Frank Mill: The Germany striker whose name means failure - and how he found success

 It was Mill's first game for Borussia Dortmund. Just before half-time, he was played clean through. One pass split the Bayern Munich defence and, after dribbling past the keeper, he found himself in front of an empty goal. What happened next is often described in Germany as the 'miss of the century'.Mill waited too long. With an open net in front of him, he took an extra touch to steady himself, slightly to the side of the six-yard box, delaying what seemed like the inevitable. 

As the keeper came rushing back, sliding in to make a hopeless attempt to block, Mill suddenly ran out of rhythm and the ball held up in his feet. When he finally did shoot, he hit the post. The ball bounced back to a waiting Bayern defender.

Even 35 years on, whenever anybody in German football misses a good chance, it doesn't take long for commentators to bring this story up. Reporters will call him asking for an opinion. The very act of failing to score from an open goal is known as 'a Mill'. He's fielded a lot of questions about Timo Werner over the past few years.

Mill, now 63, is continually forced to recall the actions of his most embarrassing professional moment. He takes this philosophically. He won't refuse to answer if he has been asked in a proper way.

"Several years ago, I went to a local butcher's shop with my good old friend Matthias Herget, the former West Germany defender," he says."An old lady behind the counter wrapped our bread and sausages and when she raised her eyes, she exclaimed loudly: 'Ah! You hit the post!'

"Whenever a guy on the street screams my name and tries to taunt me, I just refuse to react. In general, though, after all this time, I really can laugh about myself."It was nuts. I wanted to make the Bayern players look ridiculous, to roll it over the line. But I ran faster than the ball and lost control. It just lay between my legs and then suddenly it happened…"When the scene was shown on German TV, Mill's miss went viral, 1980s style. It wasn't instantly plastered all over the internet of course, but it dominated the tabloid media, while fans talked about it endlessly.

And even back then, it spread around the world.

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A few months after his miss, Mill visited visit a lover in San Francisco . In his room at the Fairmont Hotel, he'd ordered a burger and switched on the TV. He found a program that presented odd clips from the sports world.

"First I saw a basketeer who tore off the basket while attempting to dunk," he says. "I laughed and took a bite from my burger. And just at that moment, I saw myself on the screen hitting the post in Munich."

Normally, such a failure could turn knowledgeable footballer - especially a striker - into a reclusive character who might start to overthink his attempts on goal. Not Mill.

Throughout his career, he was known for his personality. His father Bobby worked as junk dealer and Mill truly inherited his fearless tongue and conviviality. He played with no shin pads and sometimes stole the ball from goalkeepers once they were close to kick the ball.

In German, there's saying that would describe such a personality , 'mit allen Wassern gewaschen', which accurately translates to: "washed with all waters". a far better translation would be 'to know every trick within the book'. But Mill's Dortmund team-mate Norbert Dickel perhaps summed up his slyness better of all when describing him with the pun: "He is washed with all wastewaters."

Mill was always self-confident, outgoing and indeed clinical as a striker. He spent 15 years within the Bundesliga, playing for Borussia Monchengladbach, Dortmund and Fortuna Dusseldorf within the German top flight between 1981 and 1996. He represented West Germany at the 1988 Olympics and also made the 1990 World Cup squad but didn't feature as Franz Beckenbauer's side lifted the trophy in Italy, then doesn't consider himself a world champion. He scored 253 goals in 656 career matches. Despite being only 5ft 9in tall, his ability to urge off the bottom so well meant he scored many headers.

But his greatest achievement, in his own eyes, was winning the German Cup with Dortmund in 1989 - three years then miss against Bayern - when Mill contributed one goal and two assists in an astonishing 4-1 convert Werder Bremen.

When he thinks back to the preparations for that match, he remembers an unusual distraction.

"For a few years with Dortmund we trained at a lido on Fridays, and that we did precisely the same on the day before the final ," he says. "It was a totally different time.

"In the summer, the lawn was employed by nudists. We carried our goals to a less busy area and played there, it had an honest surface. So at the rear of the lido, there lay the naked sunbathers, and up front we practised for the final . i actually can't say that each one the shots went on track ."

Mill recalls those different times fondly. He remembers how he and his Dortmund team-mates would lock themselves within the tiny kit room and talk for hours over cake, coffee and cigarettes. Or how, with the German national team, somebody placed a live rabbit within the team doctor's case just before a friendly match. it had been agreed Andreas Brehme would fake an early injury, and when the physio ran on to the pitch and opened his bag to treat him, out it sprang.