Bayer 04 coach Dettmar Cramer took a few risks in the 1983/84 season when he went into the new campaign with a 20-year-old, yours truly, and the 18-year-old Andreas Nagel. Neither of us had played in the Bundesliga before. Over the next five years, Andreas mostly sat on the bench. He only made one appearance for the Werkself in the Bundesliga. On 12 October 1985, I had to be substituted after a collision with the Dortmund centre forward Horst Hrubesch on 80 minutes. After carrying on for a few minutes the impaired vision was too much. An eye specialist later diagnosed a bruised eyeball. Andi came on for the last ten minutes to help us secure a 1-1 draw. A week later he made his one and only appearance in goal for a full match in a DFB Pokal tie at SpVgg Plattling and he kept a clean sheet. We went through to the next round after 2-0 win.
Unfortunately, Andi's time at Leverkusen was associated with two nasty injuries. He suffered two broken hands within a short space of time: First in the summer of 1986 and then again immediately after recovering from the first fracture. He was on the bench once or twice in the Bundesliga in the UEFA Cup winning season of 1987/88. At the end of the season he signed for Hannover 96 but only played for the second team there. His last club was FC Gütersloh where he played 87 games in six years.
During his time in Leverkusen, he trained to be an industrial management assistant at the Bayer Works. After retiring he studied business administration and has worked for the DFL for many years, now as the director for sport and youth. He also volunteers on the board of the Robert Enke foundation.
Dear Andi, many happy returns on turning 60. Stay healthy and have a good one.
Michal ‘Katsche’ Kadlec was born in the Czech town of Vyskov on 13 December 1984. At the age of six, he moved to the Pfalz region in Germany with his parents because his father Miroslav accepted an offer from FC Kaiserslautern where he played as a sweeper for the Red Devils for eight years. Katsche learned German in the kindergarten at Kaiserslautern. And he played football at an early age: first as a teenager at SV Alsenborn and then for FC Kaiserslautern.
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Helmut Röhrig was born in Leverkusen on 14.12.19 44. He learned to play football at Bayer 04 and became a Middle Rhine champion with the U19s in 1963 finishing ahead of FC Köln. He played in the second team at the Werkself in his first year in senior football.
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Bernd Schuster was born in Augsburg on 22.12.19 59. His first club as a teenager was local side SV Hammerschmiede. From that time there was an anecdote that a former groundsman told us when we had a Pokal game in Augsburg in 1993. Bernd was always the first person on the training ground after school. With a running track around the pitch and goals without nets, the young Bernd practised free kicks and corners in the knowledge that he had to collect the ball himself. In that way he not only practised his technique but also worked on his stamina as a teenager.
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Wolfgang ‘Wolle’ Rolff was born on 26.12.1959 in Lamstedt, a community in the Lower Saxony administrative district of Cuxhaven. He started his football career at TSV Lamstedt. He moved on to OSC Bremerhaven with the U17s as he trained to be a retail salesman. He started in senior football at the Nordsee Stadium in Bremerhaven.
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The 1969/70 season begins with four defeats for Bayer 04. That puts the team coached by Theo Kirchberg bottom of the table. The Werkself only lift themselves out of the relegation zone on Matchday 10 with a 4-2 away win in Marl-Hüls. The position in the table improves over the course of the season.
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