ZTorsten Grom has a nice anecdote among the yellow lines on the green artificial turf pitch. Ten years ago, when the SG Kelkheim When this field was built about 20 kilometers west of Frankfurt exclusively for the flag football players of the Kelkheim Lizzards, Grom painted them there, next to the white ones on the football field, out of a guilty conscience, as he says: “Because we didn’t even know where to go and how far the whole thing goes.” The yellow lines mark the penalty area for a youth soccer field, and if flag football hadn’t happened in Kelkheim, Germany, the field could have also been used to play soccer.
Grom meant well back then. He thinks a lot about others, in the German association, where he is director of the national teams, and in the club, where he is primarily responsible for the youth, but is also a bit of a man for everything. He was very wrong when he thought about an uncertain future for his sport. Flag football is becoming increasingly popular, in Germany and worldwide. This is particularly clear in Kelkheim, where since the department was founded in 2001, twelve friends who wanted to have fun have become one of the strongest and most established flag football locations in this country with 160 active players, the youngest of whom is six years old and the oldest is 51 is. “A development that we didn’t think was possible,” says Grom. And now flag football is even becoming an Olympic sport.
The post first appeared on www.faz.net
