Dynamo Dresden said goodbye to Hans-Jürgen Dörner on Thursday. Many fans, friends and long-time companions bid farewell to the SGD’s record-breaking player at a public memorial service.
Dörner succumbed to cancer on 19 January at the age of 70. In addition to around 800 fans, 120 invited guests including former teammates and friends such as Ulf Kirsten, Hartmut Schade, Matthias Sammer, Thomas Doll and Andreas Thom attended the event. Dörner’s funeral is to take place in private at a later date.
“Dixie was and is a great role model for countless football fans. We wanted to be like him as kids, wanted to be able to play like him, but he remained unmatched in his commanding manner on the football field. It looked so easy when he stroked the ball. But in trying to copy it, we failed by the dozen. For more than five decades, Dixie Dörner championed the colours of our city and our club on and off the pitch. He remains for eternity a stroke of luck for Dynamo, for football and for sport as a whole,” SGD President Holger Scholze remembered the former libero in a eulogy.
