His name is inextricably linked to Chemnitzer FC, on which Christoph Franke (78) made his mark as a player and coach for years. But he celebrated his greatest success with Dynamo Dresden!
“I still look back on that crazy, fantastic time with great fondness,” Franke admits. And he recalls, “When I started there in 2001, it was a suicide mission.”
Three years later he led the SGD from the Oberliga to the 2nd Bundesliga. No other manager in the history of the Dresden club has managed two promotions.
“We were a tight-knit bunch then,” Franke says. “Where does it happen that fans, like me, prevented the coach from being sacked?”
Memories of that time are kept alive to this day by pictures. “The first team photo with Dynamo hangs in the chicken coop,” laughs the successful coach.
Which brings us to the here and now. Franke: “My wife Maria and I are fine, we lead a comfortable retired life.”
The Frankes have been at home in the 6,000-person community of Burkhardtsdorf near Chemnitz for decades. “We feel at home here, we haven’t gone on holiday since 1990.”
Which wouldn’t be easy given his pet hobbies!
On one side is the almost legendary Franke rabbit farm. “But I turned it off,” he reports. “Once there were 35, now only ten.”
Only the three long ears that don’t end up on the table as Christmas roasts have been given names: “The fat one, the brown one and the black one”.
Its most famous rabbit is now dead: a black one, given on his 60th birthday by Peter Tauber, who was on Dynamo’s supervisory board at the time, and named after former Dresden striker and crowd favorite ‘Wansi’ .
But this is by no means all that creeps and flees to Franke. “We still have our bitch Luna, a mix of husky and white German shepherd. More chickens and my own pigeon farm.”
Franke explains: “The breed is called Moravian Strasser. I’ve had these pigeons before. Until I had to stop because I went to Leipzig to study. Now I’m somehow continuing like this.
Even when it comes to sports, Franke has come full circle in a curious way.
“When I coached the CFC for ten games in 2008, we were supposed to play a friendly after the season. Opponent Martin Hoop Mülsen was somehow fate. That’s where I started my football career. And my coaching career it’s over. Crazy.”
After a few years, does Franke still know what’s going on at his former clubs?
“Clear! At CFC I watch almost every home game in the stadium. And when Dynamo goes on TV, I always watch it.” He also took a look at the new training center at the Ostragehege in Dresden: “It’s really fantastic. In the past we could only dream about it.”
Christoph Franke would have liked to go on remembering. But then his wife calls Maria at “coffee time”. The nice ex-coach says hello and laughs: “That’s how it is with retirees…”
