Franz Beckenbauer's first official club was SC Munich 06, where he played for four years. When the club got into trouble, Franz was forced to look for a new team. The choice was between the popular “lions” of TSV 1860 or FC Bayern, which was still small, less successful at the time.
It wasn't until 52 years later that the two players saw each other again. It remained unclear for a long time who had brought Beckenbauer to FC Bayern with this scene. Because he feared aggression from angry fans, he initially remained undercover. Gerhard König and the Kaiser met in Munich in 2010 and spoke about the 1958 incident: “I was a defender, Franz was a center forward. That's when he played me off.” When the referee wasn't looking, he slapped him.
From the 1959/60 season, Franz played in the C-Youth of FC Bayern Munich and immediately became a goal scorer: he scored 100 goals during this time. In 1964, his father, Franz was still considered a minor at the age of 18, signed a three-year contract with FC Bayern: 140 DM base salary and bonuses of up to 400 DM a month. If promoted to the Bundesliga, even 1,200 DM would have been possible.
Franz initially balanced between his training with Allianz and his up-and-coming soccer career. He began with an apprentice salary of 90 marks, and later earned 450 marks a month in the automotive department. But his heart belonged to soccer for a long time. When the promotion games were coming up and Allianz did not want to approve a special vacation, he opted for sport and quit Allianz.
He scored his first official goal for FC Bayern's first team on June 6, 1964, the first game day of the promotion round to the Bundesliga, against FC St. Pauli. At that time, Franz played left winger with number 11. The team initially missed out on promotion to the Bundesliga due to two losses in the following games against Borussia Neunkirchen and Tasmania Berlin. Nevertheless, Franz quickly established himself as an indispensable regular player.
While he made a splash on the pitch, he also had to overcome hurdles off the lawn. The fact that he became a father at the age of 18 made him a “persona non grata” for some officials. The former DFB youth coach Dettmar Cramer wanted to get Beckenbauer into the national youth team, but the moral standards were much stricter at that time. Cramer, however, was so convinced of Franz that he brought in national coach Sepp Herberger. Herberger succeeded in convincing the members of the DFB's “educational circle” to give Franz a chance.
The decision proved to be absolutely right. Franz made his debut as a right runner in the Haagener Straße stadium, showed an outstanding performance and scored both goals to a 2-1 victory.
