THE CORNERSTONE OF JAKARTA EXPAT FOOTBALL

Forty years ago a group of Jakarta based Germans got together to form the first expat football franchise in Indonesia. The year was 1964 and England were two years away from taking the World Cup off the Germans by a score of 4-2 in overtime with a controversial Geoff Hurst hat-trick and a goal that most certainly never was according to Germany but a sure-fire hammer according to England! Whew, what an opening!

Anyway, 1964….! That was the year I was born. It was also the year Real Madrid won it’s XXX European Club Championship with Di Stefano and Ference Puskas. It was the Year of the Dragon in China and the year that the Soviet Union launched another three men into space. The cold war was on but in Jakarta, some Germans were busy planning. Now, forty years later the successors of those originals are still playing competitively in the JIFL Ex-Patriot league. To date over 1,000 players have been registered as players with the German team over the past four decades.

What I love about the German club is their uniforms. They traditionally wear a kit identical to their current national team. It’s brilliant. Another given with the Germans is that they always provide stiff competition and you can never take them lightly. This year they got to the final of the biggest six-a-side tournament in Indonesia meeting the almighty Wanderers in the final, only to go down 4-0 – an outstanding achievement. This season they finished 5th in the league and reached the semi-finals of the JIFL Cup.

German Plus has won the JIFL League four times already in its eleven season history. They have won the JIFL Cup XXX times and the Knudde six-a-side on XXX occasions. Truly they are stalwarts of the local soccer scene, a credit to football in Jakarta, and true ambassadors of the game.

They boast the oldest player currently in the league, Dieter Cramer (57 years young), and traditionally have always encouraged the development of youngsters. Dieter sons are currently in training and hope to join the club in the next couple of years or so. It’s something of a German tradition for sons to follow in their father’s footsteps and play for the club a generation later. Some go onto college, returning to play in their beloved national team kit some years later. This has been going on for well over two decades now and is a testament to the organization, both of the German club founders and current manager, Peter ‘Howie’ Hinsh of Danzas. This type of dedication is what has made them the most respected club in the league. Something else that few people in Jakarta know is that the club regularly makes large contributions to the local community. This includes a business loan scheme for Indonesian members, allowing the recipients to set up small businesses in their local villages that benefit their fellow villagers as well as the individuals. The Germans are a cornerstone of Jakarta football and much appreciated in our league and beyond (though we don’t tell them).

Dale Mulholland is (formerly one of the great footballers of all time and a former member of German Plus 1998-2000) a current double League Champion with the Wanderers, double Knudde Six-a-Side Champion with the Wanderers, and soon to be double JIFL Cup Champion with the Wanderers as well. And he is the head coach of the ESE FC ‘Youngsters’ who also compete in the same league as the Wanderers and the German Plus.