Birthday boy of the month III: Markus Feldhoff will be 50

Bayer 04 secured the services of the striker in the summer of 1995. The competition at Leverkusen was massive with Felle, as his Werkself teammates call him, playing 33 Bundesliga games but only making five starts. In his debut for the Black and Reds on matchday one in the 1995/96 season, he scored on 87 minutes, six minutes after coming on, in a 2-1 win at Rostock. He played a total of 77 Bundesliga games for our team and scored 14 goals.

On Sunday, 9 March 1997, Felle enters the history books of Bayer 04. In the 5-2 home win against Bayern Munich, he played in place of the injured forwards Ulf Kirsten and Erik Meijer as a lone striker – and he put the ball in the back of the net three times. He received a standing ovation at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium when he was substituted on 90 minutes. Two weeks later, Felle suffered a torn cruciate injury away to Freiburg and that brought his career to a halt. He did play for several years in the Bundesliga for Borussia Mönchengladbach, VfL Wolfsburg and Energie Cottbus but Markus again and again struggled with injuries. In January 2003, KFC Uerdingen, with their coach Claus-Dieter Wollitz, brought him into the Regional League West. Markus Feldhoff was the top scorer in that league in 2003/04. He followed the coach Wollitz to VfL Osnabrück in the Regional League North and scored 24 goals in 55 games for the Lower Saxony club.

While he was still playing, Markus Feldhoff took up his first coaching position in December 2006 at TV Jahn Hiesfeld. He stopped playing two years later after another knee injury and focused instead on coaching, which he spent mostly as assistant coach at clubs including VfL Osnabrück, Energie Cottbus, Hertha Berlin and Werder Bremen. He is currently assistant coach at VfL Bochum.

Dear Felle, many happy returns on being 50! I wish you all the best and above all good health.