Season 2019-41 was another big success for Lokomotive Bryggen. Along the way, they managed to beat the defending German champions, Klovn IF at home with 3 goals to 2, and in the end the Bryggen’s point total stood at 41 – 9 points clear of relegation. Bryggen finished the season as number 144 on the world rankings – its highest place ever.

Two new faces joined Bryggen Arena this season. The club paid 7.2M for Canadian left winger Darius Hobbs to replace Marcus Grauslund, while Dane Jonas Truelsen (bought for 5M as a developing player a couple of seasons ago) replaced Weisskeit at left back. Marcus Grauslund will be remembered by the fans for a very long time. 295 goals in 503 matches are two records that will probably stand for many, many seasons. Head Coach Sepp Piontek on Grauslund: “He is a living club legend already. Er hat unbelievable big einfluss on our team gehabt. We will miss him a lot, and it says a lot about Grauslund, that we had to pay a club record 7.2M to replace him”

The financial statement of season 2019-41 shows a minus of 3.6M. The negative result is a consequence of upgrading Bryggen Arena to the tune of 14.5M. Club owner Ai-Pwn Yu: “The pitch was beginning to get worn out. We have had an extraordinary amount of injures because of that, so we choose to get a brand new lawn installed. That set us back 4.5M but we are very happy with the result. At the same time, we got a good deal on an expansion of our Southeast and Southwest stands. For 10M we now got seating for an additionally 6.8K fans, so that Bryggen Arena in total has room for 38K people”

It can come as no surprise that Lokomotive Bryggen’s goal for the 2019-42 season is avoiding relegation, as that has been the goal for every Bundesliga season so far. As always, we can’t really find four teams that Bryggen should be able to finish ahead, but the team has surprised us before, and we are looking forward to the season. Best of luck, Bryggen!