten Hosen for the poor can certainly enjoy it. But it is clear that the commissioned composition is miles away from the power of a tradition such as Herbert Grönemeyer’s “Bochum” represents for VfL or the “Hells Bells” bells by AC/DC when the players run onto the Schützenwiese in Winterthur, for example.
The fuss about the stadium music and the right or wrong club anthem as well as Nöggi’s “Nume GC” which has also been abolished could be discussed in as much detail as one likes. But ultimately, the emotional discussions only show that the American GC owners from Los Angeles are trying to figure out in which direction they want to steer the Grasshoppers. Is it the right direction?
Hindered by the past
“GC is afraid of its own size,” the “Tages-Anzeiger” is already speculating, and sees the avoidance of the term “record champions” as a sharp break with the glorious history of the 136-year-old, multi-sport club. “Fear” sounds scary, “fear” is not a good advisor in football. The statement says that GC will “always look back on its glory days with pride.” But now a new era is about to begin: “In recent years, however, the club has lived too much in the past and thereby blocked the way for necessary innovations.”
The new GC management clearly does not want to be blind to history. At the same time, they seem to be asking themselves what the club should do with its historically grown size. That means a balancing act. History, tradition and nostalgia are powerful forces in football. The challenge is how the club can manage these forces.
When the GC owners in Los Angeles founded their club LAFC from nothing, they studied the only club in the city at the time, LA Galaxy, to find out exactly what history and tradition meant in order to find their place in Los Angeles. In Zurich, the conditions are exactly the opposite: Now they want to find out how a club with 27 championship titles and 19 cup victories can find a new place after long years of mismanagement and without a stadium.
GC President Stacy Johns announced this when she took over in January. Johns spoke of the “community” with whom discussions would be held to consider the audience’s ideas and needs. The first changes are now being implemented. Is this a rejection of the old GC?
With humility on the long road back to the top
Not at all. In future, no one will have to feel embarrassed if the stadium speaker no longer shouts “Record champions and record cup winners” before games, as if the stadium was completely sold out and the next title win was just around the corner. Warnings and corners will no longer be presented by fuel cards or medical clinics.
The inflatable rubber hay hopper that the players ran through onto the pitch also ends up in the archive of GC anecdotes. The plastic insect was introduced during the Corona period by the then marketing manager Adrian Fetscherin. Now it has been concluded that it has little to do with football. It can go.
Music, anthems, rubber animals and the volume of the speaker announcements are just the packaging of something called football. Meanwhile, those in charge, including sports director Stephan Schwarz, have indicated that they are not dreamers. Remo Gaugler, an experienced, proven expert, is now heading the youth department. And although the owners are cautious about investing in new players in view of the 14 million franc deficit, the team does not seem to have gotten any worse after narrowly avoiding relegation. They also want to maintain appropriate modesty on the pitch today.
GC coach Marco Schällibaum, once a GC player in successful times, recently made a suggestion in the NZZ about how to deal with GC’s great past: “It’s nice and important to remember history. But today it doesn’t get us any points. What we need today is humility. We know that the road back to the top is long.”
