When Erdinger football got better

Created: 04/09/2022, 10:15 am

By: Dieter Priglmeir

Dieter Priglmeir © private

When sports clubs help - as is the case with the Ukrainian children at the moment - it's a good idea and helps everyone.

Cheers to our sports clubs.

For them, it is a matter of course that every Ukrainian child should be able to train immediately.

There isn't a club in the district that hasn't already offered to help.

Many are already active.

This is not surprising, however, because sport has always brought people together.

Nice side effect: It helps both sides.

That was a win-win situation even before the word even existed.

After World War II, it was the expellees who took football in the district to a new level, as a veteran Forsterner once said: "We were farmers, they were real footballers."

Or let's take the early 1990s during the Balkan war.

The Croatian Zeljko Lekavski fled Bosnia with his wife and daughter in 1992 and stayed with his uncle in Ottenhofen.

"We were 17 people in a two-room apartment," recalls the 52-year-old - but we helped each other.

As a master orthopedic shoemaker, he quickly found work, bought football shoes with the first money and marched to the sports field, where he played with a few boys while the DJK was playing.

"At some point I had the feeling that I was being watched," he says with a laugh.

And then coach Georg Reithmaier and DJK boss Uwe Ritschel approached him.

Shortly thereafter, the Croatian had his first training session in Ottenhofen.

At the same time, help rolled in.

Lekavski got a community apartment - and the DJK the second fastest footballer in the district.

She already had the fastest one anyway: Konrad Rappold.

"It was always just a question of whether Konny scored the goal or me," says Lekavksi.

Those were golden years for Ottenhofen - and for Lekavski, who was once on the list from Hajduk Split.

Once he overdid it, as his friend Chris Holbinger explains: “We were already 3-0 or 4-0 up and were awarded a penalty.

Zeljko asked the coach for permission to do a trick.” He casually lobbed the ball into the middle.

"Unfortunately, the goalkeeper stopped.

Zeljko would have preferred to sink into the ground, apologized to the team and promised never to take a penalty again.” The team took it easy, the title was secured anyway.

The promotion celebration was the second best thing he was able to witness at the DJK, says Lekavski: "The whole village was on the soccer field and called my name.".

And the best thing?

"The birth of my daughter Sara here in the Erdinger hospital." Okay,

Lekavski left Ottenhofen in 1998 and built a new life and company with his family in Zagreb.

He returned a good two years ago, now works in Erding, lives in Markt Schwaben and could well imagine working as a coach today.

This is just one of many examples.

Ferdl Schediwy remembers two kickers who gained a foothold in their new home at BSG Taufkirchen thanks to sport.

“Kerla Mirza emigrated to Australia with his parents.

He's fine, he works there as an engineer,” says Schediwy, who continued to receive Christmas cards for many years.

"And I'm still in contact with Husim Gruhonijce," says the Taufkirchen football boss.

"I visited him with an AH colleague in Bosnia about seven years ago."

All examples with a happy ending.

Of course, there are also stories that didn't end so well.

But I don't want to tell you about them here today.

Because it's not about the end, it's about the beginning.

Our sports clubs help you to start a new life - unconditionally and without asking what you get out of it.

Win win?

That used to be a third priority for our clubs at most.

And it would be a farce anyway for the people from Ukraine, who have lost everything at home and have to fear for their fathers and brothers, to come up with such terms.