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Wiesbaden Tennis and Hockey Club (WTHC)

The Wiesbadener Tennis- und Hockey-Club (WTHC), founded in 1905 through the merger of the "Wiesbadener Hockey-Club" with the "Wolrose-Hockey-Club", is one of the largest and best-known clubs in Wiesbaden. Its sports facilities in the Nero Valley were built by the city in 1928 and have been continuously expanded ever since, most recently in 2015/16. As tennis was also played at the club, the name was changed to "Wiesbadener Tennis- und Hockey-Club" in 1927.

Until 1927, the WTHC hosted international tennis tournaments on the flower meadow in the Kurpark and later in the Nero Valley. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, it also drew national attention to Wiesbaden by hosting major field hockey and tennis tournaments. Even the world's tennis elite played in the Nero Valley, most notably Otto Froitzheim and Gottfried Freiherr von Cramm as well as Lennart Bergelin, who later became Björn Borg's coach.

In the winter of 1949/50, the WTHC field hockey players "invented" the first rules for indoor field hockey. The former president of the WTHC and chairman of the Hessian Hockey Association, Richard Kettenbach, played a major role in the breakthrough of indoor field hockey. In the mid-1950s, the International Hockey Federation recognized indoor field hockey as an independent sport and based its rules on Wiesbaden's ideas. Germany developed into the leading nation in indoor field hockey, not least thanks to Wiesbaden's pioneering spirit - men and women won a large number of the world and European championships to date.

Today (2016), the club is characterized in particular by its good youth work, in which the later national coach Paul Lissek also worked in the early 1970s and which today is significantly shaped by Rosi Blöcher, who not only actively played field hockey herself until old age, but also works tirelessly for the next generation and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2002. Her son, Stefan Blöcher, played in the national league, became German and European champion, vice world champion and won two Olympic silver medals.

In 2015, the WTHC fielded 14 adult and 11 youth teams in tennis and 3 adult and 18 youth teams in field hockey.

Literature

Schäcker, Hanns-Erhard (Ed.): 100 Jahre Wiesbadener Tennis- und Hockey-Club e.V. 1905-2005. Wiesbadener Tennis- und Hockey-Club e.V. (Ed.), Wiesbaden 2005.

Reference

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Explanations and notes