Sanwald in the “sportstudio”: FCH’s medium-sized success story

One of these little stories dates back almost three decades, and without Sanwald’s hands-on style, the other stories might never have existed.

In 1995, Sanwald helped the club avoid relegation in the national league. Around 150 spectators came to the games back then. Behind today’s main stand there was a small petting zoo with sheep and goats, a “wildlife park”, as Sanwald put it. It was a time when the department head at the time no longer wanted to carry out her duties. Sanwald spoke to a few colleagues and took over.

But every Bundesliga game is logically something special, said Sanwald on Saturday during his appearance in the current sports studio.

He recently read something about an allegedly gray everyday life in the Bundesliga for Heidenheim before Chelsea came. “It’s not like that at all. Every Bundesliga match day is a celebration day for Heidenheim. And that’s how it is for Chelsea,” said Sanwald.

To understand the Heidenheim phenomenon, it is helpful to take Sanwald’s look back at his first years as department head. After studying economics in Augsburg, he started working for an energy company in 2000, parallel to his club activities.

There he discovered the many file folders with a four-digit number of commercial customers from the region. Sanwald recognized potential for the association in the many medium-sized companies. Today more than 550 sponsors from the region support 1. FC Heidenheim.

The club has now become a medium-sized company itself. Many of Sanwald’s first colleagues are still there. Like chief scout Peter Baamann, with whom Sanwald played together in the C youth team in Heidenheim.

During the week, Baamann, like his son Dennis, works at the Heidenheim-based company Voith, which is also the namesake of the small arena with its 15,000 seats on the Schlossberg.

From Friday to Sunday, father and son Baamann scout for FCH in the second and third leagues as well as a bit in the regional league and in Austria and Switzerland. A student has recently joined the scouting department, said Sanwald, and that’s all that’s needed.

These family structures also fit into the picture of this rather different Bundesliga club, where Sanwald once signed defender Frank Schmidt for the association league before he took over as coach after being promoted to the top league as a player in 2007 and continued his journey with four further promotions to the Bundesliga Bundesliga shaped.

And even if Chelsea comes to Heidenheim on Thursday for the biggest game in the club’s history for 1. FC, one thing is certain for Sanwald:

They just know where they come from and how many small stories were necessary for the big picture of their success story. And also how much down-to-earthness.

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