Helmut Hergesell

Hergesell 1969

Helmut Hergesell (born October 22, 1941 in Munich ) is a former German soccer player and holds a doctorate in physical education (GDR).

Athletic career

Hergesell came to Greifswald with his family in 1952 at the age of eleven . In the same year he started his football career at BSG Einheit Greifswald , then represented in the second-rate GDR league . At the age of 18 he was appointed to the GDR junior team and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA junior tournament with this team in 1959 . In total, Hergesell played six international junior and junior international matches. In the men's team of Einheit Greifswald, he first played as a stopper, but then found his regular position as a full-back. As usual in GDR football, Hergesell was an amateur as a second division player and had learned the trade of a tiler.

For the 1963/64 season, Hergesell and his teammate Kurt Habermann were “delegated” to what was then SC Empor Rostock, the forerunner of FC Hansa Rostock , as it was called at the time according to the official GDR language for changing football players. Hergesell immediately fought for a regular place in the team that had reached 2nd place in the Oberliga , the highest GDR division, in the past season . Of 26 games in the 1963/64 season, Hergesell played 25 games and scored four goals as a defender. With his last game on December 16, 1972 (1: 3 at 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig ) he had completed 200 league games for Empor / Hansa Rostock and scored 17 goals. In the games of the GDR Football Cup ( FDGB-Pokal ) he was used 22 times (1 goal), in the UEFA Cup eight times (2 goals). With his team, Hergesell was twice runner-up (1964 and 1968) and was once in the final of the FDGB Cup (1967, 0: 3 against BSG Motor Zwickau ).

After completing his active career, Hergesell became a junior coach at FC Hansa. After the surprising dismissal of the upper division coach Heinz Werner , he was promoted to head coach of the Rostock club on April 1, 1975 as the youngest coach in the GDR upper division. However, he could no longer prevent its downward trend and rose with his team in the summer from the league. After the immediate resurgence in 1975/76 and the second descent in 1976/77, Hergesell secured the right to participate in the league again in 1977/78 with FC Hansa Rostock. On December 16, 1978 he was replaced on the coaching post by Jürgen Heinsch , who could no longer achieve relegation (1978/79) in the top division of the GDR.

Despite this failure, Hergesell remained loyal to FC Hansa and moved up to the executive committee. In addition , he did his doctorate as a sports teacher and worked as a university sports teacher at Rostock University. As Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of FC Hansa, after German reunification he was responsible for the new construction of the Ostseestadion , the venue for his club. Not only did he succeed in securing the difficult financing for an East German football club, he also ensured that the new stadium could be inaugurated on August 4, 2001 after only 16 months of construction. Hergesell retired in 2005.

literature

• Uwe Krüger: Hansa Rostock. Data - facts - pictures. (East German Traditionsvereine, Volume 2 / Agon Statistics 33.) Agon, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89609-127-1 .

Web links

• Biography on the website of Hansa Rostock ( Memento from March 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )