Friday evening – floodlights – 49,000 stadium visitors – SOLD OUT. Never before has one of our campaigns taken place in front of so many spectators. Perfect conditions for a top-class match between Hannover 96 and Schalke 04, as well as for our next matchday campaign, which was carried out as part of the nationwide “Day of Invisible Disabilities.”
In the run-up to the match, 96-fan Sina, daughter of someone affected by ME/CFS, and Anna from our organizing team visited the podcast “Vorwärts nach weit”. Additionally, 96-fan Meike, a long-time visitor of the North Stand and ME/CFS sufferer, was interviewed on the club’s homepage. On matchday itself, the organizing team was supported by five volunteers from Hannover and Essen, from the Lost Voices Foundation, and by Thomas Wheeler from “Deutschlandfunk Kultur”.
We set up am information booth in front of the stadium with our posters. There, we engaged in conversations with many fans and some international guests about ME/CFS in the hours before the kickoff. We were also able to collect donations for the ME/CFS Research Foundation and for our further campaigns. During the pre-match program, our awareness video and parts from the interview with Meike were shown on the video screens. Furthermore, a member of the organizing team was interviewed on the coaching bench about our engagement and ways to support us – absolutely goosebump-inducing moments.
We were particularly impressed by the awareness team “Das Ufer”. They were very friendly, interested, and appreciative toward us. We were provided with water, tea, and coffee. Beyond that, we would like to thank the Fan Project Hannover, Juri Geddert (CSR Manager for Corporate Responsibility and Project Work), “Rote Kurve” for the donations from sales of the “Sticker Mix” bags, our volunteers, the podcast “Vorwärts nach weit”, Thomas Wheeler from “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” for the media coverage of the Awareness Matchday, as well as all fans who encouraged us in various ways, donated, and contributed to making the campaign day a success. A very special thank you goes to Sina and Maike, who shared their personal experiences in advance during media appearances. Because of that, many fans were well informed about our Awareness Matchday and have shown much interest for our topic.
We’re already looking forward to our next campaigns. If you’d like to organize similar campaigns at your club and have contacts, please feel free to get in touch with us.
