The Drop 40 lost it’s sixth member this week in former goalkeeper Georg Koch. He made his professional breakthrough in 1992 and spent his entire, unremarkable career ping-ponging between the first and second division of the Bundesliga with various clubs. He had a more successful time of it in Croatia with Dinamo Zagreb for one season before being sold to Rapid Vienna. Unfortunately for Koch, his career was then ended after just 7 games when a firecracker, lobbed by rival Austria Vienna fans, exploded next to him and permanently damaged his inner ear. His hearing and balance never recovered, and he was forced into retirement in 2009.
He went on to work as a goalkeeping coach after that and disappeared into obscurity as far as Wikipedia is concerned, so let’s move on to his relevance to deadpooling. He announced a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2024 and just squeaked on to the Drop 40 last year as a result. He far outlived his initial six month life expectancy prognosis, but there’s no beating pan can for most and he rose up the list this year. His death has barely registered a blip in the British media, but the Daily Star came through in the end with an even more blatant Wikipedia copy-paste than I’ve just done, so it’s 12/24 points for those who took the chance on him. Leader Pretty Noose wasn’t one of them, but they retain the lead by a single point for now. A bigger impact for the theme teams though, where he was the joker for German-themed Deutschland verabschiedet sich!, who take the lead as a result.
At least the Daily Star remembered you Georg!
Georg Koch, Drop 40 Joint #27
February 3 1972 – March 4 2026
52 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀+40 = 12 Points
4 Teams 🃏 = 24 Points