Super Eagles’ Technical Adviser Gernot Rohr, has paid glowing tribute to his 97-year-old mother, Elizabeth Rohr who died on Thursday.
The 67-year-old football tactician in an exclusive chat with Sportinglife.ng recalled sweet memories about his mother who he said would be remembered as a passionate football lover for encouraging her five sons to take to football as a profession and her late husband as a football coach too.
“My Mum was really a football mum who encouraged me and my other four brothers in the art of playing football. She was always in every game we played. Even when we played in the same team she was there to watch us and often quarreled with fans who insulted my brothers in matches.
“She was a very big fan of her sons and her husband who was a coach. She played handball. I remember during the holidays on the beach of the Northern sea we played handball games together with her under the scorching sun. She was in goal and I was in the other post. We used to take shots with our hands then.
“She was a handball Champion while playing for Mannheim Handball team in Germany. She met my father who incidentally played for Mannheim Football team during a football match at the tunnel. From there their love story started and developed an interest in each other. After that six of us (children) were born. So it was the beginning of a nice history in a football family of Rohr.
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“I will surely miss her but she enjoyed a long healthy, good life. She and my late father raised us during the war where they had to hide in the forest in order to escape bullets and bombs. Then after the war, they lived a good life with all of us”, Rohr told Sportinglife.ng exclusively from France in a Tribute to his late mother.