Enke Robert - A life too short: the tragedy of Robert Enke

Why does an international footballer with the world at his feet decide to take his own life?

On 10 November 2009 the German national goalkeeper, Robert Enke, stepped in front of a passing train. He was thirty two years old.

Viewed from the outside, Enke had it all. Here was a professional goalkeeper who had played for a string of Europes top clubs including Jose Mourinhos Benfica and Louis Van Gaals Barcelona. Enke was destined to be his countrys first choice for years to come. But beneath the bright veneer of success lay a darker story.

In A Life Too Short, award-winning writer Ronald Reng pieces together the puzzle of his lost friends life. Reng brings into sharp relief the specific demands and fears faced by those who play top-level sport. Heartfelt, but never sentimental he tells the universal tragedy of a talented mans struggles against his own demons.

Ronald Reng is the highly-acclaimed author of The Keeper of Dreams: One Mans Controversial Story of Life in the English Premiership (Yellow Jersey Press), which won Biography of the Year at the 2004 British Sports Book Awards.

Also by Ronald Reng

The Keeper of Dreams

: Ulrich zur Nieden

: private individuals

Through these balmy summer days, which seem made for ease and pleasure, the testing continues: what part is being tested he is no longer sure. Sometimes it seems he is being tested simply for testings sake, to see whether he will endure the test.

Youth, J. M. Coetzee

I would like a poem, Teresa says, and for a second that lasts an eternity the house falls silent.

Robert looks quizzically at his wife to see if she really means it. Is he supposed to give her a poem for her birthday? Itd be nice, Teresa adds casually, and thinks no more about it.

But he cant get the idea out of his head.

Its a few years since he last read a poem, let alone wrote one. He tries to remember. A poem, he thinks, has to rhyme; a good poem, he believes, is like a hint of a smile, with delicate humour between the lines. With that idea in his head, Robert starts writing.

Some afternoons he lies to Teresa, saying hes going to his office for a while to go through tax documents or to complete some other paper-work. Then he sits down at his desk with a biro and a note-pad. His gaze drifts to the garden. The rear side of his office is one huge window; it gives him a feeling of wellbeing when the sunbeams fall on him in the spring. But now, in the winter, its less pleasant at his desk. The heating in the office is unreliable. Their house in Empede, on the flat terrain of Lower Saxony, is a converted farm. His office used to be the stable.

The words he puts down on the paper look bent and rough he hardly ever uses his valuable goalkeepers fingers to write. But in his head the words start forming rhymes more and more quickly, and hes filled with joy not like the flood of happiness he experiences when he steers a difficult shot over the bar, quite gentle, but so intense that Robert has to keep on writing, in the office, in the hotel the evening before a Bundesliga match, on scraps of note-paper, on the backs of bills. Sometimes, if he has no paper to hand, he taps his ideas into his mobile phone. By the time the big day, 18 February 2009, arrives he has written 104 lines.

He wishes Teresa a happy birthday while theyre still in bed. When she goes to the bathroom he creeps into the hall and lets the dogs out. They have nine of them, and two cats. Teresa rescued them from the streets during their years in southern Europe. On her last birthday shed wished for a pet pig. Hed decided to take it as a joke.

He lights candles in the living-room.

Lets do the presents this afternoon, when weve got more peace, says Teresa when she comes in.

He shakes his head; it wont take long. He asks her to sit down at the old farmhouse table, just for a moment. As he presses her gently into the chair by her shoulders he cant help smiling with anticipation. Then he takes his place on the other side of the table.

He sets his poem down in front of him. But he speaks by heart.

For your birthday, what will it be?

A diamond, beautiful to see?

Perhaps a watch from the jewellers store?

It wont be cheap, of that you can be sure.

And what about having a pig for a pet?

Robbi will put down his foot about that!

Cats, then, or horses, or maybe a dog?

No, please, stop it, my heads in a fog.

So, for her birthday, whats it to be?

Oh no, what she wants is a poem from me!

It isnt too big, or too much, or too dear

Yet the very thought of it fills me with fear.

Teresa is struck dumb with joy. Verse by verse he presents her with her whole life: the move to Empede, her love of animals, even the death of their daughter Lara, who was born with a serious heart defect and died after an operation at the age of two.

Then Lara came with her imperfect heart

That was something that tore us apart.

But she was strong, and even in pain

She still lived up to the family name.

When hes finished, Teresa has tears in her eyes. She says only one sentence, Please read it to me again.

He starts again, at the beginning, all twenty-six verses, all 104 lines. At the end he says:

We cant then help wondering whatll come next

Along lifes long journey its got me perplexed.

Will Grandpa stay, or will he not?

Are we going to move house? I dont know a jot!

I wont let things become too much of a worry

The days soon pass, there is no great hurry.

Only one thing is certain, and this much is true;

The one thing is this: that I need and love you.

Robert Enke is thirty-one, the German national football teams goalkeeper, strong, good-natured and happy. It will be the last birthday that Teresa celebrates with him.

On Tuesday, 10 November 2009, he calls Hallo Ela! from the kitchen when the housekeeper arrives at nine oclock. He gives his second daughter, Leila, ten months old, a kiss on the forehead and says goodbye to Teresa. On the magnetic board in the kitchen he has noted in felt-tip pen all the things that need doing, including a reminder to get four tickets for the Bayern Munich game. Then hes out of the door. He has two individual training sessions today: in the morning with the fitness coach, in the afternoon with the goalkeeping coach of Hannover 96. Hell be back at about half-past six, as always. That was what he said to Teresa.

But theres no training arranged for this Tuesday.

I get through to him on his mobile in the car just after half-past twelve. Im to pass on two requests: an English journalist friend of mine wants to interview him, and the German Olympic Sport Library wants to invite him as guest speaker to their annual conference in January. Hey, am I your secretary, passing on requests to you like this, I try to joke. But hes abrupt on the phone. Of course, I think, hes in the car between training sessions; he probably wants to get to lunch in the Espada or at Heimweh, as always. Ill call you back tonight, Ronnie, OK? he says. I cant remember how he signed off.

That evening I only get calls from other people.

Robert Enkes suicide on that cool autumn evening brought together people who were close to him and people who had never heard his name before in that state where you feel raw inside, as if youve been torn apart. In the days that followed, the sympathy often bordered on hysteria: the London