Ludwig Evertz: “Helmut is a distraction for my interview with Kohl”

We interviewed the head of sports, Vader Trainer Otto Rehagel, with Chancellor Helmut Kohl at a horse show in Bremen, with always easy encounters about the creation of the Sportblitz program, YouTube tutorials in banjo games, and how it came about.

Ludwig Evertz, after 36 years on Radio Bremen, it is now over. Which one enhances or wishes to come?

Above all, it is with great gratitude that I was allowed to do this. Gratitude to my station, but also to God, who kept me healthy. Because in the meantime it seemed that I had lost my motivation when my son died in 2011. He was a fat hit. But I got up again and came back and always went to work in a good mood till the last day. Radio Bremen is my life.

But life progresses into retirement anyway, what are you looking forward to now?

At the moment, of course, I have to be patient with my plans, like everyone else. But I would love to do a lot of traveling again, drive in Europe in my VW bus, again to Alaska and Canada. Now I can finally stop on the road. And I really want to make music, especially bluegrass. But I just can’t finish the workshops with my musicians colleagues and the great American teachers that I booked have all been canceled. So I practice Banjo for two hours every day and watch YouTube tutorials. But I am ambitious and the old stoner is coming again in me.

You must have felt like an old rocker at the age of 29 in 1985, when you applied for an apprentice at all ARD stations and rejected all – except Radio Bremen.

Radio Bremen offered me an offer for at least a nine-week internship because both Volo positions were already filled. And that was around Christmas time, because I was able to do a lot and it was during that time that the game’s director, Jog Vontorra, saw me. I was just lucky, I was in the right place at the right time. And then I fell in love with the city of Bremen. For me, that was the sweetest option in Berlin, where I studied.

And then the idea of ​​the daily sports program, Sportblitz, which has been in operation for 26 years, came up in the early 1990s. Did you think from the beginning that it would be a long-lasting player?

This was only possible at the time because Jorg Vontora was a giant standing at the station, the only nationwide celebrity on Radio Bremen. And they flexed their muscles and said: We should call for our own show. And there is a small game in and out of Butane on Monday, but not every day. So advance came. And then we came with Sportblitz. My name is from me A flash comes in, passes through a flash, strikes like lightning and sometimes produces a sharp echoes. We wanted attention.

There. And again and again Vader Bremen was the subject of the show. For the first time in 1994, manager Willie Lemke was a guest, even though he was stuck in traffic and came too late.

Yes, we had a very close relationship with Vader back then. Otto Rehagel called Willie Lemke his head of press defense, that was our contact. And that’s why I’m friends with Willie to this day, because we worked so closely together back then. It was also possible there. We had phone numbers of all the players, not one today. You can shoot with the players at home, we in search of an apartment with the camera team with Manfred Bergsmüller – all unimaginable today. Not everything was better in the past, it was different.

The work with Otto Rehagel, not a proven friend of the media, was certainly different. They left you in the first interview.

It has been proved with him that you always meet many times. The moment of satisfaction for me was in the 1990 World Cup in Rome. Rehgel was a TV expert, I made colorful contributions outside of football for ARD. And I had an appointment with actor Mario Adorf at a cafe on Piazza Navona. Adorf came in a white suit with a red rose, how would I recognize him, he told me. We had just started the interview when I see Rehagel walking. He came to us, took the chair without asking and joined the conversation.

Adorf looked a bit confused, but Rehagel began to say that footballers also have to become actors and are in their element. He spoke to me in the hotel that evening, which must have been inconceivable at first, as our relationship was tense. But Rehagel asked if he could take a tape from the shoot. He was so proud that he talked to world star Mario Adorf. After that, I never had trouble with him again.

But it was always important for you to portray diversity in the game of Bremen. Handball, Gymnastics, Dance Sports, Basketball, Ice Hockey …

Yes, this mix was ranked first by Sportblitz. And back then there were already many games you could show in Bremen. Like volleyball, she was again my lucky circumstance. We always had a women’s national tournament in January and that was my chance. I have been commenting on him since 1989 and was sent to the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 as a volleyball reporter. My highlight was the 2000 game in Sydney, when Ahman / Hager won the first bronze for Germany in beach volleyball.

There was probably a lot of attraction in 36 years. But was there an incident that stuck in your memory?

Yes, I have come across a picture that will now find a place in my apartment. On October 3, 1994, we had a live broadcast of the horse show, German Classics, at the Town Hall. And while the ceremony for German Unity Day was in Bremen, Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke next door at the Congress Center. And suddenly Paul Schöckmohl came to me at the moderation table and said: ‘I will find the Chancellor now, he will keep watching for half an hour.’ And I say: ‘I have, I want to talk to the Federal Chancellor.’

Then he really came. And I only asked Helmut Kohl questions in equestrian language. He is firmly in the saddle and has discovered a five percent hurdle somewhere in the course, that he also uses the crop in political business – and it was so inspiring that he answered all questions intuitively. According to the motto: Poor pony I had to take if I wanted to ride. I was really proud that I interviewed the Federal Chancellor at a horse show in Bremen. But the big end came: I later got reprimanded because it was an election campaign and candidates were only allowed to appear at political events. But I didn’t know that’s attractive.

What do you want your colleagues and Sportblitz for the future in the post-Evert era?

The Sportblitz crew has been together for so long that they know how to continue it without me. Although Radio Bremen is so small, we have so many great journalists and that’s why I’m not afraid at all. My only concern is that the linear performance of programs is becoming obsolete. So there probably won’t be another 26 years of Sportblitz. Then perhaps only on Youtube, but no longer on Radio Bremen. But this will be the way of things.

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