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Article: As Rostock falls, sun sets in East Bundesliga is a reflection of the German economic divide SOCCER
- Article from:
- International Herald Tribune
- Article date:
- May 17, 2005
- Author:
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Richard Bernstein
International Herald Tribune
05-17-2005
They came draped in scarves that said ''Hansa Forever,'' and as the game began the crowd of 21,000 people lustily sang the team hymn, seeming to linger on the line, ''This is where togetherness counts.''But a kind of pall hung over the stadium over the weekend in this battered North German city, which was the main commercial port of the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. Everybody knew that unless it won by a huge margin against Arminia Bielefeld on Saturday, the hotly loved Hansa Rostock was going to drop out of the first division in the German league.Hansa's descent into the second division would mean that for the first ...