Birthday boy of the month 3: Martin Kree turns 60

He played the last games of the season from the start, scoring or rather hammering his first Bundesliga goal past me from a free kick and he then signed his first professional contract. Over the next five years the left footer became an important part of the Bochum 'Unrelegateables'. Bochum even reached the DFB Pokal final in Berlin in 1988 but lost 1-0 to Eintracht Frankfurt. Following the 1988/89 season, VfL Bochum, as every year, had to sell a player to keep their licence. Several Bundesliga clubs were interested in Kree. He opted for a move to Leverkusen, immediately became a first choice and he went on to make 156 Bundesliga appearances for the Werkself. He scored 22 goals including eleven from the penalty spot.

During his time under the Bayer Cross, the TV broadcaster RTL, who then had the rights to the Bundesliga, ran a competition amongst Bundesliga players to find the player with the hardest shot. Martin Kree was the winner by a large margin over the other players with a speed of 137 kmph. He subsequently even achieved a speed over 140 kmph. From then on Martin was the man with the powerful left foot and was often reduced to the man with the hammer shot. In fact he was a fair, ball-winning and strong in the air central defender who was never shown a red card in his 441 Bundesliga appearances. Martin won the DFB Pokal with the Werkself in 1993. In the following season, coach Dragoslav Stepanovic started an argument with him for some inexplicable reason when he demanded that Martin move from Bochum to Leverkusen. But Martin, who never arrived late at training, refused the flats offered by the club, only played 18 times in that season and did not extend his contract at Bayer 04. He said he had no desire to play under a coach who didn't like him.

He joined Borussia Dortmund in 1994. In spite of the stiff competition he was often in the starting line-up and with BVB he was a champion of Germany in 1995 and 1996, won the Champions League and the World Club Cup in 1997. In 1999, after a year without a Bundesliga game, he ended his successful playing career at the age of 33.

After a couple of years at a marketing firm, Martin branched out on his own in 2004 and worked with the company New Horizons and the RhineRuhr Academy in the training, further education and retraining sector. The current focus here is on IT, process, project and time management.

Dear Martin, I wish you a happy 60th birthday. Stay healthy and have a great day.