In that year, when his ten years older brother Werner ended his football career at the age of 28 and started working for Bayer AG, Hemmi, as his teammates called him, stepped up to the first-team. He made 215 appearances between 1964 and 1972 and scored 16 goals. As a centre half, today comparable with a holding midfielder, he played a big part in the success of the 1960s. Out of the blue, Helmut Röhrig won the Regional League West title with Bayer 04 in 1968. The club was on the verge of making it to the Bundesliga but the Werkself lost out to Kickers Offenbach.
For the 1972/73 season, Hemmi moved on to VfR Heilbronn in the Regional League South. With that club he achieved promotion to Bundesliga 2 South. But Heilbronn were relegated after a season. Hemmi was the team captain and he only played 18 games in that season due to a knee injury that saw him spend half the season in the stands. After another year and missing out on going back up, he moved on to SV Neckargerach at the age of 31 before ending his career a couple years later at SpVgg Frankenbach.
Helmut, who still lives in Heilbronn, went on to coach after his playing career at SV Neckargerach, VfR Heilbronn, SpVgg Frankenbach, SG Bad Wimpfen and Union Böckingen.
Dear Hemmi, I wish you many happy returns on your 80th birthday! Have a good one and stay fit and healthy.
Minas Hantzidis was born on 4 July 1966 in Kettwig, near Essen, and he grew up in Germany. He developed a passion for football at a young age and, whilst still a youth player, moved from Wuppertaler SV to Bayer 04. The attacking and goal-scoring midfielder then made a name for himself in his first senior season at Bayer 04. In the reserve team, he scored goal after goal in the first half of the season, soon began training with the first team and was brought on as a substitute for the first time by manager Erich Ribbeck on 22 November 1985 in a home match against Bayern Munich.
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Sascha was born on 3 July 1986 in Leverkusen. He is the son of former Bundesliga 2 player Manfred Dum, who mainly scored goals for Union Solingen but also played for FC Saarbrücken, SC Freiburg and Wuppertaler SV. Sascha started playing for the youth teams at HSV Langenfeld at an early age. There, he caught the eye of scouts from Bayer 04 and joined the club at a young age. Following a growth spurt in the U15 team, which forced him to take a nine-month break, the left-footed player finally had the ideal conditions to establish himself in the Bayer 04 youth ranks. Even as an U17 player, he made the leap into the U19 team. Blessed with immense pace, Sascha primarily played in attacking midfield. Not the most technically gifted, but possessing a powerful shot, he found himself training with the first team in the summer of 2005 alongside Gonzalo Castro, while he was still a U19 player.
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The Werkself could not have hoped for a better start to the Bundesliga 2 North season in 1976/77. At the end of a week-long training camp in Quickborn, Schleswig-Holstein, coach Willibert Kremer’s side secured two convincing victories over BSC Brunsbüttel (5–0) and TuS Holstein Quickborn (6–0). Following this flying start, Bayer 04 faced a considerably tougher challenge on 23 July 1976 at 19:30 CEST at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against Bundesliga side Karlsruher SC.
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On 27 June 2001, new head coach Klaus Toppmöller and his assistant Peter Hermann led the Werkself out of the changing rooms for their first training session. Joining them as they stepped onto the pitch at training ground 1 were the four new signings: Hans Jörg Butt, Yildiray Bastürk (with special permission from VfL Bochum, as Bayer 04 and VfL had not yet agreed on a transfer fee), Zoltan Sebescen and Michael Zepek, the record holder for appearances for the youth national team.
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Hans Sarpei was born on 28 June 1976 in Tema, Ghana, and came to Germany with his parents at the age of three, where he grew up in Cologne. Even before he was born, his mother and father worked in Hamburg in the import-export sector. There they met an older man who introduced them to German culture and supported them. Out of gratitude, Hans was later given his first name, although this man died before he was born. Hans comes from a sporting family; his older brother Edward and his nephews Hans Nunoo Sarpei and Kingsley Sarpei were or are also professional footballers.
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