A very norMal, royal blue ibex E-Book

Michael "Charly" Ilchmann

• Herausgeber: novum pro Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 643

Beschreibung

Michael "Charly" Ilchmann's biography tells the story of the author's eventful life, beginning with his childhood and youth in the Bergisches Land region. It is not only his humble origins, his creativity and his craftsmanship as a master painter that characterize him and shape his life, but also the numerous encounters with his fellow human beings. His openness, friendliness and social intuition, but also his sensitivity, are portrayed and made clear in a wide variety of experiences in his biography. Particularly noteworthy, however, are the numerous guest commentaries by companions from his personal, professional and Schalke environment. Self-image and external image are rarely the same. You are welcome to form your own impression of him.

Leseprobe

The entry ...

A lifetime ...a completely norMal, royal blue ibex

Experiences and career of Michael "Charly" Ilchmann

That is the title of my book.

Just coming up with a striking and interesting title was a drama in itself ... Deciding on rather important things and situations in life is not always soooo easy ... Through constant training and careful interspersing in my life, I have gradually succeeded a little better, otherwise DECIDING is sometimes very difficult, or it atrophies, like everything else in life ... if you don't train it constantly ... And: In my opinion, making decisions also means taking a stand here and there ... If you never take a stand, you will "probably" never really get there ... In my opinion, taking a stand is no longer desirable ... Nevertheless, I did it and practiced it early on in my life ... This in turn means that you constantly run the risk of getting hurt ... Verbally or maybe even physically. Anyone who knows me (well) and knows about my "perhaps" greatest weakness ... might think: NowHE'Swriting a book too ... even though he doesn't even know the simplest spelling rules - yes, why not! I think and hope that it's not (soooo much) about that - it's the content that's rewarded here ... especially as it goes through some professional hands after I've written it. And there is hardly any better training against (my) spelling weakness ... A great person wrote me a few lines about this in his guest comment, he started with: "Isn't every life so exciting to write about ..." - He was right.

Speaking of guest comments:I once read these in a book and found them honest, authentic and beautiful. Guest comments from a cross-section of people who have experienced something with me, how they got to know me, and WHAT they might think about when they hear about me ... perhaps also about little things that weren't so great from me, or when there was trouble with me. I think it's good when others have their say about me. It's not that I'm just trying to toot my own horn here or want to fuel the fire for (my) witch burning ... But self-image and external image do vary ... I've made a good number of guest posts like this ...

Many of my work colleagues and other companions often told such great and funny stories that they always said: "I could writea whole book... I've experienced so much ..." They often told really fantastic experiences ... I'm just going to give it a try now, with my own book. Once again out of my comfort zone ... a piece of cake for me ... why? What exactly is a comfort zone again?

Photos and collages are partly very old and of poor quality, I apologize for this in advance, so that the story behind it is only a little more alive, I have decidedto...

Ideally, this book should take you (everyone) so much that you want to read it in one long, rainy weekend ... I actually only wanted to write down parts of my life because I think that a lot of funny, serious, sad and courageous things have happened. A lot of incomprehensible and "actually" IMPOSSIBLE things have also happened. That it would actually become a book ... I never thought or dared to dream of it at the beginning ... I wrote the first chapter, if you like, in 2018 ... It belonged to my grandpa ... The book is also intended to encourage people who didn't "get in" on the sunny side of life to just keep going, tonevergive up onthemselves completely, to believe in themselves and tolive real valuesand pass them on if possible - or even to stand up for them or fight for them if necessary ... Often or rather in my opinion, these values no longer appear in any list of priorities and as a result we go round in circles ... Many things were not easy, as is probably the case for all of us in life. Even though I rarely let it show, some of it was very, very painful, but at the same time quite instructive - it always went on ... why didn't IcareMORE OFTEN? ...) Some of us post our status from time to time, including me, and I constantly think about whether I'm not unconsciously "stepping on someone's toes" ... It was and is not easy to articulate your own needs without being too selfish. My aim was and still is to get through life's bowling alley reasonably cleanly. I never wanted to "clear everything" in order to reach my goals and not constantly throw a "poodle" ... Live and let live, what I don't want, what people do to me, don't do to anyone else. It's good business when both sides benefit from it. The wise man learns from his mistakes and the wise man learns from the wise ... I could write a few more of these sayings here ..., the important thing is that there is something behind them and that they don't just remain sayings ...

If you can believe some of the attributes, those from colleagues in the many seminars and workshops (job) and of course from the circle of friends from the long rehab in Bad Elster and from my former clientele, then the following, among others, have occurred more frequently: Michael (Charly) is friendly, open, courteous, approachable, good-natured,sociable, honest, funny, attentive, warm and, above all, helpful. But unfortunately I also feel that I am becoming more and more withdrawn and like my mother - sad and thoughtful. My interest in meeting new people is also waning, albeit only a little, but already noticeably ... Even my incredible sense of humor is slowly disappearing. Life is becoming increasingly stressful for me. I often no longer understand many of the people around me ...

Compared to some other people who walk around with a long face on Mondays, behave extremely rudely in the car or are even regularly verbally thin-skinned, I am, thank God, still a pretty funny and open-minded contemporary. A motto or even unspoken value is: What can "he" do nowfor what didn't "go well" in the past? So, I like to smile ... I prefer to help "weaker" people, that was the case when I was a child and it hasn't changed much to this day ... maybe it's because I've always thought about the fact that my mom, my siblings and I personally could have used "a little" more support from time to time. My mother in particular - she was great. Very, very few people reallyACTIVELYhelped and assisted HER to getus and herselfthrough - with the express exception of Grandma and Grandpa!!! My mom, and later Gerd, were not able to pass on anything material to us Ilch men and Ilch women, but the most important thing that mom gave me was how to deal with other people, or rather how you could deal with other people, how you generally behave towards other people, animals, nature and the environment ... Of course, I didn't do everything right in life either, and some things were dramatically bad, and I can still remember a lot of that ... As a young boy and teenager, I was oftentoo"biblical": "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" followed shortlyafter I had both cheeks red..., myRE actionsin response to attacks of a verbal or physical nature were so violent from time to time that I didn't know any boy who was halfway there ... but don't worry, there are and always have been some who do and did much worse ... I was and still am cautious and shy on the one hand, sensitive or very sensitive, argumentative and with a very pronounced sense of justice on the other, which, in retrospect, often made me think twice and got me into trouble here and there. However, I have always worked hard on myself and have also learned a lot from my companions in terms of composure and level-headedness ... But I mean, from my point of view of course, that I was or am notactively argumentative... rather the opposite was and is the case. Actually, I was always looking for love, recognition and appreciation - and I always wentto great lengths to achievethis through commitment, attention, helpfulness and appreciation ... but there's more about that in the book. Be curious and don't put it out of your field of vision ... A note in advance: The book has jumps and is not always completely chronological (which is how I work or tick ..., it also doesn't have a table of contents, so perhaps this will keep your interest high while reading. It's just like in real life: From my point of view, life rarely provides a functioning workflow or the optimal sequence. And some people who think they have one will quickly realize that it is rarely applicable in sequence ...In order to form an honest opinion about a person, you should (if possible) know their entire life story ...If you only know scraps, it is difficult to impossible and often unfair to form a final opinion about someone ... If you persevere, you will be rewarded and the story will be a well-rounded affair ... like a hard-packed soccer ...

Enjoy reading ...

Yours

Charly, Michael Ilchmann

from Wipperfürth

Profile

Michael Ilchmann, nickname: "Charly"

born January 15, 1971

in Gelsenkirchen-Buer - Marien Krankenhaus, sometime in the middle of the night ...

The youngest of 6 children

2 brothers and 3 sisters

Mother: child of rubble and war, housewife, factory worker

(Step)father: factory worker, concrete worker

Producer: Municipal employee, but I don't know for sure

Kindergarten: I mean 2 years ... op dr Thier near Wipperfürth

Elementary school: until 1982, with a lap of honor in the first school year, op dr Thier

Secondary school: 1982-1988, secondary school leaving certificate 9th grade (honors 7th grade)

Apprenticeship: as a journeyman painter and varnisher 1988-1991 in the local painting company op dr Thier ...

Military service/basic training: 1992 in Neuwied/Andernach

From January 1993 to October 1993 journeyman in the previous (training company)

Painting company, you guessed it: op dr Thier

From 1993 until probably today: Employee of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Cologne

Initially as a stage craftsman/painting specialist, in Cologne Bocklemünd

From approx. 2000-2011 at WDR in a 50% part-time position and owner of his own painting and varnishing master business with the slogan "Creativity doesn't have to be expensive" in Wipperfürth

2011-2013 Workshop manager of painting, art painting and advertising technology again 100% full-time at WDR

2013-2017 Dispatcher for the entire workshops of the EventTechnology& Studios/WDR department

2017-2020 Dispatcher of the entireVTA at WDR

from 2020 as a clerk in the procurement department of the VTA at WDR

Specialprofessionalqualifications:

Master painter and varnisher of the year 1998

Trainer for industrial trucks and forklifts Born in 2000

+ pretty much all the seminars and training courses that the company and my major suppliers at the time offered for my respective activities. About 30 in number - NNB and not important ...

"Smart ass" of the vintages:

Master of Hearts 2001 ...

Married in second marriage (second hand) on:19.04.2018 (Schloss Horst inGE)

No children, often unfortunately, but more and more often G s D ...

12 times uncle + once godfather, meanwhile "out of service" ...

Remaininghobbies: Passive soccer (if you can say that about Schalke throughout ..., mountain biking through the Bergisches Land, working, renovating and designing, indoors and outdoors ..., music and cars, in winter I like consoles with Fifa or various car races ...

Most of the time I (now) prefer to spend with my wife Monika and my best friend, Prinz, our dog.

My hobby used to be working after work ... so (in the meantime) ...

I would describe our/my house as my life's work; an incredible amount of time, patience, love, capital andall my creativityhas gone into it.

Sooooo - here we go ... enough of this babble ...

What person doesn't think at some point about whether they were wanted, whether they were a wanted child or, or, or ... Children often think more than adults think ...

Where do I actually come from, who am I and what will I be one day ... I was asked these questions very early on and I probably also asked them myself from time to time ...

I in particular have often thought about this. But I never asked anyone about it. Deep down, I was always a bit afraid of an answer.

How does that happen?

My mom didn't have me until I was 38, I was born in January 1971, the sixth child of one and the same husband. So far so good ... you think ...

Shortly after my birth, however, our mother, with four children and me as a newborn, set off to "escape" from my father and her husband ... she basically waited until she had given birth to me and then, with - for me - an inexplicable amount of courage, set off alone to the Bergisch region. We were basically a refugee family within NRW with no connections in the new area and no financial backing ... poor as a church mouse family ...

Mom way before my time, alone with her first wedding bouquet ...

My definition of diligence may be a little too harsh for some people ... But I have my own opinion about it. I just think out loud here ... My actual ME and what I have made of it is also based on this.

For me, diligence begins beyond duty, i.e. beyond regular working hours or what you have to do anyway. Sorry, but in my understanding, "duty" is not necessarily diligence. If you then go about your other tasks and duties with just as much love, dedication and commitment, it starts to smell like hard work. But, as I said, that's just my opinion ...

But the worst thing was that he allegedly drank a lot and was violent for no reason. I wasn't there - lucky for him ... I can only say!!!

But I did meet him in the flesh once. That was around 1989/90, when I was helping my sister and brother-in-law to renovate their new house in Kürten ready for occupancy. I was almost 18/19 years old and had just started my apprenticeship as a painter ... For reasons I can't explain, my sister got in touch with him again ... after almost 20 years ... I can only imagine the reasons, it probably had something to do with the "construction" of the new building. You can tell me what you want, out of pure kindness and out of caring for the producer ... that's not what life was about. Never ... but it was my sister and her husband's business ...

My sister and her husband's house still had a building pit around it. A wooden scaffolding plank led over this pit and into the house. Such a plank is about 30-40 cm wide, or rather narrow ... I was at the front door and painted it with wood stain. Suddenly a car pulled up right in front of the building site. An old woman got out on the passenger side. An elderly man got out of the car on the driver's side. I thought I wasn't looking properly ..., the man looked kind of like ME, only in old age ... somehow I got totally weird and started to get really pissed off - in milliseconds I knew exactly who it was.

By pissed off I mean really pissed off, anyone who knows me just a little bit knows what THAT means for me, at over 50 years of age I would have had a heart attack or got construction foam at the mouth, that's how angry and furious I got - just to give you an idea of how I felt back then when I saw myself in old age ... A priest would say he met the incarnate ....

I didn't know anything about this project beforehand ... it had completely passed me by. Sure, it was my sister and her husband's thing - but it would have been their damn duty to let me in on it, then I wouldn't have turned up at the building site that day, but getting something renovated was important to them too. How would you feel? I felt used in the worst possible way ... never mind ... I've forgiven it - just not completely forgotten...

When the elderly woman stepped on the floorboards and they bent so much, I switched all my "learned functions" back on ..., I went to meet her and took her by the hand and carefully walked with her (the grandma) towards the house. Yes, the elderly lady was my grandma on my father's side. She thanked me with the sentence: "That's nice of you to help your grandma over the 'boards' ... :-)" I got angry again and just said to the older woman: "I didn't help MY grandma across a floorboard - I would know that, but ... I helped a strange, old woman across a floorboard and my mom taught me that so well ..." That sat ...

I think my looks could have "killed" my sister ... My sister is 10 years older than me, but I would have loved to choke her and shake her. I was no longer able to continue what I was doing. I finished painting one side of the door in no time at all without any of the usual dedication, packed it up and drove home without a word or a greeting. When I got home, I didn't really know how I had got there ... The shock was deep-seated. A movie was playing in my head that I was no longer helping "them" on the construction site ... I was working there completely free of charge ... basically doing a practical course for "nothing". I couldn't even talk to anyone about it, it would have broken my mom's heart - in my opinion, it was the biggest betrayal you could commit against your own mother, considering the history ... Over 50% of my siblings have always found their way back to the producer. I don't want to start guessing their reasons ... it's impossible to put into words what they did to mom, it certainly hurt her very, very, very much ... and she certainly didn't deserve it ... But of course that's also "just" my opinion ... And so that no false impressions arise, I adored all my siblings and their partners, I never let anything come over them, but unfortunately that's also part of it ... It's also my biography here ...

As my painter role model Hans-Willi (nickname Willi) used to say: First wallpaper or paint the window wall ... in the end you don't want to do it anymore ... That was MY personal window wall ...

Long, long before

I wanted to spend all my vacations with grandma, grandpa, uncles and aunts whenever possible ... Once, as a very young boy, I went to visit "this other grandma" - she lived less than 5 minutes away from MY grandma - together with my buddy Thomas. With a few clever questions, my uncle told me in no time where the OTHER grandma lived. Then I went there with Thomas and rang the doorbell. I just wanted to see the other grandma ... maybe I was five, six or seven years old, I wasn't any older back then ... As naive/honest as I was, I told my real grandma about it, ouch ... I'd never gotten in trouble from my beloved grandma before, but now it was really due. Grandma might have given me a good hiding, told me that they were all bad to my mom: They beat mom ... they didn't give mom anything to eat and, and, and. I only heard horror stories and just cried. I promised my grandma I would never, ever go to the other WOMAN again and I stuck to it ... It wasn't difficult at all ... Absolutely not ... I was soooo ashamed of myself ... Thank God, I was taken to an aunt's caravan in the Westerwald that weekend ... My beloved grandma was able to calm down a bit ... I can see it soooo clearly in front of me ...

I once heard from an uncle that our father "kidnapped" one of his daughters after separating from my mother! Of course, I can neither testify nor deny this, I was just too little. Who knows what was true! ... I don't want to know either ... But things like that have never changed, everyone usually has their own truth ... especially when it comes to separations and money ... Supposedly they searched for my sister with a helicopter. I think he was also reprimanded so that he wasn't allowed to come near us ... Even though I was already born then, it was actually before my time ... If you think about it all, my mom should actually be canonized after the fact. With four children, some of them very small, and me as a newborn, to flee 80, 90 km away from my own mother, just to escape from her husband - without a job or financial background ... It was incredibly brave and incredibly sad ... it's a good thing I was still an infant ...

Maybe more about that in another chapter ... for now I'm a bit done ... with this chapter ...

Grandma and Grandpa on their Hollywood swing - When I'm lying on our lounger, I often think of them, when pigeons are frolicking on our roof, even more so ...

A dad of his own ... that would be something!!!

Somehow, as a small child, I was always very aware that I somehow didn't have a "real" dad. I think (good) dads are very important for a child. Especially for a boy. I never had a dad with me, neither at soccer nor on outings, nor at school. I couldn't even get to confirmation class without help ... I couldn't discuss any conflicts with my peers or anything else with him either ... not a thing, I usually had to sort everything out myself, even in my earliest childhood - occasionally my older siblings were allowed to help, but less often ... But at some point there was one ... who took on the role of "dad" as best he could ...

My 5 siblings and I, the youngest ...

As I am the youngest of 6 children, it doesn't really make sense to talk about the older sister or the older brother ... they are all older than me ... that's what it's like to be the youngest ... Jeck ne? My eldest sister "had to" have moved out before I was born. I mean, she had started an apprenticeship in a hotel in the Ruhr area and could have lived there too ... So with a bit of unreasonableness and such ... she could have become MY mother too, just because of the age difference - SHE was supposed to give birth to 3 boys ... The first boy was born when I was 3 or so myself ... I basically became an uncle for the first time at the age of 3 ... I think I even have a photo of me holding the "poop" in my arms ... laugh ... I experienced great and not so great things with my sister's eldest son, sometimes he was the "victim", sometimes it was me and sometimes "the others". I thought he was fine ... but there were far fewer experiences with the other two sons. The distance from Wipperfürth to the Ruhr area was a big and difficult factor here and the age difference and interests gradually made it less and less possible to do things together ... they, mom and I have pretty much the same back problems ...

My eldest brother was always my big and fatherly reference person ... he was incredibly strong, clever, calm and level-headed. He also trained me as a judo coach for a while and was not only strong for me and others, but the strongest of all. Although he only lived in Wipperfürth for a short time, he left behind incredible "footprints" ... Some of his experiences are worth their own chapters ... It's really incredible what people who experienced something with him still remember today ... When I still mention today that I'm an Ilchmann, some people ask if "this strong guy" is my brother? ... This has happened to me regularly throughout my life to this day ... Although he never flattened a fly ... Probably because he would have broken the carrier plate on which the fly was sitting ... He was more of a substitute dad than MY big brother. My big brother is also in his second marriage and has come a long way with his studies and his manner ... to be honest, it makes me prouder when someone refers to him than when someone talks nicely about me. His wife brought a son into the relationship. We used to spend weekends together when they came to North Rhine-Westphalia from southern Germany. That was also always great when the older brother came ... or I went to visit him by public transport when he was very young ... Then there were always great activities on the agenda ... It was a great time.

In third place is my second, different brother in age order. A completely different type to the brother one year older ... Much livelier, extremely busy and, as I've always heard, usually quite funny ... But the biggest and really most fitting attribute is perhaps "always incredibly hungry" ... or even gluttonous, that was more fitting ... laugh ... Half a pig on toast was something for him, for the hollow tooth. He coached me for a year or two in soccer at the Thier ... he was the person I did and experienced the most with. More of a great buddy and protector than (my) big brother ... We shared mountain biking and cycling in general and our love of Schalke 04. He "infected" me with Schalke very early on and that's a really good thing ... I really enjoyed the times we spent together ... If one is the strongest in the arms, this brother is the strongest in the legs ... From Karlsruhe to Lake Constance, around it and back the other day were three nice day trips for him ... But on an organic bike ... and not by moped or car ... This brother was actually my best buddy ever, sometimes we talked on the phone several times a week ... He became a father 5 times and was completely "out of our league" in terms of marriage ... It's hard to believe, 5 children with one and the same wife and all in a single marriage ...) laugh - really great. Seriously ...

The middle sister in terms of age has 3 girls from her first marriage. When I was 10 years old, her twins were born and I was the proudest uncle in the whole of Wipperfürth ... It was amazing to push an extra-wide baby carriage through the village ... The three girls were under my protection for a loooong time ... And when I say protection, I mean it ... When our mom wanted to make some more changes to our home, my sister and brother-in-law put me up "well" for a while ... At least in terms of the family connection - I loved them all very much ... But the first chapter also belonged to her ... As a little boy I once took 10 or 20 DM from her desk to buy myself a long-awaited toy ... I was maybe 5 or 6 ... we could give the toy back and I learned something for life ... after that I only borrowed something - usually from a bank then ...

My other sister is then "only" about 3 years older than me ... I had the closest connection with her because we were still at home together when our later stepdad joined the family. And when I was approx. 16 years old we slowly made a swap, the swap that I became her big brother, or something like that ... She didn't have it easy at all in her life either, often unfairly difficult ... We were really very thick and supported each other really well ... I don't know if anyone could make her laugh more than me ... Sometimes it was really "Pipialarm" when we were in a good mood ... I still remember when I "folded" my favorite brother-in-law's gasoline RC under a "Moschendrohtzaun" on the sports field in Ohl ... Oh ... my sister laughed ... She almost choked with laughter ... even my brother-in-law had to laugh hard after the "first shock" ...

Considering that we all come from one, OUR mom and all had the same father, we have become more different than ever ...

I won't evaluate it, just write down what happened here and there. Also, of course, "only" from my own perception. As is the case with self-perception and the perception of others ... Others sometimes see it differently ... Like in the movie "8 Blickwinkel" ...

Mind you, one mom and the same producer ... Why this is so important to me will come up more often in other parts of the book or in the next book ... One thing is certain: Contact shapes people, origins are an important part of later life ... but if you keep your eyes open, accept teachings, live true VALUES and always set yourself challenging but achievable goals, the starting point is not the end point ... it always goes on ... you have countless opportunities here and there to turn the corner, as they say in the Pott so beautifully.

Despite some sacrifices, my childhood was uniquely beautiful ...

I spent most of my childhood in a small village near Thier. Thier was also a small church village near Wipperfürth. In the small village, where we moved after a short stopover in Marienheide, my mother got a company apartment for herself and her five children, as well as a job in a company that dealt in sockets, light switches and electrical components. The small town was called Abstoß. I always associated the name with soccer ... that suited me very well ... Maybe you should fire up Google Earth and visit the place of my childhood ... The place always had "around" 100 inhabitants, 3 farms. Two medium-sized companies were also based there. In the immediate vicinity, about half a kilometer away, there was another farm where a good friend of mine lived. I'll come back to this friend later. My life actually often took place in the larger village op dr Thier. My kindergarten, elementary school, bakery, a second corner store, the sports field and the gymnastics club were all there. Many of my schoolmates and friends lived there. There was also another store where you could buy sports equipment, toys, clothes and curtains. Opposite this sports store was my later training company, where I first completed an internship and was later allowed to start my apprenticeship ...

In between, childhood was sometimes really "shitty".

As a repulsor one did not belong to the Thierer, as a Thierer one did not belong to the Wipperfürther and certainly not to the Wipperfelder or Agathaberger ...

To be allowed to play as a kicker in the soccer team at Thier, you had to be almost twice as good as almost everyone else. If you were lucky, you were then allowed to sit on the bench or in goal ... It's a bit of an exaggeration, but unfortunately it's not far off the mark ... but it was my luck that I was born in 1971, seemingly in the midst of the Pillenknick, and we always had far too few footballers anyway and I fortunately felt drawn to the empathetic people ... This and one of my first coaches, Jürgen Pfeiffer, from Unterthier, meant that integration (yes, integration in the 70s as a young German boy in the middle of Germany ... you read correctly, only due to the weaker social background is meant) in the sports club was naturally quicker. Jürgen came from a very good family and was extremely empathetic, I never once had the feeling that I was being singled out ... He was still riding a moped himself when he was training us, so he was still in his youth at the time and his parents often drove us to away games by car ... That made integration much easier for ME, because Jürgen was also much fairer to me and the others than some of the others ... The coaches often went with their teams ... I would have liked that very, very much with Jürgen ... Jürgen was therefore hugely important for my "formative phase", as I like to call the first few years (for me) ...

Hello Michael,

I have summarized a few thoughts from our life together. I got to know you as a Bambini player in our village club SV Thier. As a youth coach, I was jointly responsible for the young players.

You were five or six years old at the time and you had been earmarked for the goalkeeper position. You just looked good in your goalkeeper jersey ...

It's a shame that I don't have any photos from your active soccer days.

Unfortunately, there were no cell phones yet with which you could just take a photo. That was over 40 years ago and I don't think you were dreaming of Schalke 04 at the time. Then the soccer madness began for you, first as a goalkeeper and then as a Schalke 04 fan. But your professional career is also impressive. Training as a painter and decorator, employment at WDR Cologne and then self-employment. When you consider that it certainly wasn't all that easy for you, you can be really proud of yourself. And this is where we came together again. My mother was looking for a painter, and as you had built up a special reputation in your profession and stood for exceptional quality, I put you in touch with my mother. She was particularly enthusiastic about you. You later did some painting work for us. Today we're all a bit older and it's always nice to meet up and discuss Bayern, Schalke and life. Susanne and I always admire what you have done with your life and that you have remained true to your standpoint of sincerity and honesty. I hope that the book you want to write turns out the way you envision it.

Susanne and I are happy for you.

Stay as you are and true to your principles.

Kind regards Jürgen Pfeiffer

Guest commentaryfrom one of my first soccer coaches, master plumber, customer and last but not least, very reliable, dear friend ...

A boy from the neighboring village (2 farms and 5 houses) once told me where the place name Abstoß (from his point of view) came from. He told me that it came from the fact that the outcasts and outcasts used to be sent there. It was funny, though, that his dad worked there in the sawmill and earned their money ... the "weirdo" was still very close to me for a few years ... so you can see "weirdo" more as a term of endearment ... The tone makes the music ... I just let that pass ... He was also two heads taller than me ... that was also an argument ... to turn a blind eye ...

My first "halfway" real girlfriend was the daughter of a former local businessman. She also came from a good family and I thought she was very pretty and nice. I think some other boys liked her too ... That's how some boy who was also interested in her went up to her once and asked her what she wanted with a boy from Abstoß? She said that only "asses" lived there ... After she "told" me that, I didn't go over the top ... I went straight to the boy (15 kg heavier than me and just as tall - a farmer's son ...). I asked him what exactly he meant by that ...? The boy turned white as a sheet, I said that perhaps it could be that a few, very few (like everywhere ...) are "a bit special", okay ... but he should be careful with statements like that, I wouldn't let him attack me like that again, and if he did it again and I heard about it, I would show him that "maybe" he was a bit right with his assertion ... He said that he hadn't meant that at all ... "Gosh ... I'm glad you didn't mean it like that", I told him. In the end, he didn't give me any more reasons to be "stupid" towards him ... My direct manner was and still is often difficult for many people to grasp. I was rarely unfair, I gave almost everyone the umpteenth chance to give in to conflicts, to do better next time or to help me "clear things up" - where the problem was, or whether there was one between us at all? ... If the conversation didn't work out ..., I've been known to give them a "set of hot ears". But I never ran around the neighborhood to let off steam physically ... I always let everything come to me in peace ... As a reject, you often had to deal with a certain "rejection" anyway. But somehow, thanks to my intuition, my social intelligence and my reasonably good sporting performance, I rarely had problems with being completely disregarded or even treated with hostility. Let me put it this way: if things got too rough for me, there was just trouble with me - I was no angel and rarely, but occasionally, a real brat. Another buddy often tried to tease me about where I came from. I kept telling him that I was very proud of where I came from. Because only if you come from there or thereabouts and are aware of it is the path to the midfield of the table a completely different one than if you've already been given all kinds of privileges at birth ... I've always been quite reflective and not begrudging, but you can't be proud if you were born rich and got a bit extra, probably interest or something. Being born relatively poor or, let's say, simple, then having achieved something and ideally perhaps even letting others share in it ... You can be "perhaps a little" proud of that ... But don't worry, it's not social envy. At least I hope not. I assume anyway that everyone who is doing well also has social projects that they are happy to support ... That would be another value in my eyes - no, not the money - to let others participate - everyone within their means ... even if it's just rounding up at the bread counter ... Remember, the baker sets the prices, not the sales clerk ...

I had a great classmate at elementary school. He was a pretty boy - Markus ... laugh ... he was pretty smart, his parents were teachers, at least his dad ... and he got a new pair of Adidas sneakers every week - it felt like. I got a pair of sneakers from the market once a year or every six months - "with/without" footbed and all that. I was never angry or resentful of my friend. I was never jealous of him either. It rather spurred me on to achieve as good results in sport with the "poorer material" as he did with the good material. But as I said, I didn't have a problem with the fact that I simply grew up and had less. On the other hand, we had a lot of children in the respective age groups in Abstoß, were able to have a great time, play sports together, play soccer and make the area unsafe. At weekends and in the summer months, we often went camping with the neighbors' children :-) or rode our bikes to the outdoor pool in Kürten - one highlight, for example, was when we shared a bag of potato chips with four or five of us on the steps ... it was wonderful ... Our time at Abstoß was unique. I wish every child had such a great childhood ... There was a meadow between the two rows of houses in Abstoß. We used to play soccer there. Sometimes there were so many of us that we had to play 5 against 5 or 7 against 7 so that everyone could join in. We played until our feet were smoking. When Mom called us in for dinner, I always shouted: "Mamaaaa, I'm not hungry yet ..." In reality, I was already hungry, up to both arms, but I didn't want to stop, otherwise everyone else would have gone home too and the "important match" would have been over ... that happened to me once or twice and I learned from it afterwards. From then on, I was always the last one to leave the pitch. As a child, I had such brown knees and a black neck - from the sun - that my mom scrubbed me in the bathtub because she thought it was dirt ... after the red went away, everything was dirty brown again. :-) :-) :-)

When I came home from school as a child and my sister hadn't yet collected the key from my mother at the electrical company, I went into the factory and greeted all the women and the few men with a handshake and collected the key from my mother. Many of the workers gave me a sweet or a few pennies for the chewing gum machine, which fortunately was right downstairs by our front door. The old senior manager of the company seemed to like me a lot ... She often bought me a whole bag of sweets from the bakery trolley. This whole family was very good to me as a child and also enormously important for my development, they were also good to my mother because they gave her an apartment and also gave her a job, a job. As an adolescent, I was also able to earn a "little" pocket money from this family. But maybe more about that later ... Somehow I'm getting extremely sad again ... It sucks that I've become such a wimp ... I'm just built damn close to the water ... but psss, nobody should know that ...

It all began in Klein-Moskau near Thier ... starting as a "back door man"

The small town where I grew up was called Abstoß. A name that quickly became a program ... unfortunately ... and that was often not really fair ...

But who has such a legend?

Born on coal, grew up as M. Ilchmann, crossed the Wupper several thousand times and did all the swimming badges in various steel pools ... I don't know many of them ...

Abstoß is located in the immediate vicinity of Thier. And Thier is one of the parish villages of the Hanseatic town of Wipperfürth. Wipperfürth is located fairly centrally between Attendorn in the Sauerland and Cologne ... which is why Wipperfürth was also allowed to belong to the illustrious circle of Hanseatic towns at some point ... More on this later ... Abstoß always had just over 100 inhabitants - as I already wrote. We children took a census from time to time ... A very important story for us back then ... laugh ... When my mom set off with us to the Bergisches GE, we first moved to Marienheide-Gogarten - directly opposite the fairytale forest. But we really only lived there for one or two years at most. Maybe that's where my talent for storytelling comes from or for the essays I wrote at school back then ... I don't know ...

Through whoever, we moved to Abstoß very early on in my life. As I said, Abstoß is south of Thier in the Flossbach valley.

Abstoß is in the middle of 3 farms and two medium-sized companies - a small settlement with social housing/houses for 2 families each.

One factory produced its own light switches, sockets and other household electrical requirements, the other used to sell 3-meter high wooden cable drums, balcony railings, filing columns from several floors (great things, these office columns) and certainly more ... Most of the houses in Abstoß belonged to the family who "made sockets" ...

All the houses had two residential units, a basement area and a shared attic. In my day, they were social housing, for which you needed a certificate of eligibility ... Then as now, this was a welcome point of attack for many mentally "underexposed" or "antisocial people" to defame, slander and/or attack many of the residents ... "welcome" in quotation marks, of course ...

If you don't know what it's like to be approached because of your "social" background, you can thank God, your parents and grandparents ... I'm sure I'll have more to say about this too ... As I said, don't put the book too far out of your sight. It goes on and on and (hopefully) remains entertaining ... The houses in Abstoß were divided into two rows. The street near the lower row of houses was even asphalted ...) The houses were numbered 6, 7, 8, 9 ... from right to left, starting from the entrance to the village ... The upper row then continued clockwise with house numbers 10, 11, 12 and 13. Even if many had an abomination or some even a bit of a grudge against US, be it just from hearsay, or had a bad feeling, some let themselves be influenced, although they never had any trouble with any of US. Abstoß had a community that I felt wasn't bad ... Of course there was a lot of gossiping, blasphemy and sometimes fists were thrown ... but all in all it was okay - even good. And ... where is that not the case?

I had my problems with exclusion from an early age. We already had different classes there, in rejection ... Firstly, the company owners and the farmers, who were of course miles ahead of most people in terms of financial status ... then there were one or two families where both parents were probably already earning very well or at least the man in the house ... Two or three families even had their own caravans, which they used to go on fairly frequent trips ... Most of the residents, however, only knew about holidays from television, for example ... It was a different time. But most of the residents only knew about vacations from television, for example ... Those were very different times ... The best time to phone Grandma was on Sundays from 8 p.m., we had meat once a week, usually on Sundays, and we usually bathed on Saturdays, together with my sister or one after the other ... Television was only available once a week, usually on Sundays. TV went on until shortly after midnight at the most ... then it was the end of the show and a colorful test picture with a continuous tone appeared ... All things that nobody can imagine today ... A remote control for the TV was also not standard ... It could happen that YOU were the remote control ... The advantage was that there were a maximum of 3 channels and the stupid zapping because of an advertisement wasn't necessary ... Even back then I wouldn't have zapped on the Fa soap advertisement ... Everything was a bit limited, but most people were pretty happy and quite content ... My mom, for example ... B. even had to take part in the Kinderlandverschickung during the war ... There was little ... very, very much ... if you had lived through it ... However ... However, many people from the surrounding villages, let's put it this way, often treated rejects "disparagingly" ... So one or two of them got fed up with it and it really set in ... This in turn encouraged these "poor wronged people" to badmouth the repulsors again ... a stupid cycle ... As a result, repulsion often had the nickname: Little Moscow ... even though, in my opinion, not a single "IVAN" had lived there ... There were plenty of neighboring children in every house ... it was wonderful ... Most of the adults were pretty OK too ... at least most of them ... Between the rows of houses there was a meadow where soccer was played before and during my time ... we also played soccer with the Abstoßer team against the other surrounding villages, against the surrounding villages of the other church villages, so to speak ... do you understand??? ... I remember games against Ommerborn, Peffekoven and even Ente near Wipperfeld ... I'm sure kids today can't imagine that ... to play against Ente, we either walked there with the ball for a few hours or rode there on our bikes ... then played endlessly and went home again ... it was unique ... the whole day was quickly gone. Our pitch was called the "Abstoßer Huckelstadion" ... it was also not uncommon for the adults - from the top row - to join us with a bottle of beer to watch us play or just chat outside ... One of the people I remember most was Winfried. A great guy who "served" us one ball after the other ... Scottish half-high was his specialty ...

Until about the time of my moped or apprenticeship, it was my one and only ...

Soccer, soccer, cycling and soccer again, a bit of tennis in Hof/Heid on the paved tennis court in the forest and then soccer again ... I remember ... there were hardly any basketball courts, we would have liked that too ...

A game from days long gone was "ball hide and seek":

A group of children have chosen the "seeker" through Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck ...

He knelt over the ball in the middle of the meadow and counted to 100 with his eyes covered ... Everyone else hid ... Then, after counting, he went off and looked for everyone else. Once discovered, the seeker had to get to the ball sooner than the person they had found ... The people they had found were then out of the game for the time being. They could be freed by someone if one of the well-hidden players took the opportunity to steal the ball away when the seeker was off somewhere else to find some ...

I loved the game, my speed and my "reasonably" firm shot came in handy here ...

For a mega experience, my hard shot was even urgently needed to avoid making a complete fool of myself.

It was 24.10.2004. At that time I was registered as a member of a Schalke fan club in Königswinter ... The two bosses organized an event on the green pitch in the Veltins-Arena. The task was to shoot the ball from the halfway line through the air, "ideally" into the goal - without a goalkeeper, of course, but through the air without the ball being allowed to touch the ground first ... That was quite a challenge, I'd say ... Schalke were due to play Mainz with Jürgen Klopp that day ... In order not to make a complete fool of myself, I shot ten or twenty balls at goal with Jürgen Volgmann up in the Düsterohl stadium - Jürgen was the groundsman there and therefore had the key ... despite the eternally long break from soccer, I always got over the half of the pitch ... But the problem was that, as a right-footed shooter, I always put the ball to the left of the goal ...

I just didn't want to admit that I had to aim well to the right of the goal in order to somehow use the spin of the ball to hit this ball from the middle of the pitch into the goal, which was so small after all, from this distance ...

At some point, the last 4 or 5 shots worked out ... Well, I'd be fine ... I was also starting to feel a pain in my knee ... Jürgen was also a great striker, but we never played with or against each other - which I thought was a shame ... He wasn't unhappy with me anyway ... The event started well before the professionals warmed up ... Unfortunately, there weren't always that many spectators there - although the Nordkurve was always almost full by then. And they were shooting at the Nordkurve ... But I was still nervous ... I had put on extra soccer boots ... the cam-samba boots ... Jürgen Klopp was already on the pitch and watched me or us a bit. That didn't make me any less nervous ... I could have burst when I started and shot the ball in a perfect arc past the left side of the goal again. I couldn't hide my frustration ... "Kloppo" came up to me and said: "Not bad." ... I shouldn't be annoyed ... he could introduce me to two or three of his players who don't always get that far ... I thought ... he's nice ... he'd be something for us here ...

Like a pro (from the looks of it at least), the shot, the coach and the star player, uahhh - I think it's my turn now ...

As a rejecter (or maybe just me) only a few were chosen as first ... but that changed little by little ...

There were pretty good footballers at Abstoß in every generation, most of them played at Thier for the then DJK, now SV Thier. Without all the boys from Abstoß, some teams wouldn't have been able to take to the field in full ... I'd say that a pure team from Abstoß would have been able to hold their own against the rest of Thier ... But you were definitely stronger together ... That's what team sport is all about and what I always liked about it. One of the best players from Abstoß, from my point of view of course and a few years younger than me, was Mike König, we formed a good and solid friendship the day he moved in, even though he was a lot younger ...

I can still remember picking him up for the ball game "Andy" or "kingshooting" or "köppen". Maybe I played a tiny part in him becoming such a good footballer and fantastic person ... but more on that later ... maybe he'll write a guest commentary ...

Abstoß had this large meadow between the rows of houses, as I've already mentioned once or twice. It was also extremely important to me, and not just for me ...

This was exclusively for playing soccer. Even before my time, all the boys played soccer here ... I can still remember that as a very young boy I was never allowed to play with the older boys - although I did get one job after a lot of nagging: I was unanimously elected as the back goalkeeper ... Sounds great, doesn't it? My role was, you guessed it ... to pick up every ball that went next to or over the goal and put it back into play. I often had to go to the meadow near the cows to fetch the ball ... not only because there was electricity on the fence, a cow could have been a bull ... ... even washed-out cattle aren't exactly small for a little nipper like me back then ... Yes, that's how it used to be ... really ...... probably unthinkable today, but I didn't die from it, I got so involved and one day, when there weren't enough footballers present, I was allowed to "fill up" a team ... so - everything always with PEACE - everything comes in its own time ... that's also long been out of fashion ... I don't even know whether I was allowed to play on the field or in goal!? Some of them had fun physically hurting me in every action. When they came at me with the ball, the older players, who were usually 6-9 years older than me, took off. I either got the ball from 2-3 meters in the stomach, in the abdomen or right in the face ... as I remember, everyone laughed after every knockout ... what asses.