'Cursed' amateur German club mourns deaths

A German sports club is mourning the deaths of two amateur sportsmen who suffered heart attacks on successive days, leaving team-mates wondering if the club is cursed.

Last Wednesday, 24-year-old footballer Hannes Rumpker suffered a heart attack while training with his local team in the north-west German town of Edewecht, near Bremen, and later died in hospital.

The club, VfL Edewecht, called off a regional league match out of respect.

Then on Thursday, Arne Hobbie, 33, who played for and ran the club's basketball team, Edewecht Wattworms, also suffered a heart attack while training.

He was revived by emergency services, but later died in hospital.

Like the grieving footballers before them, the mourning basketball team also called off a key match, which would have decided promotion.

The tiny town of Edewecht, which has a population of 21,000, is in shock.

"For us, the whole thing is still completely surreal," Hobbie's team-mate Henning von Aschwege told regional newspaper Nordwest Zeitung.

"After the death of Hannes, it's like a curse is hanging over us."

Club official Ute Meinen added: "We have never experienced such a thing before.

"We do not really know how to deal with the situation."