Fans say goodby to goalkeeper Enke in moving memorial (Roundup)

By Peter Huebner Nov 15, 2009, 10:40 GMT

   Hanover, Germany - Some 40,000 football fans, players and officials on Sunday paid their last last respects to Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke at a memorial service in the AWD Arena in Hanover.

As Hanover 96 team-mates carried out Enke's coffin at the end of the memorial service everybody in the stadium stood and applauded the goalkeeper whom they had - exactly seven days ago - still applauded when he helped his team play to a 2-2 draw against SV Hamburg.

The 32-year-old, who had, for years, suffered from depression, committed suicide on Tuesday by throwing himself in front of an oncoming train.

Although he had been treated for the illness for many years, he had managed to keep it a secret from all but his closest friends and relatives.

   His death sparked a public outpouring of mourning not seen in Germany since the funeral of the former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1967.

Enke will be laid to rest during a private funeral later Sunday in the cemetery where his two-year-old daughter Lara, who died in 2006 of a rare heart condition, is also buried.

Several speakers at the memorial service said that Enke was not simply a football star, but a person like all others with weaknesses and strengths.

The president of the German football association (DFB), Theo Zwanziger, said that everybody should learn from Enke's death that football can never be everything.

   Zwanziger said that the best way to remember the goalkeeper would be to recognize the fact that football should never be everything. 'It is not allowed to be everything.

   'I think that Enke would have called on the fans to show more humanity and more civil courage, they should stand up to oppose the taboos that still exist in our professional sport.

   'Do not simply look at what sport seems to be. Think of that which makes up a person, of weaknesses and doubts,' Zwanziger said.

   The Hanover 96 President Martin Kind recognised the contribution that Enke had made to the club.

   'His way of dealing with fans won him many admirers. He was not a star who thought he was better than others. He was one of them and he saved us on many occasions.'

The Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, paid a tribute to Enke's wife Teresa, who addressed a press conference a day after her husband's death and told them of his illness.

'What you had to suffer we can only imagine. The applause you received here today shows that we are with you,' Wulff said as the widow received a lengthy standing ovation.

He wished her and the Enke's eight-month-old adopted daughter Leila strength for the future.

After a short prayer by the priest who already officiated at the funeral of Enke's daughter Lara, the service ended with a 17-year-old pupil singing the football anthem 'You Will Never Walk Alone'.

   Shortly before the memorial ceremony started team-mates from the Germany side had laid a wreath at the coffin, which stood in the middle of the stadium.

   Enke, who was capped eight times by Germany and was one of the favourites to be Germany's first choice keeper at the World Cup finals in South Africa next year, played for several clubs, including Borussia Moenchengladbach, Benfica Lisbon and Barcelona.

   The service, which was attended by the who's who of German sport and politics, was televised live on several television stations in Germany.

   Enke will be laid to rest during a private funeral later Sunday in the cemetery where his daughter Lara is also buried.