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In his first international he suffered a serious knee injury that kept him on the sidelines for months. Nevertheless, he stayed under the Bayer Cross, played for the reserve team and was employed at the Bayer Works. Based on his good performances in the following years he was recommended for the first team by the reserve coach Gerd Kentschke at the start of 1987. In his first training session with the first team he caught his studs in the grass and broke his foot.
The second attempt came six months later. First team central defender Alois Reinhardt was ruled out and Erich Seckler played his first Bundesliga match – at the age of 24. On 17 October 1987, he marked his opponent Stefan Kuntz out of the game in the home match against Bayer 05 Uerdingen. Erich made his European debut four days later in the UEFA Cup in Toulouse. There he faced the France international Dominique Rocheteau. He also completed that task brilliantly and became a regular starter for the Werkself.
Erich impressed with his battling qualities. His approach to the game spared neither himself nor his opponents. He always went in hard and sometimes took the opponent with the ball. When he won possession he mostly quickly laid the ball off to a teammate. Erich fought his way into the hearts of the Bayer 04 fans with his honest approach to football, winning the UEFA Cup with the Werkself in 1988 and he clocked up a total of 106 appearances for Bayer 04 with three goals scored.
After twelve years under the Bayer Cross he moved to the capital to play for Hertha Berlin. But he was forced to end his playing career at the age of 30 due to serious back problems. He returned to his hometown and worked as an almoner and as a landscape gardener. He is now the caretaker at a primary school in Düsseldorf.
Dear Erich, I wish you many happy returns on your 60th birthday. Stay healthy and have a good one.
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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