As of: March 25, 2024, 2:56 p.m
By: Jörg Domke
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Receives a high award in May: Rainer Koch receives the Bürgerring;
as a third community citizen.
© Andreas Gora
The Poinger Bürgerring has only been awarded twice.
Dr.
Rainer Koch will be the third member of the group in May.
Poing -
There is a glass plaque of honor in front of the still relatively new office of the First Mayor in the converted Poinger town hall.
The honorary citizens, the previous recipients of the citizens' medals and also the two municipal citizens who have previously been awarded a ring of honor are noted there: Rainer Lauterbach as local councilor from 1978 to 1982, as mayor from 1982 to 2000 and as former mayor, as well as his CSU party friend Christa Stewens as Bavarian Minister of Social Affairs from 1978 to 2002.
Lauterbach got the Bürgerring 24 years ago, the Angelbrechting woman four years later.
Since then, this special award has no longer been given to Poinger citizens.
This year, exactly on May 17th, that will change.
As the municipality announced recently, another award ceremony for the Citizens' Ring will follow soon;
namely to Rainer Koch.
The ceremony will take place in the evening from 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the elementary school on Karl-Sittler-Straße.
Previous sponsors: Christa Stewens and Rainer Lauterbach
The local council recently laid the foundation for this in a non-public meeting.
The acting town hall boss Thomas Stark did not want to give a precise reason when asked by the EZ.
He wanted to reserve that for his laudatory speech on May 17, said Stark.
However, the 59-year-old did at least let it be known that the award recognized Koch, who has lived in Poing since 1964, for his work as a sports speaker, as well as his work as an SPD parliamentary group spokesman over several terms of office and as a member of the local council for over 30 years.
Last but not least, Koch's supra-local commitment in various management positions in the Bavarian and German Football Association (DFB) also influenced the secret decision of his council colleagues, at least indirectly.
Koch, born in Kiel in 1958, was even temporarily the DFB president and thus the highest representative of the largest individual sports association in the world.
He is currently honorary president of the BFV regional association and still works full-time as a judge.
Koch was on the local council for 30 years
Thomas Stark also emphasized that as a political community it was thanks, among other things, to the former football official's diverse contacts that there had already been an international football match on Poingen soil.
Sweden and Germany once faced each other in the girls' division.
Without Rainer Koch, Stark is certain that this game would certainly not have existed in his community.
Koch revealed to the EZ in May 2020 that, in addition to football, his great love was always his place of residence, Poing. Back then, when he left the council, he told our newspaper about Poing: “We are not a tourist resort and will never be one.
We are not a typical Upper Bavarian foothills of the Alps.
Nothing like a postcard idyll.” What sets Poing apart, it was said at the time, is something completely different: the “liveable life in the place”.
Koch once said that no one who grew up here or later moved here has to leave the suburb of Munich.
After all, everything you need for life (especially as a family) is there: daycare centers, schools, shopping facilities, sports facilities, parks, swimming lakes, clubs.
Koch, married and father of a daughter, said of himself at the time: “I have always had two passions: judges and football.”
Confession of love for one's place
In 1988 he began what he called his dream job, as a judge.
Ten years later, when Koch was 39, he became chairman of the DFB sports court.
The fact that he would also do local politics in addition to all this and his family was not originally part of his life plan.
And yet he doesn't regret a day because: "I'm a convinced Poinger and I wanted to help make the place livable and lovable." To what he believes Poing still is today.
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Rainer Koch, who worked for the SPD in the local council from 1990 to 2020 and was sent by his party to the Federal Assembly in 2009, expressed recognition and respect to the elected officials in 2020 after their election.
“I am not worried that the basic idea of the livable and lovable Poing will change with the new local council and the new mayor.”
And he added: “I would like Poing to continue to develop and maintain its independent identity.”
Incidentally, the Bürgerring is not Koch's first award outside of sport.
In 2014 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon.
Nevertheless, Koch has also been exposed to harsh criticism from the sports media in recent years.
This involved, among other things, accusations of a lack of transparency, a lack of willingness to clarify the facts and a certain pronounced desire to travel.
You can read even more news from the Ebersberg region here.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter