Players and staff call Werder fans over 70

Philipp Bargfrede asked how the fans were over the phone (Photo: W.DE).
First Team
Wednesday, 08.04.2020 / 13:45

“My name is Philipp Bargfrede from SV Werder Bremen, and I would like to ask you how you are, and if we can support you in your daily life in any way?”. It is a sentence generally followed by amazement, and a couple seconds need to pass for the other person to realize they’re on the line with a professional footballer. But it isn’t just the players who are calling the over-70s, but rather the whole club takes part. In addition to their regular day-to-day tasks, sporting directors Frank Baumann, Klaus Filbry and Hubertus Hess-Grunewald take an active role, as does Werder’s chairman Marco Bode.

“The measures to prevent the quick spread of the coronavirus hit the whole population hard, but it is especially difficult for the elderly, who are generally weaker and alone. The idea came from our employees and it is great to see how quickly it has been implemented,” explained Dr. Hubertus Hess-Grunewald.

 

Dr. Hubertus Hess-Grunewald also took part (Photo: WERDER.DE).

The rewards of the job are some little anecdotes. Marco Bode spoke to a fan who had been supporting since 1965. Philipp Bargfrede spoke to a friend in the community. Marco Friedl’s is sometimes hung up on because they think it is a late April Fool’s joke. But everything works smoothly. The campaign met with 100% approval.  “In my calls, I found that the people are very grateful and are happy just to be asked if they need our support,” Said Dr. Hess-Grunewald.

Werder Bremen has about 1,800 ticket members and supporters over the age of 70. More than 1000 of them are local to the Bremen area. “We specifically want to find those who are having problems so we can help solve them. Most of them are fine, and are being looked after by their families or by the neighbourhood. But if there are people in need, we might be able to locate them, and help them directly or indirectly, which fulfils the purpose of our campaign,” explains Henrik Oesau from Werder’s CSR department, which handles all of this information. “Discussions with the Bremen Volunteer Agency and the Bremen Neighbourhood Aid networks have shown that many people apply to help out, but it’s difficult to get to those in need. With this campaign we are trying to overcome this challenge.”

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