We’ve all had a right good laugh at the plight of the Germans over the last 24 hours or so, following their sad, tragic and truly awful removal from the World Cup after that 2-0 defeat to South Korea.
No, really, it’s sad to see the players from the nation that has dominated the World Cup for decades in some kind of machine-like manner getting on the first plane back home. Terrible.
One of the stand-out moments of the Teutonic humiliation came right at the end, when keeper Manuel Neuer decided to play as an attacking midfielder, only to find himself stranded when Ju se-Jong punted a long ball towards an empty goal for Heung-Min Son to slip over the line.
I was intrigued by Neuer’s desire to get involved where he wasn’t needed and making a colossal mess of the situation, and after I did some deep journalistic digging in some old German newspapers, it seems that it could be a family trait…
JANUARY 1968
A nine-day sausage festival in Bavaria is about to culminate in the awarding of the ‘Kings of the Festival’ prize. Two teams of sausage-making fanatics have presented their finest work and the judges are about to sample them and decide upon the winner.
Just as the judges lift their tasting forks, a member of Team Munchenwurst yells ‘gott im himmel, I am SO hungry’ and grabs the sausage, ramming it gleefully into his mouth.
His teammates wrestle him to the floor but it is too late. His name? Horst Neuer…
OCTOBER 1976
Hamburg, and hundreds of mourners have gathered to pay their respects and say their farewells to Gerd Scholl, a much-loved former mayor who has died at the age of 95. As the coffin is slowly lowered into the ground, a funeral director’s assistant bursts through the crowd of mourners, pushing some of them to the ground.
He then hurls himself into the open grave, landing on the coffin, which he begins to hack at with a screwdriver.
As people weep and pass out with shock at the scenes, the man shouts, ‘I can’t remember if I put his tie on or not!’ Police arrive and haul the man away. His name? Andreas Neuer…
MARCH 1982
A hospital in Munich. In an operating theatre, man is undergoing heart surgery, and due to medical reasons that are too complicated to explain here, he has had a local anaesthetic and is awake for the entire procedure.
Once the operation has been successfully carried out, a surgeon begins to sew up the man’s chest, but the man grabs for the surgical needle and shouts, ‘Can I help? Can I do that?’
A struggle ensues, the patient almost dies from massive blood loss and the surgeon receives five puncture wounds from the needle. That patient’s name? Uli Neuer…
JUNE 1987
West Berlin and top secret talks have been taking place for 72 hours between representatives of the USA and the Soviet Union over the possible dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
An agreement is in place is about to be signed, but before it is, refreshments are served by a German civil servant. ‘Oooooh, what have you been making then?’ he says, leaning over the prospective treaty for a closer look and accidentally spilling an entire jug of black coffee all over it.
It is ruined and the negotiators are so tired that they can’t remember what they’d agreed to. It is two more years before the Berlin Wall is pulled down by inhabitants of the city. That civil servant’s name? Ralf Neuer…
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