Magpies Head Back To Germany

A little over a year ago and Notts County were in Germany for a pre-season friendly, against the then relegated, MSV Duisburg (from 3. Liga to Regionalliga West), twelve months later, on 9 July 2025, the Magpies will be back in Germany, this time opposing 2. Bundesliga outfit, SV Darmstadt 98, at the Merck-Stadion am Böllenfalltor, as well as FC Kaiserslautern three days later.

Against Duisburg, on 20 July last summer, it would be the Magpies who’d taken a first half lead with Matty Platt netting, before the hosts rallied in the second to seal the win, a one which helped push them forward to winning their league, and return to 3. Liga at the first time of asking.

To the here and now though, and nicknamed ‘Die Lilien’ (The Lilies), Florian Kohfeldt’s side have a long and rich history in German football, one which dates back to the late 1800s and which has seen them play at numerous levels of the German footballing pyramid.

For myself, as Senior Correspondent for the Nottingham Sport, this one is a game which takes on something extra (hopefully the hosts will be streaming live, online); my ancestors, on my grandmother’s paternal line, originate from this very place.

Situated a little over thirty kilometres south of Frankfurt am Main, the largest city of the Hesse region, Darmstadt was home to my 3x Great Grandfather, Henry Churchman (Heinrich Kirschmann, 1841-1902) and family, in the first half of the 1800s, before ending up on Teesside, in the late 1860s, and the early days of the foundation of Middlesbrough.

Henry, with a slight detour along the way, would eventually meet up with his brother, Louis (1839-1893), two years his senior, on Teesside, they being employed as blast furnace workers in a local gasworks – the ancestral line itself can (at present) be traced back another four generations, shy of 400 miles north-west of Darmstadt, to Aldenhoven Julich (west of Cologne and Dortmund, near the German-Belgian/Netherlands border).

Back to SV Darmstadt 98 though; Die Lilien, as mentioned led by Florian Kohfeldt, sees the former Werder Bremen, VfL Wolfsburg, and Eupen (Belgium) manager heading into his second season at the helm, following a transitional first if you will.

There’s a mixture of both youth, and vast experience, amongst the ranks have Darmstadt, led from the back by their veteran defender, and captain, Fabian Holland.

Closing in on 300 appearances, the captain missed all of last season, and the end of the one before, having suffered a torn cruciate ligament and medial ligament injury, in the 1-0 home loss to SC Freiburg, in April 2024, towards the end of their last, Bundesliga sojourn.

Away from their esteemed captain, the experience throughout Kohfeldt’s squad, is of both a German, and European nature; a familiar name for British supporters could well be the striker Fraser Hornby, a former Everton, Reims, and Aberdeen player who is also a former Scottish U21 international, and has been there since the summer of 2023.

Alongside Hornby the club boasts veterans of continental football, with Swedish pairing Isac Lidberg (last in Dutch football with Go Ahead Eagles and Utrecht) and Oscar Vilhelmsson (signed from IFK Göteborg) joined by Montenegrin defender Meldin Drešković (signed from Hungarian side, Debrecen), Serbian Aleksandar Vukotić (spent four seasons in Belgium with Beveren) and Spanish forward Killian Corredor, signed from French Ligue 2 side, Rodez, who has played close to seventy times for the Hesse club.

Home-grown talent is also woven through the fabric of ‘Die Lilien’ with a good half-a-dozen plus players having racked up over a century of appearances apiece, three of whom are double centurions.

Goalkeeper Marcel Schuhen, having spent the first seven years of his playing career turning out for FC Köln, Hansa Rostock, and SV Sandhausen, arrived at the Böllenfalltor in 2019 and, last season, passed the 200-mark for the club; defender Marco Thiede is early in his Darmstadt career having previously spent seven seasons with Karlsruher, as well as ‘one-of-their-own’ in centre-half and vice-captain, Clemens Riedel, and Frankfurt-born midfielder, Othmane El Idrisse.

The last two years of Riedel’s youth career had been with Darmstadt, and he made his senior debut for the club in July 2021; the six-foot-plus central defender is now closing in on 150 appearances.

At the other end of the scale there’s El Idrisse, a Moroccan national, who has been with the club for around four years, having spent three of those, 2021-24, in the clubs’ youth set-up.

Darmstadt have actually played a handful of English clubs during the past few pre-seasons, losing to Norwich City (1-0) and Liverpool (3-1, at Deepdale, home of Preston North End), in the summer of 2023, and winning against Coventry City (2-0), last summer; that Liverpool friendly, the goals from the Reds came via stars, Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, and Luis Diaz.

It’ll be an interesting contest for sure; Darmstadt’s recent history, during the last fifty years has, although seen them yo-yo between divisions, ‘enjoy’ five seasons in the Bundesliga, most recently 2015-17, and 2022/23, whilst nine of the last thirteen have been in the German second tier, where they finished in twelfth place last time around.

For fans travelling to the game, and not staying in Darmstadt itself, Frankfurt am Main is approximately 40-45 minutes away, and just 20 minutes direct on the train from Frankfurt Central Station into Darmstadt (please note, there’s still a bit to travel from the Darmstadt Central Station, to the Böllenfalltor; whilst taking in the game at Kaiserslautern, that comes in at approx. 70mins west of Darmstadt (trains taking upwards of a couple of hours) and the Fritz-Walter Stadion (the game is at their training ground) around 20mins walk from the main station.