Anubis Gelsenkirchen (D)

Gelsenkirchen

Name origin

Gelstenkerken (Middle High German, = church by the settlers)

First documented mention

1150 AD

Population

262,000

Area

104.94 km²

Federal state

Nordrhein-Westfalen

Administrative region

Münster

District

/

Vehicle registration

GE

River

Emscher

The Club Anubis is located in Gelsenkirchen-Beckhausen.

Well-known people born in Gelsenkirchen include Fritz Szepan, Ernst Kuzorra, Norbert Nigbur, Rüdiger Abramczik, Volker Abramczik, Olaf Thon, Manuel Neuer, Mesut Özil, İlkay Gündoğan and Ulrich Potofski. That's practically nothing but footballers - and that seems to say quite a lot about this mates'-town. Gelsenkirchen is home to the little working-class bloke who has practically nothing on his mind but Schalke 04 and who fills his flat with sideboards and cabinets financed by hard-earned cash - mostly bulky, usually curved and high-gloss veneered with fine wood, more or less tastelessly ornamented pieces that people ironically, if not disparagingly, call "Gelsenkirchener Barock". Whether it's "Aus der Tiefe des Raumes", "Fußball ist unser Leben", "Solino", "Der Prinz von Wanne-Eickel", "Kleine Haie", "Johnny Flash" or "00 Schneider" - whenever a film is made that's supposed to convey Ruhrpott flair, it's Gelsenkirchen's backdrop that gets chosen, where the chimneys still properly "belch smoke".

All of that, though, reflects at best the state of the 1950s and no longer has much to do with the Gelsenkirchen of today. Like everywhere else, the city has moved on and now pulses to modern rhythms. Sure, FC Schalke 04 is still the city's big brand, but if you look at the current squad, you'll notice that practically no player on the team is actually born in Gelsenkirchen anymore - unthinkable in the old days. The great traditional club from the Ruhr area - currently the third-largest German sports club by membership and fifth-largest worldwide - has had to reinvent itself and is today more brand than home.

The undisputedly most legendary German football club (Westfalia), Schalke 04, comes directly out of the miners' milieu. Things once ran hot on Schalke and thereabouts: from the early to mid-20th century up until roughly the 1960s, Gelsenkirchen was Europe's number-one coal-mining location. The church settlement "Gelstenkerken", first documented around 1150 - presumably an offshoot of the parent deanery in neighbouring Essen - was sparsely populated and a completely insignificant place until around the year 1800. Then came the discovery of "black gold" - coal - the railway connection and Friedrich Grillo with his "Schalker Gruben- und Hüttenverein" and the "Aktiengesellschaft für Chemische Industrie", and the city's meteoric rise began. Dozens of collieries sprang up and coking plants shaped the cityscape. From the mid-19th century onwards, the cheap labour required was brought in from Poland and Prussia, from Posen and Silesia, and in the last boom phase of the 1950s from southern Europe. In this melting point that is the Ruhr area, it was here in Gelsenkirchen in particular that the mates'-mentality so typical of the Ruhrpott developed.

The decline of the mining industry has of course hit Gelsenkirchen hard. In the most recently published Zukunftsatlas 2016, the city ranks dead last among German big cities out of 400 German districts and independent cities, even behind Herne, Oberhausen and Duisburg. But that's no reason to paint a bleak picture. Gelsenkirchen is still home to major industrial companies such as BP, E.ON and Gelsenwasser. The modernisation of the city's infrastructure for the 2006 World Cup also achieved a great deal. The city is also gearing up for the future as a location for the solar industry. And - who would have thought it - with a 35% share of parks, forests and agricultural land, Gelsenkirchen is among the cities with an above-average proportion of green space. That certainly offers plenty of opportunity to relax at leisure spots like the ZOOM-Erlebniswelt, Schloss Berge or in the Nordpark, Heßler, Nienhausen and Hoheward landscape parks. Reason enough for a hearty "Glückauf, Gelsenkirchen".