Lamphun Warriors invite students to the stadium and onto the training pitch
When children are standing in the tunnel, the heavens open their floodgates and still nobody wants to go home, then it must be about something special. That is exactly how it was on 6 November in the stadium of the Lamphun Warriors. Two days later, the professionals then held a professional training camp with the students of the CDSC.
From the stands into the players’ tunnel
The participants of the football camp were invited to the Warriors’ match against Sukhothai FC. But that was not all: from Lamphun came the offer that children of the CDSC could accompany the two teams onto the pitch as player escorts. There were 22 places, and the club determined the selection: the children should be as small and as young as possible.
In the end, 30 students travelled along, buses for transporting the CDSC camp children were provided by the organisers, and in addition many parents travelled privately in order to be there for this special event. The Warriors rolled out the red carpet for the group. The school got the best seats in the stadium, directly above the halfway line, plus a specially cordoned-off area.
And then came the rain
In CMAC/CDSC outfits, the 22 player escorts were already standing in the tunnel when the referee team came round the corner to inspect the pitch. At exactly that moment, a cloudburst came down such as even the locals do not experience every day. Within a quarter of an hour, the pitch was ankle-deep under water in places.
In the tunnel, nobody let this spoil their mood. The children had long been chatting with “their” professionals. Defender Christian Ilic was amazed: “Hey, my escort kid speaks German.” A German-speaking teammate countered drily: “Mine too. Apparently all of them here.”
The match was not called off. First it was 30 minutes’ delay, then 60, while the pitch was cleared of water in a rather adventurous way. Then the time had come: the children walked out, only a light drizzle was still falling. For every single one of them, this moment was an absolute highlight, and Max put it in a nutshell: “This is the highlight of my football career.”
After the final whistle, there was one more extra. The children were allowed into the inner area of the stadium, where the players were celebrated by their fans according to Thai tradition. And each of them got the personal autograph of their favourite player.
The camp day
On Sunday, 8 November, things started punctually at 9 a.m. 35 students had come, divided by the camp management into groups of similar ability. Six stations awaited them, two of them supervised by the professionals Dominik Schad and Jonas Schwabe. The two had also taken over the warm-up beforehand and at the end supervised the two “Big Matches” running in parallel.
At the end, it got exciting: in a football boccia challenge, two jerseys and a ball were raffled off, signed by all players of the Lamphun Warriors. During the group photo, the mood was excellent, and afterwards the professionals signed countless more T-shirts and jerseys.
How well the camp was received was shown by the question Yuna asked at the end: “When is the next time?”
A big thank you
The school’s thanks go first and foremost to Dominik Schad and Jonas Schwabe, who sacrificed their day off for the children. A very special thank you goes to Warriors coach Dennis Amato. He donated one of the jerseys and held together the entire communication between the school and the professionals.
Beaming organisers
Anyone who saw Martin Brinkmann and Frank Goede after the two days needed no words to know how they were feeling: the two organisers of the CDSC were beaming as if competing with each other.
“When I look into the children’s eyes, all the effort was worth it. More than worth it,” said Brinkmann, visibly moved.
Goede was also enthusiastic: “The CDSC children behaved really wonderfully throughout and represented our school excellently. We can be really proud of that.”
