Favorite Toby-ism (which I've not heard since): when a defender cleared wildly to stop a threat, the ball was "hacked away"... Good times.
Shame awas the song at the end, though there're was a different short intro song.mmsorrynto bring this back from the dead. Does anyone know if Toby is still "kicking"?
Channel 12 in New Orleans showed Soccer Made in Germany in the late 70s into the early 80s. My brother and I became fans of Borussia Moenchengladbach. First because they were good and we liked many of their players, second because of their bizarre (to us) name. Brush a munching Glad Bag? I remember kids on the Mississippi Gulf Coast yelling "Good baallllllll!" like Toby Charles when teammates made nice passes. I still hear kids say that. I also remember imitating Toby with friends repeating our favorite Toby phrase, "And the crowd ARE loving it!" A favorite Soccer Made in Germany moment for me was after Klaus Topmuller blasted one over the crossbar Toby said, "And the crowd are chanting 'Toppy, Toppy, ha ha ha!" Aside from the occasional NASL game and the rare English game on ESPN, this was the only professional soccer we got to see.
Where did you grow up? Same things for me PBS, Gladbach.. etc. Channel 12 in New Orleans.. and after Soccer Made in Germany, Prep Quiz Bowl with Mel Leavitt. Raider Pride! Class of 80'!
Long Beach, MS. We were early adopters of cable TV in the mid 70s, as we needed it to get the New Orleans channels. Remember the kid who answered a question on Quiz Bowl, "Ron Swoboda, News Scene 8"? Mel was not amused.
Long Beach.. geez, that's like a whole 'nother state. I don't remember that question, but Mel seemed to have a good sense of humor.
I just saw this thread... Yeah, that was one of my favorite shows, and Gladbach were my team. Gunther Netzer was my favorite player, and to a kid, he was the epitome of cool. Not only was he a great player, but the guy was smart enough to have a couple of businesses, including a night club, and he drove a Ferrari. Can't get much cooler than that! I recently took a Lufthansa flight and they had a show "50 Years of the Bundesliga." They only had the 60s and 70s episodes, and while I would have liked to have seen the other decades, the 70s show brought back memories of SMiG. Great highlights, plus interviews with Netzer, Klaus Fischer, Karl-Heinz Ruminegge, Rainer Bonhoff, Sepp Maier... Good stuff!
My friend and I (on the WEST bank, brah) watched it religiously in the early 80s. We knew someday we'd have enough money to buy a Subbuteo game with the whole stadium and all that, just like Kyle Rote Jr. used in the halftime break. Of course, I played all of one season at PAC when I was 8 or 9 and that was the extent of my organized soccer career. Oh, and the most memorable thing? Three words: Rudi Wimmer's shorts. Jeez, they were almost Bermuda length when we saw him.
West Bank - I'm sorry Subbuteo - I found that game at K-mart back in 1993/95 for $5.00. Bought it, tried to play a bit with my young son, and put it away after buying or painting about 10 teams. Moved to Connecticut and started playing in a real league with guys who really knew how to play, and kick my ass. Then I got pretty good, and really made some great friends. Having been to a game at Borussia Mönchengladbach - that was my most memorable moment, hearing Toby say those words.
I don't remember Rudi Wimmer but I remember Rudi Kargus. Same long shorts which were so different from others back then. And Sepp Maier.
I was too young to really remember details of SMIG, but my family emigrated from Germany to California in 1973 and I caught this show on a black and white TV from KQED or whatever Bay Area station had it. I do, however, have a stack of the game guides from the show right on the shelf here. I suppose most of the stats and info in them you could easily find on the internet, but I should PDF them sometime just for nostalgia's sake.
I remember sending off to get the monthly SMIG guides and being very excited when they arrived in the mail. Possibly the first soccer literature I ever saw.
The Globe Kicker! I actually have every single issue. Originally my subscription started with Vol 1 No. 11 but I managed to find the first 10 issues on ebay a few years ago. Before the '82 World Cup you could order the 'official' World Cup preview guide through SMIG. Forgot how much it cost but I sent for it fairly quickly when I first saw the promo after one of their telecasts. A few weeks later the German Educational Television Network (GETN) wrote back saying that they had run out of copies but they would send me something in its place after the World Cup was over. Late in the year I received a nice book (Espana '82) that reviewed the tournament, edited by Franz Beckenbauer. I loved that book. Still have it, it's in great condition (all the pages are still like crisp new - I've rarely looked at it since '82) and I've always had a goal of getting Der Kaiser to autograph it for me. No idea how to go about it, though.
Thanks so much for bringing this up. Damn, that Uerdingen-Frankfurt game is one of the greatest games ever. I remember after Uerdingen equalized, there were policemen leading dogs near the field and all you could hear was them barking at the crowd. Toby said, "obviously they are Uerdingen dogs." I became very interested in European football at the time and a fan of Nottingham Forest. In these days, long before the internet, I used to have to go to my local library on Thursdays when they got the London Times from the previous Sunday so I could check match reports. We used to get the times in weekly bundles and when Forest played Koln in the European Cup semis in 79, the first leg was at the City Ground and Koln got a 3-3 result with Okudera coming off the bench to score. Everyone thought it was a disaster (even though we went on to win 1-0 at the Muengersdorfer 2 weeks later) and the headline was, "Forest sunk by Japanese Sub." SMIG was a program I grew up on. Fantastic Program. Hope Toby Charles is doing alright. He was a hell of a commentator.
Can't get much better than this: Uli Hesse interviews Toby Charles http://www.espnfc.com/german-bundesliga/10/blog/post/2493361/toby-charles-and-soccer-made-in-germany
Definitely overdue now I am waiting for German football media finally recognizing the existence of this influential tv show whose existence is still almost completely unknown within Germany. About 7 or 8 years ago I contacted the very hip "11 Freunde" magazine here in Germany who usually thrive on stories like that and told them about "Soccer Made in Germany" and Toby Charles - no reaction!
Risen from the dead? Wow, opening with the "Soccer Made in Germany" intro. Great idea to start your Bundesliga coverage Fox.— The Comeback-Soccer (@TCBsoccer) August 14, 2015