The Storks will work closely with the largest soccer club of Kiel’s sister city San Francisco
It is finally official: Wolfgang Schwenke, Commercial Manger of the KSV, and Mike McNeill, his counterpart at USL League Two club the San Francisco Glens, have signed a cooperation agreement in Kiel’s sister city on the Pacific Ocean. And they wasted no time putting matters into action by bringing along two youth coaches of the German 2nd league club to hold a three-day football camp at the Glens.
The KSV on the US West Coast: even Mark Chandler, who is responsible for international trade and commerce at San Francisco’s City Hall, jumped at the opportunity to welcome the Storks. The KSV delegation led by Schwenke had previously been welcomed at the German Consulate General on the Pacific coast. More than 50 guests followed the invitation of Consul Hans-Ulrich Südbeck, including German companies from the Silicon Valley, Irish Consul General Robert O’Driscoll, former Bundesliga professional and Earthquakes player Florian Jungwirth (Darmstadt 98), and Uwe Wanger (Head of Kiel City Marketing), who offered the city a typical Northern German beach chair on behalf of the City of Kiel.
At the soccer camp, Riecks and Glawogger trained a few of the more than 1,000 youth players, who wore the club’s cloverleaf crest. “The lads showed a lot of passion, and we all had a great time,” recounts Glawogger, who was promoted to the Bundesliga last season with his U19 team. The KSV had brought along stylish T-shirts for the Glen youth players, which were presented in the presence of Patrick Heinz (Deputy Consul General) and Mark Farrell. The former mayor of San Francisco – who has roots in the greater Kiel region– is considered the founding father of the twinning agreement. “This is a great day for us,” said Farrell, whose mother Lena was born in Bendfeld, a small village near Kiel. “We have worked on this partnership for five years, and today we are welcoming the representatives of our sister city. The entire German community in San Francisco is delighted. And it’s just the beginning.”
The Storks delegation also used the 12-day trip to visit the Silicon Valley, where they met Jeremy Gunn (Stanford University head coach), among others. While on the world’s largest campus they got a first-hand look of how soccer is organized at Stanford and how top athletic performance is further promoted. Also on the program was a visit to the impressive training facilities, which have previously been used by Jürgen Klopp’s FC Liverpool for a winter training camp. Tennis star John McEnroe and golf icon Tiger Woods are just two of Stanford’s many well-known alumni.
Before visiting the university, the Storks – whose trip was sponsored by KSV partners Puma, Wacken Foundation, and Denker & Wulf – got the jet lag out of their legs by training at fitness startup Vasper in the Silicon Valley.
