Just this summer, Peter Kupferschmidt was there when FC Bayern, with 500 members, repeated the German record champions’ walk around Lake Tegernsee to mark its 60th anniversary, and just this Monday he was part of the legendary Monday footballers' group as usual when they met for a Christmas party. Now Kupferschmidt, one of the unforgettable legends of the 1965 promotion-winning team, has passed away peacefully at home with his family at the age of 83. He is survived by his wife Anna, his son Thomas and his daughter Petra.
Herbert Hainer, president: “We are deeply saddened by this news – Peter Kupferschmidt is one of the personalities who is inextricably linked to the FC Bayern generation on which all of our successes to date are built. The promotion in 1965 was the foundation for everything. I spoke to him myself just this week at our Monday footballers' Christmas party, and we will all remember him fondly forever. Peter Kupferschmidt is an integral part of our club's history. Anyone who hears his name will always remember how FC Bayern began to become the club it is today. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and loved ones.”
Kupferschmidt played a total of 283 competitive matches for Bayern's first team between 1960 and 1971, scoring four goals. Alongside Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Müller, the defender celebrated promotion to the Bundesliga in 1965, the championship in 1969, three DFB Cup wins (1966, 1967, 1969) and the Reds' first major European coup in 1967 with victory in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. He moved to Bayern in 1956 from SV Gartenstadt Trudering, just outside Munich, before ending his career in Austria with Sturm Graz and Kapfenberger SV. During the repeat of the promotion walk in the summer, he was celebrated by the members with sustained applause when president Hainer paid tribute to his achievements in his welcome speech. “Franz was the greatest, Gerd was unique, and there will never be another like Sepp,” said Kupferschmidt, recalling his playing days. “I am grateful and proud to have been able to play with such people at FC Bayern. For me, FC Bayern is one big family.”
Born in Filipovo in modern-day Serbia, Kupferschmidt came to Munich at the age of three – his older brother Richard, who would later also play for FC Bayern, had taken him under his wing when the family was forced to flee during the war. Kupferschmidt was the fifth of six children. His father lost his life in Budapest, and after passing through reception camps and crossing the Czechoslovakian border, he ended up in Gartenstadt-Trudering, where he settled. Having always played football, the sport played a major role in his upbringing. One day in the summer of 1956, a friend took him to FC Bayern – and the rest is history. His greatest asset, alongside clever positioning and a good eye, was his ability to play with both feet. As a little boy, he had already been kicking a ball around on the pavement. At Christmas, the family slaughtered two pigs and the pigs' bladders were used to play with in the yard, between the chicken coops and outdoor toilets. “I always told them to leave a little more fat on the pig bladders when slaughtering,” he said on his 80th birthday in FC Bayern's member magazine 51, because then the balls lasted longer and bounced more smoothly across the ground. They played barefoot, so it was quite possible to knock off a toenail, but despite the pain, stopping was out of the question. “You just carried on playing with your left foot because you wanted to stay in the game,” he said. With both feet firmly planted in (football) life, in the truest sense of the word.
From time to time in recent years, Kupferschmidt also visited FCB’s former ‘Grünwalder’ stadium or Säbener Straße. “Where this magnificent hundred-metre-long façade stands today, there used to be a wooden hut – and we only had hot water sometimes,” he recalled. “I am proud of everything this club has achieved – and that I was able to be a part of this history, albeit a very small and modest one.” Munich-Giesing was still in ruins when Bayern laid the foundations for great success. At that time, the stadium was far from full. “It was great to see how the number of spectators grew,” says Kupferschmidt. Word spread throughout the city: something was happening at FC Bayern. Across the street, a green building still houses Café Knoll today. That's where they used to hold their team meetings. Kupferschmidt was often nervous, and a schnapps before kick-off was sometimes the solution to calm his nerves. After the 4-2 victory in the 1966 DFB Cup final against Meidericher SV, Beckenbauer even thanked him explicitly at the banquet. In the final, the young ‘Kaiser’ had made one of his rare, costly misplaced passes, and the feared Rüdiger Mielke had broken away towards Sepp Maier, but Kupferschmidt saved the day at the last moment with a courageous tackle to prevent the score from becoming 2-0. The next day, the newspapers ran the headline: “Kupferschmidt best Bayern player”. Kupferschmidt said he “always had great respect” for Beckenbauer, “even though he was three years younger”. But they already knew that a special talent was emerging among the juniors: “It was clear to me that a great man would make his way. Either you've got it or you don't.” The opposing strikers “first had to get past Franzi, and he intercepted them with ease – you were just proud to be there”.
Kupferschmidt shared a room with Gerd Müller for seven years: “A nuisance in the box – and a lovely bloke.” And because the ‘Bomber’ received so many requests for autographs, his roommate helped him deal with the mail: Müller signed, Kupferschmidt finished the letters. “As a thank you, Gerd would slip me a twenty or a ten, depending on what he had won playing cards.” Kupferschmidt tried to make up for what Beckenbauer and Müller had in talent with his fitness. They were particularly fit under Branko Zebec. “We asked the referee if he really wanted to blow the whistle already.” Nothing could harm these Bayern players, neither their opponents nor the circumstances. The ball became heavy in the rain, soaked with water, and when there was snow, the pitch was levelled with beams – the surface was never the same. “You had to adjust to it first.” As soon as the pitch was icy, Kupferschmidt and his colleagues warmed up in trainers so that their studs wouldn't wear out prematurely. “When ‘Bulle’ Roth shot too hard, we had to wait until the ball came back from the street,” he recalled, adding in retrospect: “Whether it was Beckenbauer, Müller or Maier, they were all my role models.”