Not many people have heard of Rotenburg/Wumme, but that is all about to change thanks to the footballers of Trinidad and Tobago.
Caribbean rhythms will provide a change from the usual peace and quiet when the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ hopefuls arrive to establish their headquarters in the Saxon town. And if the inhabitants seem to be wandering around with dazed smiles on their faces, it might just be that Rotenburg has caught a dose of FIFA World Cup fever. So much for the notion of 'cool northerners'.
Rotenburg is a small town of 23,000 inhabitants located in Lower Saxony between Hamburg and Bremen, and Trinidad and Tobago have chosen to make it their base for the tournament, staying at the stylish Wachtelhof Country House Hotel and training in the neat surroundings of the Ahe stadium.
It was in February 2003 that Rotenburg took the first step towards welcoming the FIFA World Cup to town, when the civic authorities agreed to hand over their stadium to the Organising Committee (OC) for the finals. The municipal sports facility enjoys an idyllic location on the leafy edge of town and attracts plenty of visitors, including Bayern Munich, who have twice stayed for pre-season training.
The German Football Association (DFB) staged a senior women's international against China here in 1995, returning eight years later for a U-19 women's international between Germany and Canada. With this pedigree, it is perhaps not such a surprise that Leo Beenhakker and his men chose this corner of northern Germany as their home for the finals.
Rotenburg had been pushing for some involvement in the tournament and it became one of the first 40 municipalities to agree a deal with the OC. Following that initial success, the local authorities then set up a FIFA World Cup working party charged with planning special events and activities related to the tournament.
The working group met once a week to mull over new ideas and put flesh onto the bones of the programme. "We wondered what we could do to become better known - to take the initiative or wait and see? We chose to take the initiative," recreation department spokesman Reinhard Ludemann tells FIFAworldcup.com.
Football-crazy northerners
The Rotenburgers have not been lacking in ideas. Sponsors distributed 2,000 balls to youngsters. Bakers sold their wares in bags printed with the slogan 'Rotenburg summons the footballing world'. And the team behind hit movie The Miracle of Bern came to visit.
But they did not stop there. The northerners unveiled the biggest wooden football in the world, after flooring specialist Dieter Grosse's resolve to play a part in the effort to attract the FIFA World Cup culminated in the idea of the extraordinary ball. Even Bundesliga giants Werder Bremen indicated an interest in the project. "It was a way of showing we're crazy about football," Ludemann grins.
"And we've succeeded, as what we've done has certainly attracted attention. A garage even donated a car to the working group. Our World Cup motor is a blaze of colour. We call it Punch and Judy on wheels."
Few would doubt Rotenburg's claim to a special passion for the game and they are certainly mad about Trinidad and Tobago. "Once we heard Trinidad and Tobago were definitely coming, the place went wild," Ludemann says. T&T coach Beenhakker called at the Wachtelhof on 4 December last year to check out the hotel and the sports facility with its four grass pitches.
The Dutchman duly approved a reservation for the 38 rooms even before the Final Draw was made. The locals repaid the compliment, parading Trinidadian flags through the town before arriving at the Town Hall, where the flags of all 32 participating nations decorate the mayoral balcony.
Good spirits and TV exposure
Many Trinidadians believe in the existence of a spirit world, including a spirit named Jumbieno, believed to be the team's 12th man and guarantor of victory. Consequently, in a show of support for the Soca Warriors, the good burghers of Rotenburg have founded the Wümme-Jumbies supporters club. T-shirts will be produced and the Jumbies intend to lay on a fantastic reception for their new-found heroes. What can possibly go wrong, with so much support from Jumbieno and the Wümme-Jumbies?
Rotenburg has also been attracting television crews. A local car showroom made two vehicles available to Triphop, a Trinidadian TV show, for a tour around Germany to shoot six 30-minute programmes providing a guide to key German cities, titled We Reach.
Dortmund, Nuremberg, Kaiserslautern, Cologne and Frankfurt took up five of the episodes - and thanks to good contacts with the German embassy in Port of Spain, the authorities in Rotenburg succeeded in persuading the TV production company to make the town their sixth 'World Cup city'. The case was clearly persuasive: the TV crews made Rotenburg their first port of call on arrival from the Caribbean.
The three group matches involving Trinidad and Tobago are guaranteed to generate an incredible atmosphere and not just in the stadiums where the Soca Warriors will play - not if the inhabitants of Rotenburg have anything to do with it. Soon enough, the world will know all about this vibrant corner of Lower Saxony.