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Anyone who wants to know what Schalke is and how Schalke feels should find out from Karl Heinz Neumann. They named him Charly, the trained master baker who died in 2008 at the age of 77 and still touches the soul of Schalke to this day. In 1950 he joined the club and brought Ernst Kuzorra, the “greatest of all Schalke players” from the famous Rollos roundabout. He was a youth leader, team supervisor and, as he once told an English journalist: “Schalke’s mascot.”
On the descent, he howled with fans at the cameras and comforted them at the same time. And after a promotion, he painted the train station in Gelsenkirchen blue and white, until he was arrested. He was the embodiment of the Ruhr area, down to earth, personable. He never worked in a coal mine. However, if he had said he did, everyone would have believed him. He sang with devotion together with the Steigerlied, which honors workers in the mining industry and is played at the Schalke Stadium.
The painter was taken from him. He was glad to be allowed to polish the players’ shoes. And when the club needed money again, he made use of his “Babbelbauch” (Charly’s original sound) for a “Figura Fit” campaign: if he loses 30 kilos in three months, Schalke will get 300,000 marks. After three months he was weighed in public at the stadium. And Schalke cashed. It’s an honor that he ate the weight again later.
“In bad times you have to be Schalke. We’ve had enough of the good times, ”Neumann once said. He hit the mark: Schalke’s arena is always packed to the brim with 60,000 spectators. And it would be now without Corona, despite 29 games without a win.
The Bundesliga scandal
The fans have had to endure many bad moments. Schalke is part of the Bundesliga scandal. In April 1971, Schalke intentionally lost 0-1 against Bielefeld’s Arminia, threatened by relegation. Only goalkeeper Dieter Burdenski is brilliant because he knows nothing about bribery. A teammate yells during the game: “Hey, Budde, now go to the side.”
Each player receives 2300 points after the game. Nothing compared to the devastating loss of reputation that the club suffered, and with it players like Klaus Fischer, Klaus Fichtel or Reinhard “Stan” Libuda. All are exceptional, but also bribable.
The 1972 cup is the only national title in the new millennium. And not a few believe that this team could have put Bayern and Gladbach in danger in the title fight. If personal greed didn’t get in your way.
Schalke has not shed its image until today. Therein lies the appeal of this club, which is also seductive because it is not a never-ending success story like FC Bayern, not a marketing vehicle like RB or a Werkself like Leverkusen or Wolfsburg, but a deeply ruptured story. One of them once said: “Schalke is even more human than any other place.”
This is also why the life of a Schalke fan came to the cinema in 1999 with Uwe Ochsenknecht in the lead role. But is Schalke also a religion, as is often claimed? Question of opinion. In any case, Pope John Paul II was an official member of the club since 1987.
Schalke has always been a playground for great personalities, some of them with a penchant for self-portraits: clinic owner Günter Eichberg was called the “Sun King”, and when former professional Helmut Kremers took the presidential throne in 1993, a cheeky slogan against his archrival was enough to get him to vote. : “If we played against Dortmund, we didn’t even change.”
Macho Assauer wanted to get Gross
But one thing brought calm to the store: Rudi Assauer. He was Schalke coach for 18 years, for the second time between 1993 and 2006. He is considered the architect of modern Schalke and one of the fathers of the arena. He was an advertising icon (“just look, don’t touch”) that boosted Schalke’s sponsorship revenue, gave it a serious look, and had a sporting success like no other after World War II. UEFA Cup victory in 1997, DFB Cups in 2001 and 2002. Second places in 2001 and 2005. Huub Stevens, the tactically brilliant Grantler, was his partner. By the way, in 2003 Assauer wanted to take Christian Gross to Schalke. But he stayed in Basel.
Stevens and Assauer did not win the championship title, but the “Masters of Hearts” title. As Assauer, who cultivated the image of the macho with delight, said with tears in his eyes after the title that was lost in the last second: “I no longer believe in the god of football”, they are also images that make Schalke what they are . The Dortmunders would scoff: images of losers.
Fleischbaron sparked a racism scandal
Another was Clemens Tönnies. The meat tycoon and billionaire was the strong man after Assauer’s departure. He kept Schalke together, also with regular loans. Then an unforgivable racist line escaped. Famous fan and member Peter Lohmeyer left the club immediately. And at the Tönnies factory there was a backlog of corona cases. The president of the supervisory board, in office since 2001, had to resign. The fact that he is missing as a boss and perhaps also as a financier, but only a few deny it. The club has a debt of around 200 million. The team is unbalanced and unsuccessful like never before, only Tasmania Berlin is even worse in the history of the Bundesliga. And the wear on the coach is immense. Two have already flown since September: David Wagner and Manuel Baum.
Now Royal Blue’s hopes depend on Christian Gross (66). It is up to the six-time Swiss head coach to remove Schalke from the ridiculous role and avoid their first relegation since 1988. Charly Neumann could no longer comfort the fans.
