“Dixie” did what he wanted
The stubborn footballer in the GDR
By Tobias Nordman
01/19/2022, 06:09 p.m
Hans-Jürgen “Dixie” Dörner was a gentleman, but also a stubborn guy. He was so confident in his game that he didn’t want to be interfered with by coaches. This even forced him to end his playing career prematurely. Obituary for a legend of East German football.
There are things about Hans-Jürgen “Dixie” Dörner that you don’t necessarily need to know. For example, that he was one of the first footballers in the GDR to have a permanent wave done. You can smile at that, but it was actually a topic that was talked about in the 70s. Not as emotional, however, as about the end of his football career. Saying goodbye was difficult. In the summer of 1986 he had to leave his heart club, SG Dynamo Dresden. His former teammate and new head coach Eduard Geyer wanted it that way. He had sporting ideas that could not be implemented with “Dixie”, as Thomas Schmidt, the former sports director of the “Morgenpost” in Dresden, now tells our editors. A story that was hardly known until now.
New sporting ideas were fundamentally impossible to do with “Dixie”. The gentleman off the field was a stubborn player on the field. And he had his reasons for it. Because Hans-Jürgen Dörner, who died on Wednesday night at the age of 70 after a serious illness, was an outstanding footballer. A brilliant, a modern strategist. It is said about Dörner that he always played well. A game in which “Dixie” didn’t deliver is not caught in the collective memory of the GDR. Maybe they really didn’t exist? Perhaps the memory of the man who interpreted and shaped football in the country in a completely new way also simply outshines possible heirlooms of weakness?
Well, “Dixie” was iconic. Already in his early 20s he was a libero and director in one. A role that was actually reserved for the older people in the teams. But “Dixie” was perfection in this position. Although he had actually been trained as a striker. He could do anything, anywhere. All of his team’s attacks were initiated by Dörner. Because he played the way he played, he was made the “cymbal builder of the East”. A comparison he liked when he was young. But the older Dörner got, the more he shaped football, the more flattery annoyed him. Dorner was Dorner. And not Beckenbauer. He was champion five times with SG Dynamo Dresden and won the cup four times. He played 100 games for the East German national team, with whom he sensationally won gold at the Olympic Games in Montreal in 1976. Against the highly favored Poles.
Great victories, historic defeats
The final (3:1) was possibly the biggest game of his career. Maybe it was the game that made him a legend. Legends need something like that, a game like that to be told about them. That hangs after them forever. Helmut Rahn once had Uli Hoeneß, Jürgen Sparwasser, Andi Brehme or Bastian Schweinsteiger, who sacrificed himself in the 2014 World Cup final against Argentina. With “Dixie”, who by the way didn’t know where this nickname came from, it was different. He had these heroic games, but he wasn’t often the sole protagonist. He played outstandingly against Poland and gave the team security and stability. But there was also Reinhard Häfner, who fixed the gold with the 3:1 (84th), but there were also Wolfram Löwe and Hans-Jürgen Riediger, who constantly stressed the Poles.
Football in the GDR experienced its outstanding period with Dörner. And so the gamers of the generation became heroes. And “Dixie” one of their greatest. That’s another reason why Dynamo fans were so disappointed when Dörner had to leave the club. After all, they had celebrated great victories with him and suffered legendary defeats, such as against FC Bayern (1973, 3: 4 in Munich, 3: 3 in Dresden in the European Cup of Champions) under the legendary coach and great sponsor of “Dixie”. , Walter Fritzsch or against Bayer 05 Uerdingen (3:7, in March 1986 in the second leg of the European Cup Winners’ Cup). The separation was not easy for the club either, but the decision was rational.
With “Ede” Geyer he had decided on the star coach of the GDR. A man for the future. At 35, Dörner was no longer that. And so his career ended suddenly and surprisingly. Geyer had apparently guessed that there would be a crunch between him and the player. How it often crunched between Dörner and his coach when things should go differently than the player had wanted. But the alphas never made a big deal out of it. “The news (editor’s note: Dörner’s death) blew me away, I’m deeply affected and stunned,” said Geyer now to the sports information service: “Dixie and I fought a lot of fights, he had that certain something and was one Inspiration for many footballers.”
First GDR coach in the west
It is possible that his own convictions also stood in the way of a great coaching career for Dörner. After the end of the GDR, he worked for years with the youth team of the DFB before he accepted the offer from Werder Bremen and tried his hand as the first coach from the East in the Bundesliga – moderately successfully, after a year and a half the adventure was over. Dörner also blamed the bad standing of the East coaches. After that he disappeared from the big stage. He only showed up there occasionally, but was always welcome when it came to Dynamo. Also as a member of the supervisory board.
Almost exactly a year ago, on his 70th birthday, he gave a big interview to his heart club, for which he played 558 times and scored an amazing 101 goals. He looked back on his career. And was grateful. The way things had gone, he thought, they had gone well. He had expressed one great wish for the future: health. This did not come true, after a serious illness he died on Wednesday.