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In March 1971, the ARD “Sportschau” presented the “Goal of the Month” for the first time.
50 years later, the rubric is still one of the best known on German television.
Six protagonists, from inventors to record winners, remember.
The persistence of the inventor
Klaus Schwarze, 81 years old: “I got the impetus for 'Goal of the Month' in England.
I traveled there regularly to bring videos for match reports from the English league to Germany.
On the BBC I saw the program 'Grandstand', at the end of which there was always the 'highlight of the day'.
Initiator: ARD sports presenter Klaus Schwarze directed the "Sportschau" for 15 years
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
On the return flight I thought: How can we develop this further?
With the help of the ARD colleagues, the 'goal of the month' was created.
At first it was difficult to convince my sports director of the idea.
'Mr. Black, what do we leave out for that?' He said to me.
But I stayed at it, and in March 1971 the time had come.
After the first broadcast, hundreds of thousands of submissions came in.
After that there weren't many arguments against it.
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Since then, the ARD editorial team has been lively discussing and voting on which goals are available for selection every month.
Nobody would have believed that this section would run for so long.
I am proud of 50 years of being 'Goal of the Month'.
My personal favorite goal is Klaus Fischer's bicycle kick against Switzerland in 1977. "
GDR shooter got the medal four years later
Jörg Burow, 59 years old: “It was a floodlit show on September 12, 1986 in the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld in Jena.
I played in the GDR major league with FC Carl Zeiss against Stahl Brandenburg.
ARD was there because five days later we had to play against Bayer Uerdingen in the European Cup, and they filmed a preliminary report.
Free kick expert from Jena: Here Jörg Burow (left) is watching his colleague Thomas Ludwig and striker Stefan Persigehl from FC Karl-Marx-Stadt
Source: picture alliance / ZB
We won 2-0, I scored the first goal with a free kick from the left (photo).
Free kicks were my specialty, I also shot nicer ones than this one.
Maybe the wall wasn't in good shape and the goalkeeper wasn't expecting a shot.
So the ball went with a cut to the left around the two-man wall in the lower left corner.
Thanks to ARD, the way to the 'Sportschau' was short.
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Everyone in the team was happy for me weeks later when I won, and the invitation to Cologne to attend the 'Sportschau' was promptly received.
The joy was enormous when the trip was initially approved for me.
But two days later I was told that I wasn't allowed to drive.
It wasn't a competition that the GDR organized.
I accepted that.
It was all the nicer when I finally got the medal in 1990.
The wall had fallen and we were with friends in Hildrizhausen near Stuttgart.
The World Cup semi-final between Germany and England was running, when an ARD team came in through the door.
Our friends invited that. "
Overhead kicks as an emergency solution
Klaus Fischer, 71 years old: "50 years, goal of the month"?
Crazy how time flies!
In any case, I am very proud that I have received six awards - and that there are 28 years between the 1975 overhead kick for Schalke in the Bundesliga game against Karlsruher SC and the 2003 overhead kick for the traditional Schalke team.
Three of my goals have also been voted 'Goal of the Year'.
Bicycle kicks are my trademark.
The best-known is probably the one I scored in Stuttgart on November 16, 1977 in the international match against Switzerland: Rüdiger Abramczik, my Schalke team-mate, crossed from the right side at full speed, the ball came a little too high for his head go there - I've tried it and it's perfect
works).
The goal was also 'Goal of the Year', 'Goal of the Decade' and 'Goal of the Quarter of a Century'.
The mother of all overhead kicks: Klaus Fischer scores 4-1 against Switzerland on November 16, 1977
Source: picture-alliance / Sven Simon
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I am often asked why I scored so many goals this way.
The answer is simple: it's a stopgap solution - you apply it when the flank doesn't come perfectly.
It's risky: the referee may blow the whistle if you're too close to a defender.
You can also injure yourself if you fall uncontrollably on the floor.
Happened to me too.
But if you want to score nice goals, you sometimes have to suffer.
A trademark that you can relate to: Klaus Fischer is on trial in the German Football Museum
Source: picture alliance / augenklick / firo Sportphoto
By the way, I did my last overhead kick about a year and a half ago in a game for the traditional Schalke team.
Then came Corona.
I'm 71 now, but I hope I'll have another chance to score a goal with an overhead kick. "
Record winner with twelve titles
Lukas Podolski, 35 years old: “I was enthusiastic about the 'Goal of the Month' even as a child.
It belongs to football like the 'Tagesschau' to politics.
Of course, I never dared to dream that I would become the record holder with twelve awards.
Each of the hits is therefore something special.
Cheers after the last goal: Lukas Podolski scored 1-0 in his last international match against England
Source: picture alliance / augenklick / firo Sportphoto
Two goals were the most emotional for me.
In January 2004 the new Cologne stadium was allowed to be completely filled with 50,000 spectators for the first time, in the derby against Gladbach.
I was just 18 years old and scored the decisive 1-0.
What an amazing feeling that was!
I only felt comparable when I played 1-0 in my farewell game from the national team against England in March 2017. It was as if God were saying in this 69th minute: 'Mach et, Poldi, you will be in the last time in a minute DFB dress changed! '
When it comes to my twelve goals of the month, one thing is striking: I scored them all with my left hand.
On the one hand, this is a gift, but there is also a lot of work in the foot.
I am convinced - and I think I can also say that: My left foot is one of the best in world football. "
Ernst Huberty mocked the winner
Beverly Ranger, 68: “When I was invited to the 'Sportschau' studio in 1975 to get the medal for my 'Goal of the Month', I was nervous and excited at the same time.
It meant a lot to me because I was only the second woman and the first dark-skinned woman to receive this award.
Back then, there was no focus on women's football, and it showed that women could play the same way.
An exotic woman in the seventies: the Jamaican Beverly Ranger in the jersey of FSV Frankfurt
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
The goal was spectacular.
I played out almost the entire opposing team.
But then I was shown in the 'Sportschau' by presenter Ernst Huberty with the words' All women from Kingston Town are beautiful and coffee brown, here is the living proof: Beverly Ranger!
presented.
I didn't like that at all.
But I was on TV and I had to keep my cool.
I was very uncomfortable and all I could do was smile and look good on the outside world.
But inside I was unhappy.
I had to make the best of a bad situation.
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I hope everyone has learned from the situation afterwards.
Then it would have something good.
All in all, my football days in Germany were great - especially in Bonn and Bergisch Gladbach.
Since then, I've only been back to Germany for a week at the end of the 1990s. "
Own goal scorer laughed with his goalkeeper
Helmut Winklhofer, 59 years old: “I had just returned from Bayer Leverkusen to FC Bayern in the summer of 1985 with great anticipation, when it happened.
In my first game, we played in Uerdingen in August, and in the first half I wanted to put the ball over my opponent's foot, it was between our penalty area and the center line.
But I put too much steam into the action.
The ball flew through our goalkeeper Jean-Marie Pfaff into my team's net.
I don't even know if I had an own goal before.
Not that spectacular, anyway.
Folly of the month: Helmut Winklhofer's hit in his own network was awarded
Source: picture alliance / dpa
Our coach Udo Lattek replaced me at half-time.
For fun I said to Jean-Marie: 'Look here, you mustn't stand so far in front of your gate.
If you had stood further back, you would only have had to open your hands. '
We laughed.
After the game, the goal was quickly forgotten at our club.
There were a few sayings, then the subject was settled.
But then the 'Sportschau' presented it as 'Goal of the Month'.
That had never happened before with an own goal.
And then my own goal was actually chosen.
After this election, our club manager at the time, Uli Hoeneß, told our goalkeeper Jean-Marie and me that ARD had invited us both to be honored on the show.
Under Hoeneß's leadership, FC Bayern rejected the request.
In the club you felt fooled.
That's why I got the medal from ARD almost on the side, at the FC Bayern Christmas party in an inn in Leutstetten on Lake Starnberg.
This 'goal of the month' will always be a fun aspect of my playing career, which my family and friends keep winking at me from time to time.
The medal is in our closet, in a large box.
And when my grandchildren have time, they rummage through everything. "