In times when football professionals didn’t hatch every word together with PR professionals, things happened that brought the officials into serious distress – especially when they only found out about the mess later. As in this inglorious story of the young professional Michael Rummenigge.
The little brother of the great national player Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was allowed to play for the first time in Bayern dress at the age of 19 on the last day of the 1982/83 season. And he did it so surprisingly well that the following year he was even able to show viewers his best goal smile eleven times on television. The quick success turned the son of a simple worker from Lippstadt into an aspiring young star, who liked to present himself to the public off the green lawn in a neat double-breasted suit with a flowered tie – or dressed in white tennis socks sitting in his black car. In short: everything went smoothly – until that one day in the spring of 1984.
At that time, a WDR team shot a report on “The Brother of the Star”. Michael Rummenigge had previously been told that he should just be the way he always is. And in order to get a comprehensive picture of his life as a young hopeful at FC Bayern, the film team not only accompanied Rummenigge privately, but also to his public appointments. And it finally happened at one of those performances for a sponsor.
The March of the Unemployed
To anticipate the end: On the evening of the first TV broadcast, on a cloudy November day, a group called “Teamwork Unemployed ’84” set out in a protest march from the Heiligkreuz rectory in Munich in front of the Villa Rummenigges in Grünwald. As a result, grotesque scenes played out. A spokesman for the demonstration called the smart star of the documentary the “boy with the eggshell behind his ears”. The association with the then very popular, clumsy, little black cartoon chick from Japan, who wore half an egg shell on his head, was obvious: “Calimero, with sombrero, chick from Palermo, you are our great hero.”
But the angry crowd didn’t feel like singing. The unemployed threw away their tickets and threatened further consequences. FC Bayern was in an uproar and had to have a VHS cassette of the film sent from Cologne in a hurry. None of the senior men had watched the documentary live. However, what they then saw together in front of the television set is still just as legendary as it is spectacular almost 40 years later.
On the occasion of a telephone campaign by a sponsor at the Hanover Fair, Michael Rummenigge spoke to a locksmith at the other end of the line in a comfortably furnished living room ambience. The man was obviously angry – but unfortunately you could only understand him very, very unclearly. The words of the young soccer pro in the usual outfit of the Wall Street banker, on the other hand, rang all the louder in the ears of the spectators. Rummenigge looked into the camera with wide-open eyes: “We have a free market economy and don’t live in the GDR. Everyone has to know for themselves what they are doing with their market value. You take what you can get!”
“That Stupid Saying”
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary anecdote treasure chest. for ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his page www.scudetto.de.
The voice of the man on the other end of the line grew louder. And Rummenigge was beside himself. He hadn’t expected that from his foray into the world of business and money. Outraged, he looked at the impassive-looking reporter next to him. With only half an ear, the Bayern player listened to the excited locksmith. Then it was finally over for him: “Listen, you’re a locksmith, there are 50,000 of you. It’s not my fault that I’m a Bundesliga player. You just don’t perform at your best!”. Rummenigge quickly brushed a strand of blond hair from his face: “What can we do about it? These are Laberers who want to make their mark,” said the young footballer and added the core sentence of his remarks again to clarify: “He just doesn’t bring the top performance !”
In Munich, after viewing the material at Uli Hoeneß, all the alarm bells rang. One was horrified. Whether it was just played for the public or really outraged – it’s impossible to say today, but the FC Bayern manager said: “If Michael didn’t show understanding, we would have to think about whether we could keep him with us.” But of course Rummenigge was remorseful. How could it be otherwise, when your own family had to go through a similar fate – as you could see from FC Bayern Munich‘s sentimental press release at the time: “Heinrich Rummenigge, retired toolmaker from Lippstadt, father of two football professionals, was unemployed for half a year Year.”
When Rummenigge finally played five seasons later, only seventy kilometers from his birthplace in Dortmund, the city of black and yellow mass unemployment at the time, the fateful conversation with the locksmith quickly caught up with him again. Back then, he lamented his own fate with astonishing far-sightedness: “My God, this stupid saying will haunt me until the end of my life.” How true!
