With the master trainer in the forest

By Michael Lachman

And that’s how it happened when I stopped at Uckermark, with my “Lachi-Mobil” on my return from Szczecin from the midday match of the 4th Polish championship. And who do I meet there in Schönow’s idyllic Waldstadion? Dieter Thomas Heck would moderate: “Den Jürgen! The swamps! The master coach! “

The older fans among us will surely still be familiar with Jürgen Bogs. With the now 75-year-old coach, BFC Dynamo became East German champions ten times between 1979 and 1988, including a 0: 5 sank in the Weser in the European Cup against Werder Bremen.

It was then that the term BFC Sonne was born: it rises in the east and sets in the west. The most important success of that time, a year before the fall of the Wall: the team with the stars Rohde, Thom and Doll returned in full to the GDR and the minister shouted in gratitude …

The greeting on the provincial square was fantastic even without the tears in my eyes. “I go there often,” said Bogs, “I still have an apartment in nearby Schwedt.”

“Bogser” moved the real center of his life to Rostock for several years. For a sad reason, as he explained to me. “After my wife died 13 years ago, I sold the house in Marzahn, cleared my tent in Berlin and had no more business here.”

After leaving BFC in 1989, Bogs returned to the Dynamos coach twice (from 1990 to 1993 / then renamed FC Berlin and from 1999 to 2001 / now again BFC). Meanwhile and after, the successful former manager coached smaller clubs in the region, most recently Birkenwerder BC 1908 until 2018.

The fact that Bogs is still not only a sought-after interlocutor, but also an excellent expert on the scene, was demonstrated when he played his SVS: “Schoenow today is missing an important player in attack. But it will still be a very clear question. “

And old Fahrensmann was right. Eventually, Schönow beat Bötzow’s hapless Eintracht 7-1 in a one-way match. If only things had turned out like this in Bremen then …