A life too short
In a small country churchyard, deep in the farmlands of northern Germany, is a plain stone cross with two names engraved on it. It is a peaceful spot, the silence broken every few minutes by the regional express trains rushing past a few hundred metres away.
It is a sound that former Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke would have heard on 10 November, 2009 as he stood at the graveside of his daughter Lara, who died at the age of two in 2006 of a rare heart condition.
He had gone there to say goodbye. Turning away at last, he returned to his car, drove up the road, parked by the railway line and stepped in front of one of the trains.
. Enke was 32-years-old, a husband and father, at the and virtually a certainty to be wearing the gloves for Germany at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.