Ferdi Hartung/imago sports photo service
The pride of Eintracht: Bernd Hölzenbein (l.) in a duel with Walter Frosch (r., Kaiserslautern vs. Frankfurt, March 26, 1976)
Even the most stubborn football optimist should have realized at the weekend that nothing stays the same. But one thing remains cemented forever and ever: Eintracht Frankfurt will never become Bundesliga champions. For a decade, we Frankfurters enjoyed the fact that only the big club from the Munich scene won championships like Gene Simmons Women, but no other club, not even us.
But we were German champions! 1959.
But let’s not talk about other clubs, let’s not talk about Swallows and so on.
Yes, let’s talk about swallows!
Anyone who knew Bernd Hölzenbein closely always saw him in the same posture as he did in that moment against the Netherlands in ’74. Something slightly sneaky, crouching, that looked like cowardice in front of the enemy, but was actually the chutzpah of a real snapper, one of the caliber of David versus Goliath. “Make yourself even smaller in front of the enemy!” he seemed to shout to himself in various situations. Then at some point the enemy no longer sees you at all, and at that moment you are already behind him.
This led to sometimes odd visual conditions, and that’s a shame. There was that other, completely blonde Eintracht player (with a mustache). It’s a shame that the status and importance of the two are being talked about, even now. There is simply no gradient. The old Frankfurt fans, who lived through times that no one will experience today, knew: Grabi and Holz are the pride of Eintracht. The rhyme, ladies and gentlemen, was aimed at wood!
In that goal against Bucharest, too, Holz reduced the surface area of his body simply by slipping completely unintentionally. Jürgen Grabowski would never have humiliated himself like that. But Holz scored the goal.
It’s, in short, sickening: The invisible banana peel in 1974 and the mud-slide-slip-sit goal against Bucharest are Hölzenbein’s main remembered scenes, while Grabowski is always proud like a knight of the wonderful figure in the most upright posture on the right along the line runs, draws inward and does something wonderful to look at.
With wood, on the other hand, there was a brief flash, and bang!, he was in.
Metaphorically speaking, the increase in body surface area hasn’t always brought luck to Bernd Hölzenbein, Eintracht Frankfurt’s current record goalscorer. You increase your surface area, for example, by taking on positions. As the sports manager of Eintracht Frankfurt, the man had no luck. Before that, when he was still vice president, he had made excellent personnel decisions. For a while back then he seemed like he had a golden touch.
When he entered a cider bar with his wife Jutta, he usually didn’t have much to say. You could see him in the Drei Steubern, the Momberger, the Buchscheer and of course again and again in the Wagner on Schweizer Straße. One of the innkeepers there is married to Hölzenbein’s daughter.
Once he was sitting at the front right of the regulars’ table in Momberger, while my wife and I were sitting in a lively group at the other end of the dining room. Of course our conversation went towards Hölzenbein, the past and memories. “Who are you talking about?” asked my wife, who had never seen Bernd Hölzenbein before. “This is Bernd Hölzenbein,” I said without raising my voice. There was an eager buzz of voices in the room. My wife repeated: “Oh, that’s Bernd Hölzenbein?!” Holz heard his name and stared across the room at my wife, almost shocked. It seemed as if he couldn’t handle the situation at all. Bernd Hölzenbein fell silent and couldn’t help but continue to look at us in complete amazement. The poor.
We saw him often. When he was already quite disoriented, an acquaintance asked him for autographs again as a precaution. Of course he fulfilled the wish. The last time I saw him at the table with Bernd Nickel was shortly before Grabowski’s death. Now only Willi Neuberger remains.
Like Jürgen Grabowski, he now deserves to have a stand named after him in the stadium. That would have to be the main stand, which is still unnamed. But would that be wooden leg? Because what would it be other than the maximum increase in your own body surface area?
