Why Schalke vs Hansa's first half ran beyond the '78th minute', it was a mad game

Schalke’s Bundesliga.2 encounter versus Hansa was still playing the first half some 78 minutes after kick-off. Here’s why.

On Sunday, in a game loaded with incident, Schalke leapfrogged hosts Hansa with a valuable 2-0 win to move eight points clear of the relegation places.

Júnior Brumado's sending-off for Hamsa shortly before half-time defined the outcome of the game, as Schalke went on to dominate the ball, create several chances, and finally claim a comfortable lead through Blendi Idrizi and Kenan Karaman.

While Schalke will be delighted at having secured their second away win of the campaign, the game caught the attention of the wider football world as it was discovered the teams were still playing the first half despite there being over 70 minutes on the clock.

YouTuber and prominent Schalke fan Ciarán Carlin shared a picture of the clock on X, formally Twitter, with the caption: “Don’t know to explain this but this is actually still the first half.”

When pushed to explain the strange quirk, Carlin said: “Game stopped on 38 mins for like almost half an hour due to us and Hansa fans breaking some glass wall between them, and I think shooting fireworks (or something that makes a loud bang at least) at each other.

“Clock kept going, the game resumed, Hansa got a VAR red card immediately and now we’ve got 5 mins injury time haha desperate to score to see the first ever 80th-minute first-half goal.”

The incident reminded us of the longest football match in recorded history - the showdown between Stockport County and Doncaster Rovers at Edgeley Park on March 30, 1946.

The duration of the match was a remarkable three hours and 23 minutes. Having been tied at 2-2 after 90 minutes, the game between the pair went into extra time, but 30 more minutes saw no goals.

Before penalty shootouts were rolled out across the game, among the methods used to decide a winner after a 120-minute stalemate included tossing a coin and, as in this case, 'play to win'.

Doncaster went on to win a replay 4-0.