Brunner Bullies Vienna / Edelweiss Earn Gritty Win / Mighty Monks
Observations & Opinions
From Harold Abrahams – Special Correspondent for TSS
And from Zino Stiles-Johnson and Thill Brenner – Correspondents for TSS
Chur, Switzerland – By Harold Abrahams – Special Correspondent for TSS
TSS was founded in 1873 with the sole purpose of writing about a new sport that had been created in Austria and which had attracted significant support for the first two teams – the Klagenfurt Lindwyrms and Villach Tirolerhuts – and many others that were forming, in concentric rings outward, from those first creators of the game. The original office of TSS was in an old bakery two miles west of Klagenfurt, and one of TSS’ early writers, Hansel Straum, a self-described “corpulent man,” wrote often of the distracting, lingering aroma of bread that was part of the old structure.
Straum’s yearning for baked goods is not my point here. Rather, as TSS celebrates Season 154 of the Austrian League, it continues to value its ties to the Meadow Game almost from its first match, a link and affection our publication honors by sending writers and photographers to every match during Week Eight that involves any of the Original Eight teams. This week, for example, my colleague Zino Stiles–Johnson visits the Old Meadow in Klagenfurt while Thill Brenner journeys to Kitzbühel to see the Tyrol League–leading Hahnenkamms on the Heuwiese – their old “Hayfield.”
I took a train (bless Europe eternally for its train system) on Thursday, January 1 – Happy 2026, dear Readers – to Chur, a marvelous town of 36,000 in eastern Switzerland, where the hometown Winemakers awaited their Saturday match against the second–oldest team in the world. Walking around steep, hilly Chur challenges this old reporter’s legs and lungs, but I was buoyed as Huts fans poured off the trains or set up caravans at campgrounds, filled pubs and restaurants, and hailed each other in the City Center, many in their traditional green–and–gold colors – scarves and replica jerseys and hats and cozy hooded sweatshirts on these cold days.
The Winemakers had an indifferent first seven matches, achieving a 3—4—0 record through fits and starts. The Huts had likewise been inconsistent, but a 20—13 win over the current Meadow Cup holders from Lucerne in Week 7 had Villach Captain Frank Hofferan seeing a cohesion to the team that wasn’t present in last summer’s tournament nor in the opening matches since November.
Over a hot meal on Friday, Hofferan and Farmhand Wald Koppensteiner (Villach’s leading scorer this season) caught me up on their results so far and speculated on their prospects to earn promotion back into the Tyrol League.
“Remember,” Hofferan spoke with conviction, “The Huts are a young team this year. Wald is 30, and I’m about 75,” he joked, knowing his status as a respected elder and beloved figure across all the towns that play Wiesespiel. “So, those first matches, those kids played with a ferocious energy; Jonas Kollek is going to be a great player, and he and Wald were scoring at will, and we roared out to a 3—0—0 record. We’re going to be 18—0—0, I thought.” Hofferan punctuated this joke with a long visit to his beer mug.
Koppensteiner continued. “So, we and the Black Eagles have 9 points, we’re a +21. And Frank and Urie [Manager Urie Stoll] are saying, ‘whoa, everyone, there are seams in our midfield and defense … smart teams are going to figure us out.”
And opponents did just that, starting in Week 4: 11–point home loss to a hot Spittal team … 10–point home loss to Interlaken … 16–point road loss in Zermatt.
“The loss to the Eagles was embarrassing. So we drew back last week to two true Locks – and we brought in Jan Hamerling at Schliessman and young – I mean, I have to help the kid tie his shoes – young Jakob Resselberg as a Gate. But, like Jonas, these boys have passion. They grew up dreaming of pulling on a Villach shirt and lining up for the greatest franchise in the AL.” At this boast, Koppensteiner and Hofferan clinked glasses. “They played their hearts out last Saturday. A 20—13 win at home is routine, yes, but I am unaccountably excited about where this trio of newcomers can help us go as they develop. They are a spine – a Gate, a Lock, and a Forward – at a combined age of about 54. Hofferan paid for lunch, leaving the kind of tip that explains why he has won three Kernan and two Waldmüller Medals.
“Mr. Abrahams,” Hofferan put his hand on my shoulder as we walked into the cold Friday afternoon. “You watch. Those lads can play. Villach is good this season – but they represent a very promising future.”
Two hours after we’d entered the friendly restaurant, we left, and I realized, for the 50th or so time, that Frank Hofferan had, through his easy and generous conversation, done all my work for me, provided all the insight I sought, answered all the questions I had not even had to ask.
And a day later, Hofferan seemed the prophet as the Tirolerhuts beat Chur 23—18. Kollek ran like a young colt, scoring two skots, one during which he displayed a speed that stunned the Chur Gates, who were unable to force him to the boundary as he angled for a 3-pointer. His 7 points speak to his pace and instinct. That he didn’t have 9 points speaks to his errant kicking, which must be corrected. Hamerling played well, though his Winemaker counter–part, Wing Levian Risch, out–foxed him during several mid–field duels. But Resselberg is a powerful tackler and enforcer on the Gate line, and by the middle of the 43, many of the Chur players seemed reluctant to lower their shoulder and plough into the 17–year old Huts defender.
Matterhorn (–5) and Villach (–4) are on 15 points, tied with a Vaduz team that has, with its +20, been more impressive, and they all trail Spittal, who, at 7—1—0 and 21 points, boast the highest +/- margin – at 73 – across all Six Leagues.
So, on this weekend when TSS features the Original 8 teams, two of those are in a fight to promote to the Tyrol League. The Schuhplattlers look the part. I can’t predict that Villach will edge out the Diplomats and the Black Eagles, but, if the three young Js – Jonas, Jan and Jakob – mature and flourish, then some of Hofferan’s wishes may come true.
Klagenfurt, Austria – By Zino Stiles-Johnson – Correspondent for TSS
When I was 12, my parents took our family to Bordeaux, France. My father wished to be knowledgeable about fine wines … so off we went, where we found perfectly maintained vineyards, wandered through adorable markets offering exquisite wines with fresh-from-the-farm meals for next to nothing, and met actual connoisseurs (sorry, dad) discussing that year’s crop, and so forth. That place lives and breathes … wine. That is wine country. And that’s wonderful for them.
But, oh, give me Klagenfurt during 8/8 Week! This – the birthplace of the Meadow Game – is Wiesespiel Country! Here, I can wander through adorable markets and talk to lifelong fans of the team. In that stall is a new black and red banner I’ve never seen before: it features all the patches (with an occasional change in a font or in the dimensions of the Dragon) of the ten times Klagenfurt has raised the Tyrol Cup. I can sit and eat my fresh-from-the-farm lunch and listen to AL Connoisseurs discuss local matters – should Erich Oennegger stay in tight as a Lock or use his speed as a marauding Wing? – and broader concerns – can Lackner get healthy and keep ahead of Brunner for the Klammer this year …? I can stroll with my photographer – the great Clyde McIntosh of Edinburgh, Scotland – to check in on old Duke Bernhard and see that dragon – that Wyrm – that has been menacing this town for centuries.
And then, as game time nears, I can fall in with the Wyrm faithful and head down to those same hallowed acres where, on September 2, 1872, Max Steinwender – you may have heard of him (he sort of invented the game and is universally regarded as its greatest player) – and his mates horsed around with some chaps from a nearby town – Villach – and started mapping out a game to be played that mimicked a harvest – getting goods from one end of the meadow to another rapidly. Given that there were 10 or 12 men from each village, and that young men tend to be competitive, soon the two sets of fellows were discovering a game as they ran, wrestled and fought each other to see who could get that gourd or that pumpkin past the opponents. Evening was falling, and the men from Villach had miles to go, so they departed.
But for the men from Klagenfurt, the evening was only beginning. Steinwender led the others to the Three Shepherds Pub, where they ate and drank and composed a Charter to form a team that would hope to find other towns and villages who could learn this new game (whose rules they would refine over the next month or so) … and play them in it. Heinz Rauter, a relative scholar among these tough farmers, millers, blacksmiths and brewers, wrote the document out and drew a replica of the Dragon in the Town Center and wrote ‘the Klagenfurt Lindwyrms’ underneath the 15 names – Max Steinwender, Simon Pirker, Nik Kogler, and more – of men who’d eagerly promised to represent their town against all comers.
One hundred and fifty-four years later, Simon Pirker’s 8th-generation descendant, Allie Wurter – Center and Captain – led his team onto the field to face Ebensee. The Salters do not lack tradition of their own (the battle for Lot’s Cup makes Ebensee versus Bad Ischl one of the AL’s great rivalries), but on 8/8 Weekend, in the town where the Meadow Game was created, it was decreed that the Dragons would win – must win.
That the game was a 25—24 classic decided in the final 90 seconds was just more bounty poured on this reporter and, more importantly, the 11,000 fans by the Wiesespiel deities, ensconced high in the Alps, dispensing fortune as they see fit. With the Salters leading 24—22 and fans urging, pleading with their heroes to somehow win this match, Wurter and Gate Gerd Roare, looking like a tree stump one would not want to run into, jarred the ball free from their Wing, Xavian Strobl, and Wyrms Center Jonathan Kasper advanced the ball to Stefan Richter, whose angled run beat several chasing Salters into the 3 and that precious 1-point lead. A minute later, the home team was celebrating a 4th win in a row, a 6—2—0 record, and a tie for first with Innsbruck on 18 points.
The supporters’ cheers must have carried for miles. By the time Clyde and I had returned to the Neuer Platz, hundreds of fans were dancing in front of Town Hall and Duke Karast, having defeated the wily Lindwyrm this Saturday in their endless war, was wearing eight or ten long team scarves while the stone beast was festooned, for the millionth time, with garlands. Somewhere, Max Steinwender and his mates were smiling. That ‘somewhere’ is a place I like to call “Wiesespiel Country.”
Kitzbühel, Austria – By Thill Brenner – Correspondent for TSS
A common route for the Triskelions to take from the south German town of Füssen to the snowy Alps of Kitzbühel heads south and east to Innsbruck, from where it redirects slightly north and east before passing through Schwaz and Brixlegg, ultimately arriving near the base of the hill where ends the annual Hahnenkamm ski races in Kitzbühel. Along the way, the Three Legs would have noticed the Meadows of the Downhillers (1st place in the Wheat League), the Silvers (1st place in the Farm League), and the Coppers (1st place in the Harvest League). One would count them happy, even blessed, to not be playing any of that group whose combined record reads 15-5-1 (and would improve to 17-5-2 my nightfall). However, their date this Saturday was with the undefeated Tyrol frontrunners, winners of 5 in a row and possessors of two of top six scorers in the league, so any sense of joy and relief was lost somewhere amongst the turns and tolls of the Austrian byways.
On the Meadow, the ominous scenery that had dotted the journey of the Triskelions proved prescient. Up against the best team in Wiesespiel (through two months, at least), Füssen might as well have been skiing up the Kitzbühel Alps as trying to cross the Tor line defended by ‘Kamm Gates Armindl Fasching, Richy Aigner, and Daniel Herzog. When a coach maps out a defensive scheme, the intent is to leverage the strengths of his Locks and Gates while disguising and concealing the gaps and seams that might prove a weak spot. And regardless of the calibre of defenders, the full breadth of the Meadow is virtually impossible to seal off. But someone forgot to tell that to our three heroes noted above. I checked – each of these men stands no taller than 6’3”, with only two arms and two hands. And no invisible wall was constructed before the teams took the field. But Kitzbühel did not want Füssen to score, and score they did not. Sure, they did ultimately manage 2 skots, but when trailing 18-1 with less than 5 minutes to play, those 6 points might better be used in next week’s attempt to end this losing skid than in narrowing a gap that was much wider than a few digits could convey.
Lest we spend all our time bemoaning the untidy and ill-equipped efforts of the visitors, let’s not forget the deftness and fidelity displayed by the yet-unscathed Hahnenkamms. Their 4 skots, in each of their first four possessions, exhausted their opponents and expired the first 40. Those in attendance might have come to the conclusion that first year Manager Helmut Mair had plans to be elsewhere for the 43 and so intended to secure the outcome before the break. Indeed, his boys appeared to be in maintenance mode after the intermission, leading 18-0 and content to scurry and shuffle across the Meadow with one eye on Füssen and one eye on the clock.
I wrote last week that time was not a luxury that Füssen Manager Dirk Klennig had in his efforts to right the wrongs that have kept his club each week on the wrong side of the ledger. Now, losers of five consecutive and firmly planted in last place with the midpoint of the season just days away (and having just scored fewer than 8 points for the seventh time), the Triskelions are approaching straits more dire with each passing day. I speak for all of us here at TSS when I wish nothing but the best for the Legs.
PLAYER of the WEEK:
Abrahams: Ozi Mannheim / Schliessman – Zurich. No team needed a victory this week more than did the Zurich Tirggel, languishing as they were in a tie for 10th place with Füssen. After the finish they produced last season and the high hopes in the Cookies’ camp this summer, their 1—6—0 record and weakness on offense have been a shock. On Saturday, in Grenoble, under heavy, low clouds, Zurich faced an almost–equally underwhelming Gantiers team. Mannheim, the current holder of the Thaler Medal, willed the Tirggel to a gritty 10—8 victory, playing Wing when the Swiss team had the ball and dropping back as a traditional Lock when Henri Tissier and Masson Brunet were attacking. He embodied both tasks with zest – running in a 4 and a 3 and adding a kick for 8 of Zurich’s 10 points, and throwing himself sacrificially at the French Farmhands again and again. No one helped more to deliver his team a victory during Week 8.
Stiles–Johnson: Allie Wurter / Gate – Klagenfurt. I am staying right here in the Capital of Carinthia for my Player of the Week. It is not sentiment, on this weekend of TSS’s sentimental celebration of the Original 8, that explains this choice. Instead, it is Wurter’s captaincy of the Lindwyrms during their 25—24 win over Ebensee, his urgent tackle that loosed the ball and led immediately to Stefan Richter’s winning skot. And, lo and behold, it is his scoring! Wurter, as disciplined a central Gate as one will find, scored two skots, including one from only two yards out when the ball squirted free from a welter of arms and legs; the Dragons’ Captain was first to the ball and across the line just as the 40 bell sounded. In a match in which every tackle, kick, run and point was contested, Wurter’s contributions were foremost.
Brenner: Eliot Nydegger / Gate – Lucerne. One would not ordinarily be drawn to a match between a pair of 2-5-0 teams that shared the bottom of the Alpine League expecting to find a player of the week. And, upon the match’s conclusion, a 3-3 final score might reinforce that presumption. But had that skeptic observed all that Nydegger did in defending the line against the attacks of the Lederhosen, the effort he put forth, even in the 83rd minute, to limit the Hose to three kicks (the missed attempt early after the half appeared to even be affected by Ny), he would no doubt stand with me in celebrating every tackle he made and every block he avoided as he bolstered a defense that knew quickly in the 40 that their offense was going to be limited. It’s a shame an effort like that isn’t worth a point or so.
ONE FINAL NOTE:
Abrahams: While I dined with Wald Koppensteiner and Frank Hofferan, Tomas and Gerda Krause, two loyal Huts fans from Stuttgart, Germany, visited our table and offered to buy dinner for the three of us. While the two athletes gracefully declined, they did insist that the couple join us. Gerda was born in Villach and, she joked, would marry Tomas (18 years ago) only if he swore eternal allegiance to her hometown team. A newcomer to Wiesespiel, he fell for the game and agreed to support his beloved’s squad, and they have managed to see the Tirolerhuts play three or four times a season ever since; this trip to Chur, they said, was an anniversary celebration.
They begged to tell Koppensteiner and Hofferan one special story. They had reserved the second week of September, 2024 for their vacation, reserved rooms in Aggsbach, and saw every match of that year’s 63s. In the final, the Huts defeated the defending champion and host White Canons, smashing the Monks 26–12.
“It was the thrill of a lifetime to watch you all win the Shield,” Gerda beamed as she and Tomas took turns recalling moments from the Tirolerhuts’ march through the annual O8 tournament.
Hofferan, the team’s Captain since 2015, was on the field for the 2024 championship, and also for each of Villach’s wins as they swept the 63s from 2013–2018 (the longest such streak ever), including the legendary 2016 “73” final, when the Huts, after ten minutes of extra time, finally broke an 8—8 tie that had stood since the 21st minute to defeat Salzburg 9—8. Despite these countless wins and memories rolling around in his head, he too reveled in the Krause’s tale and enjoyment of his team’s exploits.
They all clinked glasses as they exulted in the 20—16 semi–final victory over Klagenfurt in 2024, and Hofferan, his eyes twinkling, informed the Krauses that I had grown up a Wyrms devotee. Under the circumstances, I said, I decided that I ought to pay for the next round.
By the time Tomas and Gerda returned to their own table for dessert and coffee, Hofferan, under the cover of using the washroom, had paid for the Krause’s anniversary dinner.
Stiles–Johnson: Week Eight …! Time to update the Top Ten Scorers in the Tyrol League as we near the halfway point of Season 154. As is usual, heavy weather has slowed scoring marginally, and, more predictably, defenses have configured themselves to resist their foe’s most prolific scorers, concentrating Gates and Locks on them and inviting those opponents to funnel the ball to players not named Brunner, Lackner, Binder or the like.
Speaking of the Field Mouse, all fans across central Europe had to be pleased to see Paul Lackner return to action on Saturday … all fans other than those of the Cortina Riflers, that is. During Lackner’s absence of a match-and-a-half due to an ankle knock, Claus Binder and Leonhard Brunner both surpassed his season total, but in an important 13—6 win in Italy, Lackner’s dominance was enough to nudge him back to the top spot in a very narrow race.
Brenner: Rarely a week goes by, whether during the season, in the midst of the Meadow Classic, or on one of the few weekends when Wiesespiel isn’t being played, that I don’t draw up the gorgeous table that records that previous Tyrol Cup champions. Even though the writers of the TSS have documented well over the past century and a half the glories and struggles that have filled so many Meadows, for me, just looking at the list of teams, a list that stretches on and back, captures my heart and soul with wonderment. Every time, for example, I see Austria listed beside each champion for each of those first 16 seasons, my mind pictures the boys celebrating in pubs that to this day still host many of their fans, proud that they kept the Cup “home” and, to speculate, a might relieved that the Cup was not relocated on their watch.
And what was it like at the dawn of a new century when Vaduz captured their only Tyrol and brought it back home to tiny Liechtenstein?
Reading the names of the giants and the challengers, or recalling their exquisite, perfect, simple uniforms (made easier by so few changes having occurred to them throughout the decades), is itself like flipping through the annals kept below at our offices here. After Austria won 16 of the first 17 Cups, four countries were represented in the 1890s, five in the 1900s, four in the 1910s, and five in the 1920s. And so it continues to this day. Austria, with the most teams, winning the most titles. But, Switzerland broke through in the decades of the 1930s, 1970s, and 2000s. Likewise, France was dominant during the 1980s, as was Germany in the 1990s. And none of us can forget 1969, when Innsbruck won its 6th Cup which enabled Austria to match the 3 championships of Italy and Switzerland in the 1960s. Pick a year, pick a decade, pick a country. Pick a team. It’s all here – the Austrian League, the Tyrol Cup … Wiesespiel. May its final note never be written.