Touchdown, quarterback, Super Bowl: American football also has its fans here in Augsburg. One is Gerd Saxenhammer: His parents lived in Pfersee, where AFN-TV (American Forces Network) could also be received via a radio mast due to its proximity to the Reese barracks. Saxenhammer flipped through the channels and accidentally discovered AFN, where the Super Bowl – Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Dallas Cowboys – was being shown in February 1975. “Since then, despite the defeat, I have been a Cowboys fan to this day and football is my great passion,” he says. “It went so far that even when we moved twice, the apartment was chosen based on AFN’s reception.”
In autumn 2009 he took part in his first NFL trip, which Christoph Kaulke from Panther Reisen organizes several times a year. With around 50 other football fans from all over Germany, including the Augsburg lawyer Reinald Lindenmeier, he regularly travels to the USA to experience the sports stars live on site. Saxenhammer has watched seven Super Bowls so far.
Christoph Kaulke once sat next to Metallica singer James Hetfield at an NBA Finals game
Kaulke himself has been to at least one home game in every stadium of the major US sports, and once even sat next to Metallica singer James Hetfield at an NBA Finals game. He once unexpectedly met Klaus Hofmann (former FCA President) in Anaheim when he visited the fan shop during half-time: “There were around ten cash registers next to each other, I was standing at one of the cash registers and there was a taller man next to me. I looked over briefly, the man also looked over at me and then we said at the same time: That’s not possible! It was Klaus Hofmann, who just happened to be at that NHL game…” And then he achieved what every fan who goes to a baseball game dreams of: once in his life, catching a baseball in the game that was called a “foul Ball” goes into the audience.
Ferdinand Schmid is passionate about football. The 18-year-old is the half-brother of Dr. Jurek Göbel’s daughter. Göbel runs a practice in Augsburg and is primarily responsible for Ferdinand’s care as a sports doctor. Because he plays football for the Munich Cowboys, who were German runners-up in Berlin last year. He was also spotted for the Bayern squad.
Ferdinand Schmid: Footballer himself and up close with the idols in the US stadium
Schmid came to American football through a trial training course in Lechhausen and was later signed up for the Munich Cowboys scouted. Training three times a week and going to the gym several times: everything to get as good as possible in Germany and then possibly fulfill your dream of coming to the USA. The family was on vacation there this August. A trip to the stadium to see the idols couldn’t be missed: a preparatory game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Las Vegas Raiders. Göbel enthuses: “We had a great time.” That was also due to the Raiders fans: “They are the craziest in the USA. They come dressed up like Halloween!”
Favorite players played, won.
