Thursday, October 07, 2021
Hamann shock to say goodbye
The “bloody Germans” desecrate Wembley
Everything was ready for the big and perfect farewell to Wembley: The hated footballers from Germany were guests, the English with the stars around David Beckham the favorite. But then Dietmar Hamann came and everything changed. It turned out to be the traumatic “Didi Day”.
For the “Independent on Sunday”, one of those proud Sunday newspapers in proud England, the matter was clear: “Wembley didn’t deserve such a farewell.” The stadium with the twin towers had seen too much in its history: the 1948 Olympic Games, the 1966 World Cup final with the legendary goal that wasn’t, or the 1985 Live Aid concert against hunger in Africa.
But then Dietmar Hamann came along. The human wrecking ball. The tabloid “News of the World” later christened the game day on October 7, 2000 “Didi-Day” in reference to the Allied landings in Normandy (D-Day). The colorful papers have never held back on the island with comparisons of the World War, especially when it comes to the “bloody Germans” – the hated Germans.
On that said “Didi Day”, an uncomfortable autumn day with typically poor English weather, everything was arranged for an atmospheric farewell to the “cathedral” of football. An English team with David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Michael Owen was the clear favorite against the EM failure from Germany with their interim team boss Rudi Völler. But then Hamann hit “with the wrecking ball”, as the “Independent am Sonntag” soberedly stated, to a 1-0 victory. A direct free kick from 32 meters into the heart of English football, a “clap of thunder” (“Sunday People”) in the final match in the old Wembley Stadium.
The actual demolition followed three years later, and a new football temple opened seven years later. And again it was the Germans who desecrated the national sanctuary of the English. After a 1-1 draw in their first international match against Brazil at the new Wembley Stadium, the proud Lions lost 2-1 to the DFB-Elf.
At least one disgrace was spared the English: Didi Hamann was in the lead in the online vote on the name of the footbridge that leads to the stadium – the wrecking ball would have been burned into Wembley for all time. Ultimately, the bridge was named “The White Horse Bridge” after the police horse Billy, who did a particularly good job at the first FA Cup final at the old Wembley Stadium in 1923.