Anecdotes of sports medicine - Jupp Kapellmann
One of the most remarkable lectures that I remember from the Limburg Congress for Sport Medicine was the one from the German orthopedic surgeon Hans-Josef alias Jupp Kapellmann (1949-) in 1986. During that fifth edition, with Profession-Sports and Professional Sports as theme, he showed a movie that started with the TV broadcasting in which one could see how a brutal tackle during a game caused him a severe injury of his knee ligaments. Then the film showed the whole operation that was needed and after that the long rehabilitation that followed.
On that fifth edition, we had invited medical doctors who also practiced sports at top level. Jupp Kapellmann was not only an orthopedic surgeon, but also a defensive midfielder at Bayern Munich, in a team with Franz Beckenbauer, Gert Müller, Paul Breitner and Sepp Maier, that won the German championship in 1974, and with whom he won the European Champion Clubs' Cup in 1974, 1975 and 1976.
At the age of 8 he started playing football at his home team SC 1930 Bardenberg, where he went through all youth teams.
At the age of 19, he was recruited by Alemannia Aachen, where he scored his first goal for that team against... FC Bayern Munich.
In 1970 he moved to 1. FC Köln and three years later Bayern Munich took him in for the - at that time - huge amount of 800,000 Deutsche Mark. In addition, Kapellmann also required that Bayern would organise that he could study Medicine in Munich. The club made sure that he could start those studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität.
Between 1973 and 1979 he played 16 German cup matches with FC Bayern Munich, scoring three times, 32 games in the European Cup in which he scored one goal and two world cup matches. During that period he was also called twice for the German national team.
Because he did not get on with team mate Uli Hoeness, he switched to TSV 1860 Munich, when Hoenness became manager of Bayern. At TSV 1860 Munich he was severely injured and in spite of intensive rehabilitation he would never again achieve his old level. Therefore, after the game against FC Kaiserslautern he decided to finally end his football career. In total, he played 338 games in the German Bundesliga, and scored 36 times.
In 1988 he graduated as a doctor and specialized in orthopedic surgery. He started his career as an orthopedic surgeon in Rosenheim where he worked for 23 years, but in 2010 he moved to Saudi Arabia where he managed an orthopedic clinic.
He returned to Germany to work in a private clinic on the Ostersee.
In 2009 he ended up intensive care after a bike accident on his way to work. Because he did not wear a helmet, he hit the back of his heat on the asphalt causing a cerebral hemorrhage. The rehabilitation went well, but Kapellmann had lost his taste and smell in the accident.
