Germany keeper hit by train.

[Mister Chops 7]

[quote user="pennywise "][quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="Graham Humphrey"][quote user="AVFC-NCFC"]

He left a suicide note. I would jump in front of a train to be a footballer.

[/quote]That makes no sense whatsoever but please tell me you weren''t trying to say that just because he''s a footballer (playing at a high level and getting paid good money to go with it) he shouldn''t be depressed.[/quote]Exactly.  The thing about depression is that it is no respecter of social class or wealth.  It does not matter what you have or what you own.  "It" (if you want to externalise it) sits inside your head and tells you, in different ways and volumes, and at different times, that everything is worthless and pointless and that you are worthless and pointless, life is not worth living.  It is a medical condition, but it''s a horrid one precisely because it colours everything else in your life and everything you say and do is coloured by it and everything that happens to you is seen through it.  It''s the last voice you hear when you''re alone late at night and it''s the first voice you hear when you wake in the morning, and there''s really very little you can do about it other than to try to keep resisting it.  This young man appeared to have everything, but he must have felt he had nothing.  Why else would you do what he did?  It is a truly tragic story and his widow faced the press with so much dignity today, I felt immensely proud of her despite having never met her.  [/quote]

so are we to conveniantly disregard your little joke about trains running on time ?

[/quote]It''s a bit late to bring that up.NB: convenient.

[pennywise 0]

[quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="pennywise "][quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="Graham Humphrey"][quote user="AVFC-NCFC"]

He left a suicide note. I would jump in front of a train to be a footballer.

[/quote]
That makes no sense whatsoever but please tell me you weren''t trying to say that just because he''s a footballer (playing at a high level and getting paid good money to go with it) he shouldn''t be depressed.
[/quote]

Exactly.  The thing about depression is that it is no respecter of social class or wealth.  It does not matter what you have or what you own.  "It" (if you want to externalise it) sits inside your head and tells you, in different ways and volumes, and at different times, that everything is worthless and pointless and that you are worthless and pointless, life is not worth living.  It is a medical condition, but it''s a horrid one precisely because it colours everything else in your life and everything you say and do is coloured by it and everything that happens to you is seen through it.  It''s the last voice you hear when you''re alone late at night and it''s the first voice you hear when you wake in the morning, and there''s really very little you can do about it other than to try to keep resisting it.  This young man appeared to have everything, but he must have felt he had nothing.  Why else would you do what he did?  It is a truly tragic story and his widow faced the press with so much dignity today, I felt immensely proud of her despite having never met her. 

[/quote]

so are we to conveniantly disregard your little joke about trains running on time ?

[/quote]

It''s a bit late to bring that up.

NB: convenient.

[/quote]

i hope wizards tucked up in bed, he might have something to say about bringing up old posts [:D]

[Mister Chops 7]

[quote user="pennywise "]i hope wizards tucked up in bed, he might have something to say about bringing up old posts [:D][/quote]That is game, set and match.  Well played! [:)]

[pennywise 0]

lets hope it gets buried by bad news before he wakes up  

[Dronny Canary 0]

This was one real quality human being that is a real loss to us all.  Although brought up in Norwich I was actually born in Hannover and was over there a fortnight ago to see 96 play Stuttgart.  Robert Enke was playing in that game after being out for several weeks and was his usual quality self.  At the other end that day was that clown Lehman.  You couldn''t find two more different people than Enke and Lehman.  While Lehman has a reputation for being a bit of an arrogant pain in the neck Enke had a justified reputation as a top guy and always extremely sporting.  He was a great technical keeper with excellent positional sense and a fantastic shot stopper.

I''d just watched the Hannover match against Hamburg off Sky+ when I heard the news of his suicide and it was just such an enormous shock.  He would almost certainly have been the German keeper in the World Cup and was getting lined up for a possible move to Bayern Munich at the end of the season.  In fact in 2001 he had talks about joining Man Utd.

Enke''s problems stemmed from his brief and very troubled stays at Barcelona and then on loan to Fenerbahce.  He had an iffy game for Barcelona on his debut and really got a load of stick from their fans.  In his debut for Fenerbahce his own supporters were so unhappy with him that they lobbed fireworks at him on the pitch.  It was at around this time that his mental problems started apparently.  He was idolised at Hannover and massively respected across Germany, as can be seen from the reaction of the national team and their coaches.  He was a very private man who still did loads of good work for children''s charities.

You can only imagine the torment that this poor bloke must have gone through to do what he did.

The one thing that we all need to take from this tragic story is the importance of keeping a sense of proportion when criticising sportsmen.  I think that we tend to feel that their ridiculous wages means that they are "fair game" as far as criticism goes but no amount of money can protect you when you get into the vulnerable state that Enke got into.  It perhaps takes a tragedy like this to help us realise that there''s actually a human being behind the shirt.

This was one real quality human being that we would all have been enormously proud to have on our team.  Rest in peace Robert.