Daniel Farke valued at Norwich, loved in Lippstadt

It is May 12, 2013, and it has been a good Sunday. The full-time whistle blew some time ago and no more than a fifth of the original crowd remain inside Stadion am Waldschlosschen but they know exactly why they are waiting.

Eventually, Daniel Farke arrives for those 100 or so hardy souls, who have just seen a 5-1 win over struggling Dornberg. He makes sure every extended arm is acknowledged with his own. There is time for a chat. Most importantly, he greets them with a series of synchronised waves to the sound of “Ole!”.

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It is a traditional German victory celebration that, in six years’ time, Norwich City fans will have got to know well.

With Farke at the helm — as head coach and sporting director — amateur side SV Lippstadt are top of German football’s regionalised fifth tier, Oberliga Westfalen, and on their way to a second successive promotion.

This is the same pitch where Farke had made his name as a striker. The same group of supporters he would disappear into as he celebrated his goals: well over 100 of them coming in 300-odd games across three spells and more than six years on the club’s books.

His appointment in 2009 came with Lippstadt at rock bottom. By the summer of 2015, Farke was signing off with Lippstadt in a new 4,250-capacity stadium and with a brighter future ahead both for them and his own career.

With Farke’s 2020-21 Norwich squad preparing for their upcoming Championship campaign just 40km north of Lippstadt, The Athletic paid a visit to the town that is home to 70,000 people and one lifelong affiliation.

“He laid the foundations for all of that here,” says Der Patriot sports editor Frank Lutkehaus. “Everyone would say that. This was his baby.”

“You know Gerd Muller?” Kai Hartelt asks The Athletic, slapping his backside. “His ass would be this way and then he would turn around a strike. This was also Daniel Farke. It was the Gerd Muller move!

“It’s the same with Robert Lewandowski, when he stops the ball. It’s fantastic. He turns and then there is no chance to catch him. That’s how it was, in a smaller way, for Daniel as well.”

Hartelt’s office is sleek and modern. He has a cigarette on the go and his own marketing agency at work outside. He was the equivalent of Lippstadt’s chairman, crucial to Farke’s time in charge of the club and a keen observer of his three spells as a player.

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Lippstadt’s 2011-12 Westfalenliga championship trophy sits in one corner, next to a large soft toy of Count von Count from Sesame Street. There is a lifesize cardboard cutout of German singer and TV star Helene Fischer next to his desk, and Hartelt admits the T-shirt he’s wearing, with the design a mouth biting a bullet, is not ideal for a photo request.

“Daniel would say it is stupid but I’d tell him everything will be all right,” Hartelt smiles.

Farke’s football pedigree came from his grandfather, Franz, who helped Borussia Dortmund win the Oberliga West title in 1952-53. His own playing career never hit those heights but was noteworthy in youth football for scoring 86 of GW Steinhausen under-9s’ 140 goals in 1984.

As an amateur-league striker, he forged his own reputation, playing a part as Lippstadt won promotion to Germany’s fourth tier in 1997-98 and then forming a 40-goal partnership with Markus Klingen at a higher level.

“It was not his motivation to run too fast and not so much,” says Hartelt. Farke once labelled himself as the slowest striker in western Europe. He was also one of the top scorers in his division for several seasons.

“He knew where the goal was,” adds Lutkehaus, who has followed Lippstadt’s fortunes for 25 years. “Every situation, he wanted to make a goal. That was his power. He wasn’t so fast but it didn’t matter. He was very successful.”

Sitting in the corner of Hartelt’s office is Dirk Brokelmann. He has known Farke for more than 20 years, starting as rival strikers and later becoming Farke’s head of recruitment at Lippstadt.

“Daniel wasn’t able to lose on the pitch,” Brokelmann tells The Athletic. “He was passionate. He would be both a player and a coach, even then. He was more a No 9, I was a No 10. But Daniel was definitely the better striker!

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“He was very talented. A really technical player. And when he came in the box, you could say ‘Goal’. He was slow but he was an intelligent player.”

It is sounding unlikely that Farke the player would have been able to press well enough to be signed by Farke the manager. That was certainly the case in his later spells at the club.

Having left Lippstadt in 2003, Farke returned from Bonner SC for the second half of the 2005-06 season. His four goals in 12 games helped lift Lippstadt off the foot of the Oberliga Westfalen and achieve survival. His final spell of six games at the end of 2007-08 was less successful, as Lippstadt fell victim to a restructuring of the German football pyramid. By the summer, Lippstadt were taken down two divisions and contemplating life in the sixth tier.

“When he came back a third time, he was a little bit, er, maybe not in top shape,” laughs Lutkehaus. “But he wanted to help his home club. He said, ‘All right, I will do it’ but it was not the best decision at the time.

“You could see it was very difficult. It was not the Daniel Farke from five years before. But maybe the fact he said he wanted to help was then remembered one or two years later. Maybe there was that special connection.

“As a player, he was very friendly, of course. He always knew what he wanted. You recognise it easily when you talk to him. Everybody liked him. You could see the coach in him already. He was demanding of his team-mates, sometimes captain (in) particular, and shouting at his team-mates.

“He was a leader around the place. An aggressive leader, too. Their Mark van Bommel.”

The point when Farke returned to Lippstadt again to become head coach and sporting director is known as “hour zero”.

There was no money, no income and little opportunity at such a lowly level in 2009. His role as the head coach was only supposed to be until the start of the season, but his first 10 games changed his mind.

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“It was in this office, right here, that I gave Daniel a ring,” Hartelt tells The Athletic. “We had our first talk about where he could imagine to support us. Then I asked him to be the coach and after all, we decided Daniel should be responsible for everything at Lippstadt.

“Daniel professionalised this club. There was nothing. There was no future for the club because there was now not much interest from the spectators, even from the companies, to support the club. There was really nothing. He started with no money. Just to give his help from his heart.

“I knew when I rang Daniel, that he would have a plan. But this plan means you have to follow Daniel in every way. It was not so easy in the beginning to get the other people to agree to it but once we were at the bottom, there was no interest from the others, so I could decide — and I did decide to call Daniel.

“You know what was interesting about Daniel? It was with the players. His relationship to the players. I’ve had many coaches here and I never saw a coach that was so close to the players. He told them a story from his imagination about the club, about the future of the club and the future of the players. That is what separates him from other coaches.”

It worked.

Farke appointed Brokelmann first. Eddie Riemer soon arrived as a defender, and would later become his assistant and follow him to Borussia Dortmund and then Norwich. There is time for a joke about Riemer’s tendency to dribble the ball out from the back, turn around and then dribble back towards goal — known as the “Riemer Pirouette”.

Lippstadt’s 2011-12 record of 87 points and one defeat was the best in Germany’s top six divisions and earned promotion to the fifth tier. At the same time, the club’s youth teams could move into their new performance centre as Lippstadt made roots at Bruchbaum — the potential site of their new stadium. It could have been even better, though. They lost both legs of a play-off against SSVg Velbert, which could have earned them a double promotion.

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Farke signed a three-year contract extension that summer and Lippstadt made up for it with promotion to the fourth tier 12 months later. They also reached the first round proper of the DFB-Pokal (where they lost to Sami Hyypia’s Bayer Leverkusen) and won their district cup for a fifth successive time.

“We celebrated a bit too early in 2012 because we became the champions, then we had the chance to go up two leagues and lost both games,” says Tim Thiemeyer, labelled by Hartelt as a “Lippstadt ultra” who now acts as the supporters’ representative on the club board.

“He (Farke) always tried to keep a bit of distance. He was always a bit more professional than our other managers but that didn’t make him separate for us.”

Victory on the final day of the 2013-14 season would have kept Lippstadt in Regionalliga West. Instead, they lost 2-1 at home to SC Wiedenbruck. His final campaign, 2014-15, fell just short of promotion but did deliver the conclusion of a major project: moving to a new purpose-built ground alongside the club’s academy.

“The importance and necessity of a new, more modern stadium was Daniel’s idea,” Hartelt tells The Athletic. “He not only gave the club such a structure but also included the infrastructure. He showed the sponsors, the authorities and the town clear plans and visions.

“He was the engine. He helped raised the money from businesses and sponsors to bring our new stadium to reality. He was our lighthouse.”

Norwich would have sampled the stadium themselves while in Germany this pre-season had its pitch been ready. Farke asked about the ground’s availability for a friendly with Dynamo Dresden, instead having to settle for a more questionable surface at nearby Delbruck.

“It was like a puzzle,” recalls Lutkehaus. “He had a plan. A future plan with his team — ‘I need this player, that player’. Slowly, the team grows into a really good football team. Really attractive. An aggressive team; lots of offence and many goals at both ends but they scored more!

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“It was not really a miracle but really great success. He was a workaholic but very relaxed. He wanted total control. Everything was for Daniel Farke. They were very good times.”

Hartelt opens a cupboard full of old programmes and clippings, a poster of Lippstadt’s 2011-12 title winners and a nodding figurine of Farke in trademark parka — as is now sold in Norwich’s club shop.

“I noticed when we talked last season that he was disappointed,” he says. “He never talks about the internals of Norwich but it clearly felt too difficult with the team he had.

“There were always some funny stories. Daniel is very (he looks up the word in English) vain!

“There was a special move of Daniel here” — he takes a finger from each hand and uses it to smooth his imaginary locks simultaneously behind his two ears. It is a recognisable Farke habit — “Daniel looks after himself. He always smells very good. Creed. There was only one shop here in Lippstadt where he could buy it! You couldn’t get it anywhere else.

“He has a really nice wife, as well. Susanne. She owns two clothing shops near Bielefeld and is a really powerful woman. You must have a strong wife on your side to do his job. It is not easy. Susanne is that.”

Farke would enjoy the new surroundings of the Bruchbaum stadium for the first half of 2015. The fruits of his labour. And then, it would be over.

A dog barks and the shoppers all seem to notice.

There is a sleepy feel to Lippstadt’s town centre, its picturesque central square and cobbled side streets. It is peaceful under blue skies and even in a post-COVID world, able to convey calm.

You can immediately understand why a transition from this place to Norwich would suit, and appeal to, Farke.

Not that the switch was direct. Farke’s 18 months managing Borussia Dortmund reserves, as David Wagner’s successor, played a key role in his eventual departure from Germany.

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His Lippstadt exit was a more compelling affair.

“He got me in his office. It was always with a coffee. A black coffee,” recalls Hartelt. “It was not so easy for me. I could not imagine this club without him, his staff, Dirk.

“It left me feeling on the floor because it was not just a professional relationship. It was a friendship. It was fun. At this amateur level, it is not money that is the inspiration for doing your job. I never got one euro for my work for this job. Dirk didn’t get so much money; just to cover driving his car or something. It was more with the heart and when you work with the heart, and with Daniel leaving, there is then something that leaves your heart.

“I was disappointed that Daniel left but I had to recognise that after six years, the possibilities here had ended. After three years here, I told Daniel he was so successful, it must be time for the next step but he said he would stay. Then, after five years, he came to me and said he now had to make that next step and I said, ‘No, I don’t like this!’.

“I gave him a hug when it came to goodbye. On the pitch, he got a collage made of 2,000 images. Everyone stood in the middle of the pitch, I said some words and I have to say, when Daniel left, for me it was clear that I had to leave too. That was the point for me to say, ‘Enough’. Never again would it be like it was with his team. It wasn’t just Daniel but everyone. And he was the one able to build it.”

Farke revealed during the preceding winter break he would leave Lippstadt at the end of his contract that summer. He planned to take a 12-month sabbatical but then joined Dortmund in the November.

His Lippstadt send-off that summer off is well-known enough to be sung about by Norwich fans.

Hartelt remains sincerely proud of his likening Farke to Winnetou, a fictional Native American character created by popular 19th-century German author Karl May. Previous promotion parties had already brought Winnetou masks and Native American headdresses. Farke’s final act would be on a grander scale.

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“I was thinking about how to say goodbye,” recalls Hartelt. “Daniel would always tell his players that they were pirates but then I would say they don’t because he looks like Winnetou! I once organised for Daniel to meet Pierre Brice, who played Winnetou in movies and on TV.

“There was also an open stage, where they played the stories with actors, horses and explosions, so I got all those actors to come to his final game and get Daniel on a horse. He is so afraid of horses! But there were all the spectators were there and he did it.”

Cue the Norwich supporters and their song that celebrated their journey to the 2018-19 Championship title: Farke’s on a horse.

“He was scared and he looked it,” laughs Lutkehaus. “Everyone stayed in the stadium that day. It was a big party. He was going to have this break. You could see he was tired and needed the break after six years here. Then he got to Dortmund. I knew it was a good and clever move for him.”

Riemer and Brokelmann also left the club before three months later, the latter was approached to return as sporting director. It is a role he still holds. He speaks to Farke before every game.

Farke’s story at Norwich is well-documented. The football his side plays is familiar to those who saw what he achieved and moulded at Lippstadt.

The club has finally enjoyed a sustained period in Germany’s fourth tier: something Farke could not deliver himself. But there is an acknowledgement that without the foundations he laid, their success in recent years would not have been possible.

Coronavirus’ impact across the football world is also an issue for Lippstadt, as they look for financial help to see them through their continuing spell in the fourth division at a smart and modern stadium, with an academy that is attracting the best talent in the region — sometimes to the annoyance of neighbouring clubs.

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“I remember watching Daniel as a player,” says Thiemeyer. “I was 12 or 13, and we all knew his name. We knew he had played at higher levels before. Then he became the man we all hoped for.”

Farke has only so far returned to Lippstadt to have dinner with Hartelt. A return to his old club on a match-day is yet to materialise but if a Lippstadt supporter did get to walk past him in the street, they would almost certainly give him a hug.

“One last sentence from me,” adds Hartelt. “Daniel was and will be always one of my best friends in life, and that’s very important for me… until he coaches Schalke or Bayern.”

(Photo: Der Patriot)

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