Monday, September 12, 2011

Bringing football to Germany

On the Singapore-Munich flight I watched Der ganz grosse Traum.
I highly recommend the movie. It considers the story of a German school for boys in the 1870's after a new English teacher arrives and introduces the boys to football. The movie is based on the true story of Konrad Koch (who only has a Wikipedia page in German)

Issues of nationalism, the goals of education, parental authority, and social equity are explored. An unsympathetic (and perhaps too one dimensional?) picture is given of German society and education in that period.

I did not know any of the background history. e.g, that football was still banned in schools in Bavaria until 1927.

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