Matchdays: The Hidden Story of the Bundesliga

by Ronald Reng (Contributor)

The enormous success of German football is envied around the world. The national team won the 2014 World Cup in style, while the Bundesliga offers an alternative model through its fan-friendly set-up, terraces and low ticket prices. In Matchdays: The Hidden Story of the Bundesliga, award-winning author Ronald Reng takes a unique approach to explain the history and peculiarities of German football. He follows the tracks of a journeyman footballer, Heinz Hoher, who has been in the Bundesliga all his life, from the first day of its existence in 1963 until now, as a player, manager, sports director and youth coach.

We see through Hoher's story the wider picture of how German football, and even German society, developed from the ruins of the Nazi era to become the football and economic powerhouse of today. Born in 1939, Hoher became the small-town hero of Bayer 04 Leverkusen, a stylish winger and the first to let his hair grow like the Beatles. He witnessed the big match-fixing affairs of the seventies, fought in vain the temptations of so many managers - alcohol and gambling - and realised that, even at 75, his real addiction is still the game.

Matchdays does for German football what David Winner's Brilliant Orange did for Dutch football.

Genres: Football, Sports, Nonfiction, Soccer, History, Biography, German Literature

448 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2013

About the author

Ronald Reng is a German sports journalist and author. Of his books, two have been translated to English and both of them have been honored with book awards in the UK.

The Keeper of Dreams, the story of the German non-league goalkeeper Lars Leese who ended up playing for Barnsley Football Club in the Premier League, won the Sports Book of the Year Award in 2004. It was the first foreign book to achieve such praise. Reng's biography of the late German national goalkeeper Robert Enke, A Life too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke was voted William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2011. Reng was the first non-English speaking author in 23 years to win the award.

In Germany, Reng was distinguished seven times in nine years, between 2001 and 2010, with the award for the best sports story of the year by the Association of German Sports Writers. In 2010 he was awarded the Dietrich Oppenberg Media Award "for outstanding journalistic contributions to promote the culture of reading."

Reviews

[Semjon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ronald Reng ist ein sehr guter Biograf von Personen des Sports. Sein Buch über Robert Enke hatte mich vor Jahren sehr bewegt. Und diese ungewöhnliche Geschichte der Bundesliga auch, denn Reng reiht nicht Anekdoten der letzten 60 Jahre aneinander, sondern verdeutlicht den Wandel im Fußball und in der Gesellschaft an einem kleinen Glied dieser großen Bundesliga-Geschichte. Kein schillernder Held, kein Nationalspieler, sondern ein Mensch, die die Bundesliga als Spieler und Trainer in der zweiten Reihe erlebte. Heinz Höher, Jahrgang 1938, nach Veröffentlichung des Buchs im Jahr 2019 verstorben, war vor allem als Spieler in den 60ern bei Bochum und als Trainer in den 80ern bei Nürnberg bekannt.

Sehr unterhaltsam und liebevoll, wie Reng die Geschichten, die ihm Höher erzählt hat, zu einer Biografie über ihn und einer Geschichte über die Bundesliga zusammenfasst. Zudem genial vorgetragen als Hörbuch von Christian Ulmen. Ich meinte als, Herrn Lehmann zu hören. Empfehlenswert, wenn man sich fürs Thema interessiert.

[Maćkowy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dwa piwa i lufa. Biografia Heinza Hohera

Przez 1/4 książki psioczyłem na polskiego wydawcę, no bo jak biografię Heinza Hohera można sprzedawać jako historyczne opracowanie o Bundeslidze?
-Biografię kogo?
Ano właśnie. Czy sięgnąłbym po tę książkę gdyby nosiła tytuł: "Biografia Heinza Hohera".

Wolne żarty.

Także przez 1/4 książki psioczyłem i wylewałem jad na swój notatniczek, by przez kolejne 3/4 czytać z rozdziawioną gębą. "Bundesliga" jest przede wszystkim świetną biografią, owszem dosyć hermetyczną i raczej "dla konesera" ale jednak. Jest to świetne studium ludzkiego życia, wzlotów i upadków, przemijania i rozrachunków z własnym ego u progu starości. Ronald Reng świetnie się spisał, wyciągając z opowieści Hohera momenty przełomowe, skupiając się nieraz na faktach pozornie absolutnie nieistotnych. Czytając te pierwsze 1/4 książki, często zastanawiałem się: no dobra, ale czemu nam to opisujesz autorze? by potem, na przykład trzy rozdziały dalej, płynnie połączyć kropki i zobaczyć jak wybory z przeszłości determinują teraźniejszość i przyszłość - Reng mistrz!

Oczywiście jest to też (w dużym stopniu) książka o niemieckiej piłce, o tym jak się zmieniała, jaki wpływ miały na nią pieniądze, jak ewoluowała taktyka, czy marketing i mentalność ludzi piłki od samych piłkarzy, działaczy, dziennikarzy po kibiców i wreszcie jaki wpływ te zmiany miały na naszego bohatera, bo razem z Hoherem podróżujemy w czasie od wzlotu do upadku, od odrodzenia, po starość, cały czas starając się zaadaptować do płynnie zmieniającej się rzeczywistości i utrzymać na powierzchni, przy czym Reng odmalowuje portret Hohera bardzo szczerze i bez upiększeń, potrafi docenić jego dokonania, ale w równie szczegółowo opisuje jego porażki. Często oddaje również głos ludziom z przeszłości, zawodowo bądź osobiście związanym z emerytowanym trenerem.

"Bundesliga" to na pewno książka na swój sposób wybitna, ale raczej nie zainteresuje każdego czytelnika. Pomimo, iż dotychczas skupiałem się głównie nad ludzkim aspektem biografii Hohera, i mogliście ulec wrażeniu, że ta książka może was wciągnąć, jak każda inna biografia - jako historia o człowieku - to zastanówcie się, czy określenia takie jak: krycie strefą, podania diagonalne, spalony i 1 FC Nuernberg to wasza bajka, bo jest ich w książce multum i radzę wziąć na to poprawkę, wszak życiem Heinza Hohera przez ponad 50 lat była piłka nożna.

Podsumowując nadal uważam, że SQN wykonało cios poniżej pasa nadając jej tłumaczeniu taki tytuł, z drugiej strony z pewnością nie sięgnąłbym po tę książkę, gdyby tego nie zrobili. Czy im wybaczam? Nie, bo istniała duża szansa, że ta książka po prostu mnie nie zainteresuje - sięgając, jak sugerował tytuł, po opracowanie o historii niemieckiej ligi piłkarskiej liczę na historię niemieckiej piłki: statystyki, anegdotki i tak dalej, z drugiej strony jestem bardzo wdzięczny wydawnictwu, za to, że przeczytałem najlepszą sportową książkę w tym roku. I weź tu bądź mądry człowieku.

[Travis Timmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the phone with writer Ronald Reng, Heinz Höher is insistent: “Please, just give me a couple hours of your time. I want to tell you something. I have to tell you something.”

What Höher insists on telling his interlocutor takes the form of Reng’s latest book. But perhaps it’s Höher’s insistence and his eccentric personality, more than his actual story that comprises the heart of Reng’s narrative. That is, Matchdays, despite its intentions cannot escape from the biographical clutches of its main source, Herr Höher. Fortunately, Höher, and his journey through the Bundesliga’s founding to the present day, is a mostly compelling study.

As the book’s dust jacket explains, Reng’s conceit resembles that of film-makers the Coen Brothers, who “try to tell history through ordinary people.” In this case, Reng’s “ordinary person” is Heinz Höher, former Bundesliga players and coach. Through Höher’s long footballing career as player and coach, Reng traces the history of Germany’s Bundesliga from its 1963 founding season to the present day. Höher is there every step of the way, as his career arc serves as Reng’s synecdoche for telling the broader story of the Bundesliga’s rise. Heinz Höher is Reng’s narrative device. Like me, I bet most readers had never heard of him until Reng’s book was published. And this is Reng’s point; without Höher has our “ordinary” Virgil, Matchdays probably loses its ability to reveal a Bundesliga that is fortune-strewn, contingent, mundane, unforgiving, yet addictive for everybody. Höher’s unsung status and itinerant experiences open narrative horizons likely invisible to more famous and more eligible interlocutors for Reng.

Who is this Heinz Höher?

Well, he’s a footballer, a coach, a son, a husband, a father, and a mystery. For instance, we learn that a young Höher would drive from his Leverkusen home to quietly and methodically sit in a Köln cafe, instead of attending his universities courses, all for the sake of keeping up appearances for his worried mom. Then there’s Höher’s peroxided locks, kept long in the Beatles-style – “a bottle blondfringe, down over his forehead,” the first of its kind among German footballers, as Reng claims. Or his queerly quiet ways and quiet drinking. Or the wonderfully touching anecdotes of Höher writing to a “Mr. Wizlinger” in his private diaries. (One excerpt: “Now you just listen, Winzlinger, tomorrow it’s the final exam for my manager’s course. If I’m going to pass, I’ve got to put something original into a game of five against two.”) Or his self-published children’s book, Tomo the hero who went to school in Lübeck. Or finally his obsessive mentoring and development of footballer, Juri Judt. From these details a mottled composite of Höher emerges. Endearing? Yes. But also puzzling.

Höher’s career arc forms Matchdays‘s chronology. The Leverkusen born-and-bred (into Nazi Germany) winger is on the cusp of playing football “professionally” for the newly formed Bundesliga. However, it won’t be for Leverkusen, who didn’t make the cut for the first Bundesliga season.

Instead, Höher, former World Cup winner Helmut Rahn, dashing keeper Manfred Manglitz, global citizen and coach Rudi Gutendorf, and others find themselves playing for village club SV Meiderich (MSV Duisberg today), who miraculously qualified for the inaugural Bundesliga season.

And at this moment, Höher’s career rumbles into motion as he eventually travels a mazy Autobahn-like road through German (and European) towns and cities on an itinerant circuit. Throughout Höher’s travels, we learn about the transient and horrifyingly contingent existence of “ordinary” footballers in the early dawn of professionalized football in Germany, as injuries, personality conflicts, or playing style mismatches smite down many a skilled player, Höher included. Each stop on the road, Höher’s wife, Doris, and the kids follow. Their life comprises a strange mingling of pitched excitement and confounding drabness.

From Meiderich, Höher’s playing days take him to Twente in the Netherlands, then to VfL Bochum in what was then the Regionalliga West. A brief detour in Sepp Herberger’s die Nationalmannschaft‘s training camp (1959) once punctuated Höher’s playing career. And then it’s all over.

Reng’s narrative covers its most interesting ground as Höher transitions into his coaching career, starting with his avant-garde ideas and methods as a student at the Sports University in Köln, taught by then-Gladbach coach Hennes Weisweiler. Although the details are not clear (he’s an originator of zonal marking?), Höher conceptualized his “modern” coaching techniques that would later both baffle and inspire his players.

The book’s climax is the documented player strike that Höher victoriously weathered during his four year stint as Nürnberg (1984-88). This episode is recounted in blow-by-blow fashion with the players’ complaint letter and all. From this episode, Höher emerges with new-found validity in own “odd” (mostly silent!) coaching methods, as Nürnberg president Gerd Schmelzer – for whatever reasons – bravely keeps the faith in his avant-garde coach.

Reng uses Höher’s coaching days – in Germany at VfL Bochum, Schwarz-Weiß Essen, MSV Duisberg, Fortuna Düsseldorf, 1.FC Nürnberg, and VfB Lübeck – as a vehicle for Matchdays‘s forays into broader German football and sporting culture; for example, the meteoric rise of TV show Das Aktuelle Sportstudio or the rise of women in German sport discourse, like Carmen Thomas (and her cruelly mocked Schalke gaffe). Of course, the infamous 1970-71 Bundesliga match-fixing scandal gets the full treatment, as do the wider problems related to suppressed player wages during the Bundesliga’s first decade. Additionally, another theme Reng traces is the increasingly commodification of German football, a sport emerging from its sham amateurism days in the early 60s into a televised and corporate-sponsored spectacle, like football in Europe’s other major countries.

Thanks to Höher’s insider account, Reng’s narrative gathers strength from the accumulated details, anecdotes, worries, and reflections comprising Höher’s own experience of living through these decades, as his own story flits in and out of the wider cultural picture Reng pieces together. For example, more than anything, the Bundesliga of the 1960s-70s seems to be a league of card players drinking schnapps to stave off the terrifying boredom of life outside the practice pitch and matchdays. Descriptions of card games litter Reng’s book. Höher himself typically stars in these scenes, as his own drinking leads to a severe crisis. From these bits of stories between Bundesliga matchdays, Reng assembles a sensitively-handled human portrait of the sporting life.

However, I’m of two minds about Matchdays. On one hand, the book is successful. As a subject, Höher certainly deserves his own biography – I agree with the dust jacket’s praise of the book’s “Coen Brothers” device – given the ground Höher’s life spans, as well as his opaque personality and habits. (Surely, the film version of Höher’s life story would be lovely.)

On the other hand, the book is muddled between trying to be Höher’s biography and a cultural history of the Bundesliga. It wants to do both, and it probably could do both; but in its current form, it doesn’t. Höher’s story is the book’s center of gravity, pulling us away from the broader – and certainly more substantive – cultural history that Uli Hesse’s Tor! or even Raphael Honigstein’s Das Reboot covers.

Perhaps Matchdays simply suffers from a case of false advertising. As pitched, the book promises cultural history of the Bundesliga, especially as signified by the title itself: Matchdays. Yes, cultural history is there, but in a scatter-shot manner that I found to be unsatisfying and slightly disappointing. Höher’s story kept getting in the way. My reading expectations kept getting crossed up. Yet I wouldn’t have minded reading simply a Höher biography, celebrating the unsung in a uniquely Höheresque way, if the book had originally been pitched this way. Instead, I was left with the disappointed expectation that a writer of Reng’s caliber was going to cover comprehensive ground in laying out the cultural history of my favorite football league.

Moreover, Reng’s German is translated into English that feels, well, odd. The book is a sometimes uncomfortable read, prose-wise. I don’t know how much (or little) the translator, James Hawes, is to blame for this flaw. First, Hawes’ translate could have used with more line editing, as small typos littered the book. Second, Reng’s writing voice sounded something like a translated parody of a stylized genre-voice that would be recognizable in the book’s original German form. I’m eager to see the original German text to get a better feel for Reng’s native writing voice. As is, Matchdays is a slightly jarring read in English.

Nonetheless, the book is essential reading for German fußball aficionados, because of the accumulated layers of story bits, detritus, scraps, and the odd vividly descriptive detail. Taken together, these story bits do enrich my own knowledge of Bundesliga history and culture, but only has the forms of bits. However, sometimes the real / the true is a conveyor belt of bits, and it’s the risky business of hindsight narrative-casting that robs us of something. This notion helps me somewhat to reconcile myself to Reng’s book. Besides, Höher the man suddenly becomes much less interesting when hindsight curves and flattens his experience into a coherent narrative. Perhaps I need also to accept this truth about Bundesliga history itself. Perhaps I should have a chat with “Mr. Winzler”?

[Turlough Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to all involved in this book - incredible stories and amazing level of research detailing the over 50 years Heinz Hoher was connected to the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. The book does cover many topics but is mostly a biography of Heinz Hoher so be careful if you’re expected a Bundesliga history because this is not that type of book.

[Matt Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable look at the history of the Bundesliga through the lens of a coach.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not exactly what I'd expected, and was more of a biography of former player and manager Heinz Höher than the Bundesliga itself. It was still an interesting story and was well presented by Reng but I'm not sure how reliable the narrator was, especially in the earliest chapters.

I had expected this to be more about the German League in general, not just because I was too lazy to check what I was reading but also due to some of the earlier chapters, which discussed ZDF's live sports programme and a match fixing scandal from 1971. These first few tangents were interesting and helped to add more colour to the evolution of German football, and it was a shame that only Ralf Rangnick's 1998 appearance on ZDF was woven into the book later on. Höher's peripheral involvement meant that from 1990 onwards the biography was fairly detched from the League, and was narrower in focus. This was a slight disappointment based on the first chapters.

That said, the biography was still interesting, and Höher was not necessarily presented in a favourable light. Aloof and uncommunicative with both his players and his family, it was difficult to feel much sympathy for his later employment trouble, and even more so when seeing his self-destructive behaviour. He was so aloof with his players that I wondered how he had ever achieved success, and he managed to be passive or utterly desperate when it came to taking on a new job in management. Perhaps he had an innate ability to see talent and good player combinations, which is alluded to in his later role as a youth coach.

His advice to Juri Judt made me feel very sorry for the player as his guidance was clearly in self-interest and not that of the player. Stubbornly insisting he should demand to be a defensive midfielder rather than sign for a second division club at right back I wondered why an agent or the player himself didn't step in and tell him to back off. This is a running theme throughout the book, of Höher being fundamentally self-interested and lacking warmth or genuine empathy.

And yet one of the strange things about the book is that I can't tell how much input came from other people despite this unflattering portrait. Who else did Reng get to interview to corroborate stories? Otherwise we have to take Höher's word for it, and some of the details of matches or scenes from 50 years ago stretch credibility if they are supposed to be entirely accurate. Such reliability is questioned at one point, and his wife had seemingly contributed too, but I would have liked to know what some of the other people made of his character.

I definitely took a lot from the book and I definitely got a better picture of the early years of the Bundesliga, even if the later years were covered more sparingly. I was glad that Reng and Höher had produced a warts and all book rather than a hagiography - but I would have liked a better idea of how reliably the events are described and more of the colour features in the latter half of the book.

[Philipp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Von den 60ern bis in die 2010er nimmt uns Reng mit auf eine Reise an der Seite des vielen vermutlich eher unbekannten Spielers und Trainers Heinz Höher. Reng vermag es wie kein Zweiter, ein Netz aus Chronik und Biografie zu weben, das sich wie ein guter Roman lesen lässt.

Die Geschichte ist uns eigentlich allen bekannt – die Bundesliga von 1963 bis 2013. Und dennoch erwischt man sich immer wieder dabei, wie man erstaunt ist, Dinge nachrecherchieren will, weil vieles wie Fiktion anmutet. Reng ist ein Sammler von Anekdoten, erzählt sie aber nicht plump, sondern gibt uns das Gefühl, dabei gewesen zu sein.

Er schafft es, einer Biografie über Heinz Höher und der Chronik der Bundesliga so viel Liebe zu widmen, dass man bei jedem wiedererkannten Spieler- oder Trainernamen tiefer in Nostalgie versinkt – obwohl man, ich spreche für mich als Jahrgang 1997, eigentlich erst gegen Ende des Buches die eigene Fußballsozialisation wiederfindet.

Nach jedem Jahrzehnt denkt man sich: Hier wäre ich gern dabei gewesen. Dieses Spiel hätte ich gern gesehen. Diesen Spieler live bewundern dürfen. Man freut sich über jeden Erfolg des Protagonisten und leidet bei jedem seiner Fehler, weil Reng es schafft, aus einem vermeintlich „gescheiterten“ Menschen das hervorzuholen, was normalerweise unter der Oberfläche bleibt. So wird aus einem unnahbaren, wortkargen Alkoholiker mit Dickschädel ein feinfühliger, poetischer Freigeist, der sich in Zeiten und Konstellationen nach Liebe sehnte, in denen es nicht möglich war, sie zu bekommen oder einzufordern.

Es bleibt – nach Vollendung dieser Lektüre – ein Lächeln, das darüber hinwegtäuscht, dass man an manchen Stellen gerne geweint hätte.

[Martin Vickers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Looking back a few weeks on I can raise a smile for "Matchdays". Heinz Hoher is a character that gets ever more fascinating and slightly disturbing and from his point of view I learnt more about the Bundesliga than I probably ever will again. It reminded me a little of Duncan Hamilton's brilliant book on Brian Clough "Provided You Don't Kiss Me" especially with Heinz a red faced drunk towards the end of his managerial career.
It is not in the same league as Ronald Reng's title winning "A Life too Short" but I don't see how it could. My respect and admiration for Reng has increased though as he made a literally foreign culture real and interesting. Yes as my sleeping it book it did send me to sleep but in a good way and the fact that it only took a couple of months to read is a compliment to how well written it was.

[Torsten Wieland]

Ich wollte es nicht, weil sich eh schon so viel Zeit mit Fußball verbringe. Meine Lesezeit sollte frei von Fußball bleiben. Dann bekam ich es geschenkt. Und es ist schlicht unglaublich gut!

Die Geschichte der Bundesliga. Die Geschichte eines Lebens. Die Geschichte der Bundesrepublik. Vor allem ist die Stimmung so gut getroffen. Die Stimmung, an die ich mich erinneren, wenn ich an die Bundesligawochenenden meiner Kindheit in den 80er denke. Die Stimmung, an die ich mich erinnere, wenn ich an die Geschichten meiner Eltern aus den 70er denke. Das beschriebene Leben des Heinz Höher öffnet ein Fenster in diese Zeiten, lässt diese Zeiten nachfühlen und erklärt dabei, wie die Menschen damals waren, wie die Liga damals war, wie das alles zu dem wurde, was es heute ist.

Ein grandioses Buch, das ich sogar Menschen empfehlen würde, die mit Fußball nichts am Hut haben.

[Ryan McTernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, beautiful book. Completely opposite to what I expected before starting it, I found so much charm, sadness and hope all at once. The story of life shines far stronger than the fifty years of Bundesliga that Heinz Höher captures, and it unfolds perfectly chapter by chapter. A special experience to read this story with no context of what will happen.

[Steven Pilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic history of german football through the career of one man . It touches on social history too. I really enjoyed and learned much . Read in berlin

[D-OS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toller Rückblick auf 50 Jahre Bundesliga am Beispiel der Person Heinz Höher!

[Paul Grech · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with Ronald Reng's other book - A Life Too Short - this is a book that on the face of it deals with football but in truth is about life in general and people's shortcomings. An enjoyable read but never hits the emotional highs of A Life Too Short.

[Marc Höttemann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein absolut beeindruckendes Buch!

Seit Kindertagen habe ich kein Buch regelrecht verschlungen wie die Geschichte der Bundesliga, die gleichzeitig auch die Geschichte von Heinz Höher ist.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das beste Buch über Fußball - vermutlich!