In almost 40 years as a coach, Hans Meyer made a name for himself – in the GDR especially with European Cup finalist Carl Zeiss Jena. From the end of the 1990s he also became a phenomenon in the “West”. Meyer led Borussia Mönchengladbach back into the Bundesliga, saved Hertha BSC, Nuremberg and Gladbach from relegation. The “Club” even managed to win the sensational DFB Cup. Meyer is now celebrating his 80th birthday.
“I’ve had many beautiful moments through football in an unbelievable way,” said Hans Meyer dpa-Interview and supplemented in table football: “I was almost a complete lucky pig.” A competitive footballer in the 1960s, a coach for 40 years, a member of the executive committee at Borussia Mönchengladbach for more than ten years, Meyer has all of that under his belt. So many things fit into so many decades: so many encounters, so many anecdotes, so much that is worth talking about.
Irony as self-protection: “I acted”
“Until my 30s, you couldn’t really talk about a self-confident young man. I was insecure to no end,” says Meyer, who is often referred to as a cult figure because many people like his direct, sometimes rough and self-ironic manner. “But a lot of people didn’t notice: I was acting. My children even say: You’re crazy. So obviously there was no sense of insecurity.”
So quick-wittedness does not necessarily have to be a sign of self-confidence. Nevertheless, Meyer is ascribed a “biting irony” with nice regularity, almost like a nickname. “I maintain that it was simply a kind of self-protection and also an indication that you don’t take yourself too seriously, even if the function catapulted you into the public eye. That never completely subsided,” says Meyer. “But when I was about 50, I realized that nobody in my field could fool me anymore.”
At the age of 28, Meyer becomes Buschner’s successor at Carl Zeiss Jena
However: “He didn’t win a real title” as a coach, says Meyer. “A real title would have been the German championship, the GDR championship or the world championship.” However, his work has by no means remained entirely without trophies. Meyer, born in 1942 in what was then Briesen near today’s Teplice, has enjoyed great success as a player and coach. First in the GDR and there especially at FC Carl Zeiss Jena.
The defender is part of the squad for the 1968 and 1970 championships, but is only a backup player. Immediately afterwards he ended his career and became Georg Buschner’s assistant. As early as 1971 – at the age of 28 – Meyer inherited the master maker Buschner, who had meanwhile been appointed GDR national coach, at the Jenaer Bank.
Final defeat against Tbilisi: “Hans, that will never happen again”
Ten years later he conceded the most painful setback of his career with Kurbjuweit, Lindemann, Schnuphase, Grapenthin, Vogel, Hopppe, Bielau and Co. “The only sporting defeat that I had a hard time coping with in my many defeats was the loss of the final in Düsseldorf in the European Cup Winners’ Cup after a sensational season in 1980/81,” Meyer recalls the 1-2 draw in Düsseldorf against the top team at the time, Dinamo Tbilisi.
Gerhard Hoppe gave the Thuringians an early lead (3′), Vladimir Guzajev equalized in the middle of the second half (67′), before Vitaly Daraselia finally tore the FCC out of all their dreams just before the end of regular time (87′). “I knew: Hans, that will never happen again in life.”
On the way to the final, Jena had defeated top-class players like AS Roma with the legendary 4-0 win in the second leg, FC Valencia and Benfica Lisbon. The fourth top player from Tbilisi was too much for Meyer’s Thuringian district selection. “I’m an atheist, but God, if he exists, has probably made sure that the atheist Meyer isn’t doing too well,” notes Meyer.
Gladbach brings Meyer from Enschede
After three FDGB cup victories (1972, 1974, 1980) and four GDR runners-up championships (1973, 1974, 1975, 1981), the qualified sports teacher was fired from the FCC in 1983. He goes to arch-rival Rot-Weiss Erfurt, then he breathes new life into the soon-to-be cup finalist, European Cup participant and runner-up FC Karl-Marx-Stadt. After reunification, his path from FCK successor Chemnitzer FC took him back to Jena, then to Union Berlin, before bringing Dutch club Twente Enschede into the UEFA Cup in 1997.
It was only almost ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall that Meyer first got a call from the old federal states – the traditional club Borussia Mönchengladbach, which had fallen to 18th place in the 2nd Bundesliga, brought the then 56-year-old to Bökelberg in September 1999. In 2001 – with a 3-0 win against former club Chemnitz on the last day of the game – Borussia managed to get promoted again under Meyer. In the spring of 2003 he abruptly took his hat off to Gladbachers who were again in danger of being relegated. Under successor Ewald Lienen, the foals finished 12th.
2007: Cup sensation with 1. FC Nuremberg
A year later, Meyer saved the faltering Hertha from Berlin from being relegated to the Bundesliga. In 2006 he managed the same feat with the notorious elevator club 1. FC Nürnberg. At his side as an assistant coach: his long-time Jena player Jürgen Raab. And it doesn’t stop with the successful rescue mission.
The following year, they sensationally lead the Franconians to the DFB Cup triumph in a dramatic final against the newly crowned champions VfB Stuttgart. The “Club” fans Meyer would have liked to erect a monument for this, but then didn’t do it. That shouldn’t bother him much. The quote from Meyer has been handed down: “In football, a monument is quickly built for you, but it’s just as easy to pee on it.” But he has a miniature version of the trophy in beer glass format on his desk. “I keep my pens in there. But since I write relatively little, I rarely see him,” says Meyer and laughs coquettishly.
Meyer’s coaching career ends in Gladbach
“Meyer was the dad who folded one up and then explained it for an hour in the office,” former FCN goalkeeper Raphael Schäfer once described him. After being kicked out in Nuremberg, the iconic coach signed on again in Mönchengladbach in autumn 2008, and Borussia once again had their backs to the wall in 18th place. By a hair’s breadth – with just 31 points and just ahead of Energie Cottbus – the club from the Lower Rhine area escaped falling back into the lower house at the end of the season. He then asked Borussia’s sporting director Max Eberl to terminate his contract, which was actually valid until 2010. It should remain Hans Meyer’s last coaching engagement in professional football. In 2011 he moved up to the Gladbach Presidium. Meyer still holds the office today.
Birthday in close family circle
“I find motivation every day and I like living,” he says, meaning eating with friends, drinking a cappuccino in the sun or his sports program with cycling and backstroke. He recently had to undergo cervical surgery. Hans Meyer initially celebrates his birthday with close family and only a few friends.
But it will be 42 people for the father and tenfold grandfather. However, there will be more follow-up celebrations with different groups, he informed table football. “Nobody has to bring gifts, I’ve had enough of them,” says the dpa celebrant. “Nobody has to give a speech either. These eulogies before an 80th birthday are anyway similar to funeral speeches: endlessly mendacious. At least they don’t tell the whole truth.”
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dpa/red
