Stories: The Grammingers
Lars and Sven Bender retire from professional football this summer. But they are not the only pair of twins in the history of Bayer 04. Karl and Martin Gramminger joined Leverkusen from Fortuna Düsseldorf in 1958.
Karl, the nimble, powerful centre forward; Martin, the midfield dynamo. Both were in the team for the opening fixture at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium on 2 August 1958 – in a match against their former club Fortuna Düsseldorf. Sadly. they were unable to help Bayer 04 gain promotion to the Oberliga West in their three years at the club. Karl made 65 appearances and scored 21 goals, Martin wore the Werkself shirt for 79 games and found the back of the net nine times.
Legendary and no longer imaginable today is the football spectacular from their Fortuna days on 6 November 1954 at the Rheinstadion in front of 25,000 spectators that proved to be amazing and definitely contributed to the twins becoming legends: Düsseldorf were at home to Schalke 04 on matchday 10. The game ended with a 7-2 scoreline and the goalscorers for Fortuna in the match reports only had one name: four times Martin, three times Karl.
Unfortunately they were not so successful at Leverkusen and the twins hung up their boots in 1961. Martin moved south to Swabia. After serious illness he passed away at the age of 83 on 22 July 2010. Karl remained in the West and lived in Neuss until he passed away on 14 July 2015.
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