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03/18/2010

Just as religious affiliations and political preferences can be passed on through the generations, so too can allegiance to certain sports clubs. If your father, mother and your grandparents support Manchester United, then there's a good chance you will too. If you happen to be born in Hanover, Germany, you'll likely have a lifetime of Hanover 96 games ahead of you.

This week a local hospital in the city launched a cunning plan to connect infants and families with the Hanover's professional football team. One delivery room at Friederikenstift Hospital has been decorated in Hanover 96's colors. The suite's carpet is striped black, white and green; white and green curtains line the windows; black and green stripes are painted on the walls. Even the power sockets are green. A few fan club souvenirs -- small soccer balls, socks, flags and even a framed picture of the team -- are scattered around the room.

A Registered Fan, Three Minutes After Birth

The hospital's midwives organized the decoration, and they say that the idea came from colleagues who had previously worked at a hospital in Osnabrück, where a similar facility had been available since 2004. Around 154 of the 1,600 babies born at the hospital since have been delivered amid the purple and white team colors of VFL Osnabrück.

In Hanover, the city's team has worked since last autumn with the hospital to launch the football suite. But Hanover 96's ties with Friederikenstift Hospital go well beyond the maternity ward. The team's players are provided treatment by staff doctors, and the hospital's chief physician, Helmut Lill, has been Hanover 96's head doctor since December.

Part of the inspiration for the suite came from an incident in 2006 when a football-crazed father registered his newborn son Mika as a fan of Hanover 96 just 17 minute after his birth, making him the youngest member. Since then, other families have competed to break that record. Hanover 96's youngest fan club member joined just three minutes after being born.

'We Would Like to See Our Stadium Full'

At a press conference held Wednesday for the opening of the special delivery room, the football club's management expressed enthusiasm over the newly decorated facility. Club president Martin Kind said the idea was an "excellent marketing tool," and that he hoped for life-long dedication from the club's newborn fans. "With this idea, we are hoping to see the birth rate rise and to get a few more fans," Kind told the German news agency DDP, referring to the country's demographics problem. "We want to motivate children to enjoy football from an early age and, of course, we would also like to see our stadium full."

If they choose, parents using the Hanover 96 room they can sign their newborn up for a free year's membership in the club and receive a free green and white romper suit emblazoned with the team's logo.

But the decorations are not supposed to be overwhelming. As a spokesperson for the hospital told Germany's DDP news agency, the football fan room "is just a part of what the natal clinic offers ... a sweetener for parents, but nothing more."

A Sweetener or an Intrusion?

Two years ago, football club Werder Bremen had to cancel plans for a similar delivery room makeover. There was criticism that the suite would be an intrusion on the private experience of giving birth. In Hanover, though, Rainer Reimann a Friederikenstift director and Protestant pastor, told DDP he didn't have a problem with the themed room. "Physical activity is something we should encourage early on," he noted. But, he added, "we won't overdo it."

So far, Hanover parents don't seem to mind either. Local couple Kerstin Grönemeyer and Peter Keller, who had their son Ben at the Friederikenstift on March 2, told DDP that, although they liked the idea of the themed delivery room, it wasn't something that had a lot of bearing on their choice of birthing clinic. "Everything is so stressful, you don't really think about things like that," Grönemeyer said. It was "purely a minor consideration." Nonetheless, the couple, who are Hanover 96 fans and who occasionally attend games at the stadium, were happy to accept the romper suit and the year's free membership on behalf of Ben.

Since then, the Hanover 96 room has seen 10 new fans -- almost a whole football team -- arrive in the world.