adminHERZOGENAURACH. — Helmut Fischer will not be cheering for Germany during the European Championship soccer finals. He comes from the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach where sport is a family affair that gets bitter and personal.
Fischer (67) said he has always hated the jerseys worn by Die Mannschaft, which are made by Adidas.
“I never watch any of their matches, unless they’re facing a team wearing Puma shirts.”
The pretty town of 25 000 in the southern state of Bavaria is where the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, set up their rival sportswear empires, Adidas and Puma. Fischer has worked for Puma for 38 years and the allegiance goes more than just skin deep. He is proud of his employer’s logo tattooed onto his calves and on his back. And when he meets someone for the first time, he says he “automatically” looks at what they’re wearing on their feet before saying hello.
The habit is so widespread in Herzogenaurach that it has been nicknamed “the town of bent necks.”
For decades, everyone sported their trainers as a sort of flag: Adidas on the southern bank of the Aurach river that divides the town, and Puma to the north.
It has never been quite clear what caused Adolf and his older brother Rudolf to fall out in 1948.
But there has never been a lack of theories — jealousies during the Nazi period, interference by the brothers’ wives, extra-marital affairs.
“The secret has never been uncovered. All of the explanations up until now are just suppositions,” said Joerg Dassler, a grandson of Rudolf, who quit the sports industry to become an event manager. — AFP.
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