If he had been playing in what was then West Germany Trautmann would have almost

If he had been playing in what was then West Germany, Trautmann would have almost certainly been chosen to keep goal for the national XI who won the 1954 World Cup and who became immortalised in the 2003 film The Miracle of Berne. In his retirement, he has settled in Spain, near Valencia, with his third wife, Marlis. He has travelled to Berlin to attend a youth tournament and academy organised by a noble group of young Germans who have formed a foundation in his name.The objectives of the Trautmann Foundation are to encour-age and inspire youngsters, to foster Anglo-German relations, and to keep the Trautmann legend alive – not least in Germany, where the story of Bernd Trautmann, as he is known in his native land (it was his first girlfriend in Lancashire who bastardised the German contraction for Bernhard to plain Bert), is not widely known.It probably would have been different had the directors of Manchester City accepted the advances of Shalke 04 in 1952. We moved to Anglesey, but it was no good there either.”Margaret Trautmann, John’s mother, was Bert’s first wife. We’re all made of different fibre and things, and the wife never got over it You do try. It seems callous to touch on such personal grief yet disrespectful to think of not mentioning it “No, it’s OK,” Trautmann says “My wife never got over it I think she.. well I know she died of a broken heart She had no interest in life any more.

Of all the blows he has suffered in his eventful life, it remains the most painful.That much is clear as the spark instantly disappears from those sky blue eyes. John Trautmann was five.Bert had just been released from hospital, with his head and neck supported by callipers. He was on his way to Berlin to be guest of honour at a friendly international between West Germany and England. If it’s nothing worse than that, I have to live with it.”If the impact hadn’t been so hard, if the third vertebrae hadn’t pushed itself under the second, I would have been dead Or paralysed One of the two. So I was very, very lucky, wasn’t I?”Perhaps so, but it is with emotions stirred with tragedy that Trautmann looks back on the month of May 1956 The 50th anniversary of the Cup final was on Friday.

It was three weeks later that Trautmann’s first-born son was knocked down and killed after buying sweets from a mobile shop near the family’s home at Bramhall in Cheshire. I get tears in my eyes and it takes me two minutes to recuperate But it’s OK. An X-ray showed that the second of five broken vertebrae had split in two. Trautmann survived only because the third vertebrae had slammed against it and wedged it into position.Fifty years on, the damage is nothing more than a pain in the neck to the octogenarian who was the first German to play in an English FA Cup final (in 1955, when City lost 3-1 to Newcastle), the first foreigner to win the Footballer of the Year trophy (in 1956), and probably the only man to have been awarded both an Iron Cross (First Class) and the Order of the British Empire – not to mention a certificate for athletics excellence signed by Hindenburg.”I still have some pain if I make an unexpected turn with my head,” the remarkable Trautmann says “It’s like a cramp and it really hurts.

It was only four days later that Trautmann was diagnosed with a broken neck.”You should be dead,” Professor David Lloyd Griffiths, an orthopaedic surgeon at Manchester’s Royal Infirmary, told him. Sure, he was dazed and in agony, but City had another 17 minutes left in which to hold on to a 3-1 lead against Birmingham City He helped them do so. I felt that way.”It was different back in 1956, when the Bert Trautmann legend was forged. The only fear that Manchester City’s German goalkeeper felt after diving head-first at the feet of Peter Murphy was the prospect of losing the FA Cup final. “In the end, the Spanish doctor said to the wife, ‘If this fellow hadn’t been so tough he would have died’.”"The funny thing was I didn’t have a temperature, but I was a heavy smoker. And while I was coughing my head off the voice up there said, ‘You never smoke again’ And I haven’t touched anything since. This is the 11th week, and I feel better for it.”It’s funny; smokers know it’s dangerous and hazardous for health, but you keep on smoking.