No president remained in office longer than the “boss”, Franz Kremer, who ran the club for twenty years from 1948 until his sudden death in 1967 - the most successful period in club history to this day. That is common knowledge in Köln fan circles and in German football more broadly. Less well known is that Kremer, whose line was “Do you want to become German champions with me?”, made a decisive involuntary contribution to the rise of the club’s greatest Rhineland rival, Borussia Mönchengladbach.
