Being famous and important has never hurt. Rulers, presidents and other leaders hang themselves with medals and monuments are erected for them.
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Streets are named after them and will be remembered. The hardworking people in the second row, on the other hand, are quickly forgotten – despite all their efforts, despite the fact that people often owe them a lot more. But there is one pleasant exception. At SC Deckbergen-Schaumburg, they named the annual prize for outstanding voluntary work after an honest craftsman from the background who made it very famous and who was even able to mobilize the masses: Wilhelm Bredemeier.
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There are reasons why it is not easy to find photos of him. “As soon as it came to recognition, as soon as someone wanted to take a souvenir photo of a victory or a championship, Wilhelm quickly withdrew to the very back,” observed Bernd Riesner as a child. He was one of the innumerable guys from Deckbergen and Schaumburg for whom Bredemeier made football possible – as a supervisor, as a manager, as a coach, as a doer par excellence. Wilhelm took care of everything, guided the children to soccer, whistled the games, packed his car full of boys, drove them to the away games. “When he switched to an Audi 100, it became more comfortable for us,” remembers Wilhelm Sieker, who also owes him a lot and is the coach of the SC from Deckbergen and Schaumburg.
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It would have been unthinkable in the past that both villages are united in a peaceful fusion as they are today. There was only cooperation in the youth sector, it worked there, and Wilhelm Bredemeier took care of it. As soon as the players rose to the top, Deckbergen and Schaumburg cultivated a rivalry of the more explosive kind. Up on the sports field at the school there were heroes like Robert Requardt, Wilfried Stemme, Rainer Klein, Manfred and Friedhelm Skoruppa, Klaus Riesner, Andre Magura, Dieter “Tunker” Krüger and Hartmut Bradt from the great Bradt football dynasty. But good football was also played down on Bundesstraße 83 at the Red-Whites of SV Schaumburg.
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There, players like Rolf and Günter Waltemathe, Dieter and Siegmund Borst, Klaus Schelske, Thomas Groppe and Werner “Köttel” Werhahn were the heroes. In Deckbergen and Schaumburg there was an unimaginable density of talent today. The duels were festive days for the population, not least because both sports fields were easily accessible on foot on a Sunday afternoon. The emotional man Wilhelm Bredemeier cared little about the opposition. In his youth work there was no longer any difference between Deckbergen and Schaumburg. In this respect, the merger of the two clubs in 1996 was a matter of course for him, for which no majorities could be found at the annual meetings for many years and because of which there were even withdrawals on both sides.
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Tears at the county finals
Young players sometimes perceived their youth leader to be decisive, but in truth Wilhelm Bredemeier only made clear statements and was even an extremely sensitive guy. “When we moved into the district finals with the A-youth, tears ran down his face,” remembers Bernd Riesner. After all, it was Bredemeier who accompanied the age groups, who put an infinite amount of energy into the teams. “He educated us in a certain way, including reliability and punctuality,” says Sieker. Bredemeier stopped by the football fields during the week and then reminded them: “Saturday, guys, remember!”
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Reinhard Stemme, who comes from Deckbergen and later achieved a lot at clubs like SV Nienstädt 09 or FC Stadthagen, was brought to football by Bredemeier. “He didn’t do everything himself, he could also delegate and give everyone a task,” recalls Stemme. “Wilhelm always had a solution.” Even for Stemme’s hip injury. Bredemeier persuaded him to remain faithful to football as a referee. The fact that there were a number of other exports with players and coaches such as Thorsten Rinne, Thorsten Lorenz, Bernd Riesner and Wilhelm Sieker was also due to the functioning of the youngsters in Deckbergen and Schaumburg.
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Deckbergen was parked
But in 2001, Bredemeier suddenly needed help himself. He was sick, had cancer, but typically didn’t make much of a stir at first. His partner Brigitte Hering, who was also active in the association, took over the initiative. For the now 56-year-old Wilhelm Bredemeier, a typing campaign was carried out in the Deckberg School. A stem cell donor was wanted. At least now it became clear what incredible appreciation Wilhelm Bredemeier had earned over the years, far beyond local borders, how popular he was. Everyone wanted to help, Deckbergen was parked, Wilhelm literally moved the masses. That the campaign was even successful and a donor was found was all the nicer.
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But the usual work as a truck locksmith was no longer possible. Bredemeier started a second career as a volunteer, and from then on took care of the lawn of the sports field together with his friend Helmuth Krüger. The result would have astonished even the greenkeeper at Wembley Stadium. The Deckberger lawn was more of a carpet than a meadow. As soon as the games were over, Wilhelm Bredemeier removed the smallest bumps with a pitch fork, which is actually only used in golf.
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In 2016, the great Wilhelm Bredemeier from Deckbergen died and it is a nice gesture that he, the grandiose playmaker from the second row, was in a way memorialized with the SC Deckergen-Schaumburg Memorial Prize. Helmuth Krüger, Gisela Stasitzek and most recently Michael Seedorf have been the previous winners. With twelve years of work as a youth leader, he was perhaps Bredemeier’s most important successor. “Wilhelm was a role model, was always there and he made his honorary posts out of pure love for the club,” says Seedorf.
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