Saturday, November 27th, 2021
The eternal hero of Berlin
When skimmed quark made Norbert Dickel immortal
Posted by Ben Redelings
Today Norbert Dickel celebrates his 60th birthday. 32 years ago, the BVB striker became the immortal cup hero of Berlin in a sensational and extremely curious way. The story of that day reads like a single legend.
“Lots of people were hoping for you and you idiot were about to give up!” The story of June 24, 1989 is the stuff that legends are made of. It is the day when Norbert Dickel from Bad Berleburg became the eternal hero of Berlin. And it is also the unbelievable story of a person who determined his entire, further life with a single game. The fact that Norbert Dickel ran onto the pitch for Borussia Dortmund in the DFB Cup final on this unforgettable summer day and made himself immortal with his two goals against SV Werder Bremen is only thanks to a chain of many small and large decisions and coincidences that ultimately determined the fate of Norbert Dickel. Because until a quarter of an hour before the start of the game, there were still two names behind the number 9: Norbert Dickel and Bernd Storck.
The night before the final, BVB coach Horst Köppel could not sleep in his hotel room in the Wannsee sports school. What should he do? Later, Köppel once remembered those restless minutes and hours: “You are doing kilometers in the booth or crouching on the edge of the bed and grilling your pear.” His thoughts during this difficult and highly emotional time: “If that goes in the pants with Nobby, I’m the poor candlestick. People say: It was clear! After all, Dickel didn’t play for six weeks after his operation.”
Huge “repair work” – on the knee
When Horst Köppel finally made a decision in the morning after his sleepless night, the striker suddenly lost his nerve. Dickel’s face was completely pale when he heard his trainer’s words. A strange feeling had crept into him from one moment to the next – and it really wasn’t a good one. Too much had happened since the cup semi-final against VfB Stuttgart a few weeks ago. The operation in Zurich had taken a whopping two hours. The “repair work”, as Dickel later called it, on his right knee turned out to be much bigger than first thought. The doctors had removed a piece of bone, smoothed a damaged cartilage and, most importantly, removed the external meniscus.
But Norbert Dickel had accepted all of this for his great goal. He really wanted to take part in the DFB Cup final by all means. But how should that work, given the severity of the operation? At least once a day Dickel was ready to give up all his hopes. Whenever he sat on the sofa in the evening and put his right leg up, he put low-fat curd cheese on his broken knee. The white mass cooled so nicely, calmed down – and let your thoughts wander.
“We can’t win without Nobby”
No, it just couldn’t be that he missed the final. And yet he was running out of time. In fact, Dickel was only back on the training ground two days before the final. A situation that they had never experienced before in Dortmund. Actually, Dickel was not allowed to appear for medical reasons alone – but like BVB President Gerd Niebaum, many Borussians thought: “Without Nobby we can’t win the game.”
And then the big moment came. But before that, Dickel experienced the next small and, in the end, so big story of this very special day. In his place in the cabin of the Berlin Olympic Stadium stood old, partly already tattered shoes. The striker was surprised and went to the kit manager “Bomber” Wiegandt. But he just smiled when he explained to Dickel: “These are the things with which you scored one hit after the other eight months ago. You want to make huts again today – so put them on.” And although no one could guarantee that the kicks would stop at all and that Dickel could hardly walk in his shoes, as he once said himself, he did as Wiegandt had told him.
At 6:21 p.m., the prophecy of the kit man should have been fulfilled for the first time. After an early goal by Karl-Heinz Riedle, Norbert Dickel had achieved the important compensation for Borussia. The BVB striker has told the story of this goal hundreds of times since then: “Bratseth is still in front of me. I hope he won’t get it. The boy is one step too late. I have a free run, the right corner is empty. Peng, the thing is in. Man, I’m going crazy! “
“When you hear the whistle, you can already congratulate!”
From that moment the game was on for BVB. Frank Mill made it 2: 1, Norbert Dickel the decisive 3: 1, before Michael Lusch finally made a wonderful 4-1 result. Dortmund’s Borussia was the 1989 DFB Cup winner and no one had any doubts as to who they owed this primarily to. Afterwards, Andreas Möller said in awe: “For me Norbert is simply sensational. I couldn’t even have given a peep after such a serious injury today.”
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary treasure trove of anecdotes. For ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his website www.scudetto.de.
But the bitter end is also part of the story of that day. Norbert Dickel paid dearly for being involved much too early after his serious injury. In the season after winning the Cup, Dickel only played six Bundesliga games. Then he had to apply for sports disability far too early. But he has never regretted his decision. After all, back in the summer of 1989, he had a clear goal in mind. When he was on his way to Berlin, he said on his answering machine: “I’m not at home. The next time we call, you will talk to the German Cup winner. Cross your fingers for me. When you hear the whistle, you can already congratulate!”
With this in mind: retrospectively, all the best for winning the DFB Cup in 1989 and congratulations and good luck to you, dear Norbert Dickel, on your 60th birthday.