AThe great reverence can also be seen in the last greeting of the twelve remaining hockey gold medal winners from 1972: “It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our friend and coach of the German national hockey team, to whom we owe our Olympic victory in Munich in 1972.”
Werner Delmes was the first “goldsmith” in German hockey, long before Paul Lissek (1992) or Markus Weise (2004, 2008, 2012). He passed away at the age of 91. They will remember him, especially in September, when the surviving members of the Olympic team gather for their annual reunion. The bond that Delmes tied still holds 50 years later.
Delmes had won the bronze medal as a player in Melbourne in 1956. When the lawyer was elected sports director of the German Hockey Association in 1969, that also included responsibility for the national team in training and personnel decisions – and that on an honorary basis. The position of full-time national coach did not yet exist, but the man from Cologne filled it out anyway. Inspired by the idea of ending Asian dominance at the Olympic Games in Munich. Only India and Pakistan had ever won gold.
Germany won the European Championship for the first time in 1970, but even more than the continental title, another triumph earlier in the year had reinforced belief that the Olympic coup was possible. Germany was the first European team to win a national tournament on Asian soil. And the self-taught Delmes, who was not a trained trainer, apparently knew exactly what was needed to form a unit from a group of talented, but also sometimes idiosyncratic characters and personalities.
The team met a week before the Olympics on Sylt, the players of the two-part Bundesliga became a conspiratorial bunch with a lot of football and long community evenings. A team building measure, although the word for it had not yet been invented.
In the end everything came together. After a 2-1 win in the group stage, Germany also defeated Pakistan 1-0 in the final. Mission accomplished, Delmes resigned at its peak. Thanks to the days of Munich, hockey became known to a broad public for the first time. The newly created position of national coach was taken over by Delmes’ assistant Klaus Kleiter and stayed until 1990. And just as remarkable as the historical success is the fact that the team has preserved this experience with regular meetings in autumn. Unfortunately, the boss can no longer hold the speech this time.
