Rudi Assauer had yet to see. As long as it was still, somehow, the 74-Year-old in his living room. The Gelsenkirchen Arena was his idea, his work, with which he wanted to transfer to FC Schalke 04 into a better future. Who saw Rudi Assauer in the spaces of the modern stadium, the noticed quickly that it is a serious disease plagued. Assauer, the former cashmere Hooligan, the feared never vicious, but always to the death, has been plagued by the incurable disease of Alzheimer’s that had him drawn to visually and from time to time.

Here, in this Arena, he has flourished always again. Until October of last year, it allowed him his health, to make the love of his life waiting.

The FC Schalke 04 was his life. The many people who came in the VIP room, always to him, to the “Assi”, as he was called by almost all the scarf core, her gratitude, did him good. Assauer loved always in the limelight. Earlier, when he was still at full strength and the huge Ruhr area club shirtsleeves managed, mimed it so often with the hard dog. This came to the people in this Region. He was the “doer”, the allowed, and other seemingly no errors.

the Image of The tough dog he had cherished

This Image he had nurtured and cared for. Who with him fought, had to be advised, to find strong arguments against it, and this is also strongly present. After all, who didn’t fight had no Chance, and was for a very long time. Who fought back, however, enjoyed his esteem. In the process, Rudi Assauer was significantly more sensitive than we can even guess. Assauer took care of the that were important to him. The employees of the club were part of his family, he is treated sometimes as a Patron but also as a good-hearted dad. The harder it hit him, as he had to leave in 2006, his Manager post. Assauer felt bad and disrespected the club had guessed, however, already signs of his disease, and as a thanks for his life-power developed. The offer to be President of the club, from he declined Despite. He felt his heart club from the yard being chased.

The Westphalian stubborn head, he could never deny. To this end, Schalke has him ached until the very last. Very likely, he has in order to the last, to him of his memories left, no peace. It is an irony of fate that, of all things, Assauer got the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Nothing in the football business, almost scary fearless Manager was more scared than before of this disease, which came over his father much too early. “My brain, my turnip as above, no longer works. It is not better, rather worse. I must resign myself to the idea. God damn,“ said Assauer in 2012, when he had made his illness in a book open to the public.

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Alzheimer’s disease A man like Rudi

Stefan Willeke

and has been Lovingly maintained Assauer of his daughter Bettina Michel and his former Secretary Sabine mercenaries who left him never out of sight, and to him the difficult circumstances, went as well as it tolerable. “We all know that without Rudy, we would all not be here. Rudy is the architect of the modern Schalke,“ said the Chairman of the Supervisory Board Clemens toennies prior to the kick-off of the DFB-Cup-eighth final against Fortuna Düsseldorf on Wednesday evening. A few hours earlier, in the afternoon, had Rudi Assauer lost the long and hard battle against his disease. He was 74 years old. It was a round in his Schalke Arena. Probably only too happy he would have been once.