Early Years
Franz Beckenbauer was born in the post-war ruins of Munich, the second son of postal-worker Franz Beckenbauer, Sr. and his wife Antonie. He grew up in the working-class district of Giesing and, despite his father's cynicism about the game, started playing football at the age of nine with the youth team of SC Munich '06 in 1954.
Originally a centre forward, he idolised 1954 World Cup winner Fritz Walter and supported local side 1860 Munich, then the pre-eminent team in the city, despite their relegation from the top league, the Oberliga Süd, in the 1950s. "It was always my dream to play for them" he would later confirm. That he joined the Bayern Munich youth team in 1959, rather than that of his favourites 1860 Munich, was the result of a contentious Under-14 youth tournament in nearby Neubiberg. Beckenbauer and his team-mates were aware that their SC Munich '06 club lacked the finance to continue running its youth sides, and had determined to join 1860 Munich as a group upon the tournament's conclusion. However, fortune decreed that SC Munich and 1860 would meet in the final and a series of niggles during the match eventually resulted in a physical confrontation between Beckenbauer and the opposing centre-half. The ill-feeling this engendered had a strong effect upon Beckenbauer and his teammates, who decided to join Bayern's youth side rather than the team they had recently come to blows with.
In 1963, at the age of 18, Beckenbauer was engulfed by controversy when it was revealed that his then girlfriend was pregnant and that he had no intention of marrying her. Perhaps as a result of the less permissive social values of the era, he was banned from the West German national youth team by the DFB, and only readmitted after the intervention of the side's coach Dettmar Cramer.
Read more about this topic: Franz Beckenbauer
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“Mormon colonization south of this point in early times was characterized as “going over the Rim,” and in colloquial usage the same phrase came to connote violent death.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“... it is only after years and years that you can speak of penury in the midst of opulence, of hunger in the midst of almost sinful plenty. You must never speak of the immediate experience unless and until you have learned its consequent value. Otherwise you grow old in bitterness which is barren and futile....”
—E. M. Almedingen (b. 1898–?)