Trauer und Schuldgefühl nach Enkes Tod

Why didn’t we know?

Text: Titus Chalk  Bild: Imago

Wir alle standen schon in der Kurve und buhten. Das muss man niemandem anlasten. Und doch mischt sich in die Trauer um Robert Enke ein Gefühl der kollektiven Schuld. Ein Beitrag unseres englischen Mitarbeiters Titus Chalk.

When I got home on Tuesday night to phone calls telling me to watch the news about Robert Enke, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But from the crowds already gathering at Hannover’s ground to mark his tragic death with tributes, candles and tears, it was obvious that huge public sympathy existed for the troubled goalkeeper and the family he left behind.   Two days later, I switched on the news this morning to see the crowds still on television, signing a book of condolences, leaving tributes at his former clubs and holding back tears during interviews to camera. As much as many are left asking »why did this happen?«, it is important to ask »why are we reacting in this way?«. As I ate my breakfast this morning, the notion of guilt popped into my head.  

 

At the heart of the ostentatious shows of affection for him now are several questions, such as »Why didn’t we know?« and »Why didn’t we help?« Perhaps because as fans we judge players extremely quickly and with very little consideration for what they feel as human beings. Have you ever booed a player, or shouted out from the stands that he’s hopeless, doesn’t know what he’s doing, or worse? I know I have.  

»They are on the stage, I have a right tell them they’re no good«

Actually, I am a terrible bastard who has booed bands, clapped ironically at rubbish theatre performances and who has been thrown out of clubs for shouting abuse at DJs. I tell myself, »They are on the stage, I have paid to see them, they have taken the choice to put themselves up there and perform for me, therefore, I have a right tell them they’re no good.« Football is the same, right?  

I came late to football. The first live match I went to see was England B v Belarus in May 2006 (we lost 2-1) and I returned to the office saying that I felt like a voyeur. I had been reading Roland Barthes at the time, which might have influenced my thinking, but today I remembered why I felt like that: there is a fundamental difference between football and theatre (or other such performances): Unlike theatre, a football match does not need an audience to have meaning. It has an internal meaning because it has a result. That is why managers can justifiably say, »It’s the result not the performance that counts.« That is why matches played behind closed doors still have a winner. However much fans add to the atmosphere and embellish the meaning of football, they are not a prerequisite and are instead privileged voyeurs of a confrontation between 22 human beings. Unlike the actors, bands or DJs I have heckled, those human beings are not fundamentally there to be appraised by me.  

Hannover’s Martin Kind was quick to point out that Enke’s mental state had nothing to do with football. But that doesn’t mean in future there might not be players out there on the pitch playing badly because of emotional turmoil that we can’t possibly imagine from the stands. Football can be a sanctuary for players precisely because of its internal meaning, one that exists separately from »real« life. In fact, as fans aren’t we often looking for that same escape – either in the game itself or as part of the community we tell ourselves we create? 

I wish I could remember that next time I’m shouting »Arschloch!« at someone with a few thousand other people.