Black-Green: Stadium announcer Thomas Wimleitner: “Appreciation is the most important thing”

The 56-year-old Grieskirchen resident’s main job is as an authorized representative at the Bangerl company, and he is also a town councilor in Grieskirchen. His career as a pitch announcer began 30 years ago at SV Grieskirchen. He was discovered there by the Upper Austrian sports reporter legend Wolfgang Bankowsky, who was also working as a stadium announcer in Ried at the time and suggested Wimleitner as a substitute for a game a little later. Today, Wimleitner says with a grin: “You come once to help out and then stay for 20 years!”

He still remembers his first game: “That was August 6, 2004 against Gratkorn.” For several years, Wimleitner was regularly used as a substitute for Wolfgang Puttinger, until he won the job permanently in the summer of 2012. He now has a certain professional routine, but says: “I still have a positive tension before a game.”

Rituals and duties before the game

Wimleitner’s work begins around an hour and a half before the game with a conversation with SVR marketing manager Tim Entenfellner about the game sponsors and other current issues. “Then I go for a walk, and I often have customers with me.” Around half an hour before kick-off, he goes out onto the field for the first time: “You can meet people, coaches and players you know, and chat a bit.”

A fixed point is the conversation with the video wall team and the joint prediction of the number of viewers and the result.

The “official” program begins about 20 minutes before kick-off.

The duties of a pitch announcer include not only reading out the line-ups and announcing goal scorers and substitutions, but also reading out advertisements, some of which have been recorded beforehand, the short conversations with the match sponsors before kick-off, and the talk in the VIP club after the games. During the talk, which has also been attended by team bosses and high-profile politicians, he says it helps that “I am a sales person and have been in contact with customers for 40 years.”

Welcome ball boys and referees

Wimleitner makes it a point to greet the ball children and their supervisors as well as the referees: “Respect is the most important thing for me,” he says. He doesn’t need a guideline on how to behave: “With a certain level of basic politeness, it quickly happens naturally.”

Even though the job is by no means just “two hours of fun,” it is a lot of fun: “I really enjoy it,” says Wimleitner.