He was passionate about football.
Now Josef, known as "Bacherl" Schmidt, has died at the age of 83.
Kollbach / Kammerberg
- “Soccer is our life”, sang the German national soccer team in the run-up to the 1974 World Cup. Soccer, that was his life, one could say about Josef Schmidt from Kollbach, who most of them just called “Bacherl”.
He has now died at the age of 83.
Josef Schmidt still belonged to the species of footballers or fans, of which there are not many today. He was therefore known almost in the entire district and beyond. His cradle was in Porec, in the Slavonia part of today's Croatia. As a displaced person, he came to Kammerberg with his family via detours at the age of seven. At the beginning of the 1950s, the Schmidts built their own house in Kollbach. He lived in Kollbach almost until the end of his life.
But Kammerberg has always remained particularly important to him.
Here he went to school and made friends for life.
Professionally, the trained interior decorator worked most of the time in the parcel service at the post office in Munich.
Kammerberg was also his football home.
Here he was not only active himself, but also trained the youth and later very successfully the first.
His nephew “Nanz” Schmidt still remembered the time when he played under his uncle: “Although he was a very fatherly guy, he didn't get much praise.
There was always something he could improve.
But everyone liked him.
We were so successful that we only missed promotion to the district league after losing in the decider against Freimann in Garching in early 1970 ”.
Schmidt Sepp was only called "Bacherl" by everyone.
“Bacherl” because as a boy he always wanted to be like Franz Bachl, a well-known FC Bayern player at the time, even though he was a six-man himself all his life.
The "Bacherl" was also successful as a trainer in Vierkirchen.
With the black and yellow, he made it to the B-Class.
He was also a referee for football games for many years.
And later, even at an advanced age, he stood week after week with a pad and pencil as a referee observer on the edge of the field on the courts in the district.
Then he usually went to the sports restaurants in Vierkirchen and Kammerberg for a little chat.
The game day was often “worked through” with like-minded people.
The "Bacherl" enjoyed talking about football.
Great-nephew Rainer Wildgruber is also happy to tell about the deceased: “He was a loving family man who often did work for the general public where you weren't exactly in the foreground.
So he sat for a long time with passion on the Bulldog lawnmower of SpVgg Kammerberg and mowed the fields ”.
Funeral in the closest circle
As a devout Christian, he was also a sacristan in Kollbach.
There, in the Kollbach cemetery, Schmidt will be buried on Thursday.
Because of Corona, the funeral will only take place in close family circles.
Without the pandemic, the “Bacherl” would have surely accompanied many former football companions from the area on their way to rest.
Presumably also the two former mayors Rudi Jenkofer (Kammerberg) and Heinz Eichinger (Vierkirchen), with whom he was once able to celebrate successes as a coach.
The bachelor with the big footballer heart would have been happy about it.
With the "Bacherl" goes a man who has given a lot to football - but also to him - and the family.
Just like the deceased in the family as a valued uncle Sepp, “Bacherl” as a football original in its sociable way will be missing in sports circles.
Heinz Nefzger