"Gino was a mixture between Johan Cruijff and
George Best"
Thursday 08 January 2009
Martin Jol drove 600 kilometers
for it.
From Hamburg to Enschede and back
again, shortly before Christmas, to receive the book
'Mijn broer Gino en ik' (My brother Gino and I).
An extraordinary football player
and an ordinary man who's unusual life ended too soon
at age 33.
Just how good Gino Weber was was
illustrated by Martin Jol at the presentation of the
book in one concise sentence: "In Gino I saw a
mixture between Johan Cruijff and George Best".
Just how he had to wrestle himself
through life because of his Borderline
personality disorder is now put to paper.
After Gino died on 18 July 2003
on his request no announcements were made as he was
ashamed of his life.
Five years later the book provides
an impressive memorial.
The book is written by Ben Weber
(41), like Gino a professional player at FC Twente and
Heracles Almelo in the second half of the 1980's.
It was clear at an early age that
Gino was the most talented one of the two brothers.
Being the only player of an amateur
club (Vogido) Gino was a member of all national youth
teams with payers such as Frank and Ronald de Boer,
Richard Witschge and Bryan Roy.
Johan Cruijff was a regular spectator
at their games and so impressed was he with Gino's talents
that he invited him to his TV show Cruijff & Co.
Martin Jol was so impressed during
his playing days at Twente that he invited Gino to come
and train with his later club West Bromwich Albion.
But other than a talent for beautiful
football Gino Weber also had a talent for self-destruction.
It soon turned out that he was
different.
As a toddler he would bang his
head against the walls so hard that the neighbors thought
his parents were renovating the bedroom.
He had trouble focussing and he
thought he had a paranormal gift.
As a 'joke' he set fire to a forest
during a family picnic on a hot summer day and as so
many top players he was tormented by fear of failure.
There is a sinister passage in
the book where Gino revealed to Ben how he had been
beating on his legs with a steel bar so he would not
have to play football and would be relieved from the
pressure.
It's one of the symptoms of Borderline,
an illness that makes people look for and go over the
edge constantly.
It's what Gino did.
He developed a gambling and an
alcohol habit, would loot the players cash register
at FC Twente, due to physical inability's he was rejected
as a professional football player, he was admitted into
several clinics, was sentenced to jail for robbing a
gas station and tried to commit suicide a number of
times.
Once he even asked his brother
to run over him with a car.
On 18 July 2003 Gino Weber was
found lifeless with an empty bottle of whisky and an
empty pack of anti-depressives in front of him.
The body taken, the spirit freed.
'Mijn broer Gino en ik' is about
the rise an fall of a remarkable football talent told
in a serene style.
Love and suffering, joy and pain
admiration and jealousy, surrender and ending.
Memory.
To order the book turn to: info@twentesport.com
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