Helmut Preisendörfer

Helmut Preisendörfer (born January 16, 1927 in Obersinn ; † May 16, 1984 in Heusenstamm ) was a German soccer player who, from 1951 to 1959, played 214 games as a striker for Kickers Offenbach in the soccer Oberliga Süd and scored 148 goals.

career

Oberliga Süd, 1951 to 1959

At the age of 24, the amateur footballer of TSV Heusenstamm , Helmut Preisendörfer, signed a contract with the southern upper division Kickers Offenbach and dared to step from the fourth-class Hessian district class to the highest league in southern Germany. Coach Paul Oßwald , a tireless explorer and promoter of local talent, immediately used the immensely powerful attacker in the opening game of the 1951/52 league round . On August 19, 1951, OFC and 1860 Munich parted ways on the Bieberer Berg with a 2-2 draw, both goals were scored by the newcomer from Heusenstamm. Offenbach scored the most goals in the round with 75 goals and came in third. Preisendörfer took the top scorer's crown in the south with 26 goals together with Max Morlock , ahead of Werner Baßler (22) and Siegfried Kronenbitter with 20 goals. The two teammates Kurt Schreiner (16) and Heinz Baas made a strong contribution to the best offensive in the south with 15 goals. The new OFC striker hit the opposing net twice in a total of seven games and three times in the 5-1 win against Schweinfurt 05. In his second season 1952/53 Preisendörfer came on 17 hits. Preisendörfer, who could be used both on the left side and in the center of the storm, developed into a goal getter from duty. In his third league round, 1953/54 , he again won the southern top scorer's crown. Like Horst Schade, he scored 22 goals, leading the list of goalscorers ahead of Otto Baitinger with 21 goals. Again it was not enough for Offenbach as third in the table to make it into the final round of the German soccer championship. In the year of the football world championship in 1954, the striker distinguished himself as a two-time goalscorer in six league games and scored three times in the goal of the team from the Schönbusch stadium trained by former national player Ernst Lehner in the 6-2 away win at Viktoria Aschaffenburg .

With 26 goals, Preisendörfer set his personal record in the Oberliga Süd in the 1955/56 round . Ernst-Otto Meyer from VfR Mannheim won the top scorer's crown in the south with 30 goals, ahead of the ex-Heusenstammer. Erwin Waldner from VfB Stuttgart came third with 20 goals. The OFC record scorer scored three times in the opposing case in the 4-2 away win against SpVgg Fürth and in the 4-0 home win in the derby against Eintracht Frankfurt on the tenth match day. In five other games he excelled as a double goal scorer. As the defending champion - Preisendörfer scored 18 goals in the championship round in 1954/55 - the Oßwald team placed fourth. In his sixth league round he contributed 18 goals to the runner-up in 1956/57 , Berti Kraus (15) and Gerhard Kaufhold followed with 14 goals. In the last year of Paul Oßwald's coaching period, 1957/58, the 30-year-old scored another 16 goals. The young Siegfried Gast was the top scorer in the southern league with 20 goals, ahead of Rudolf Kölbl , Kurt Sommerlatt and Preisendörfer with 16 goals each. In eight rounds Helmut Preisendörfer had scored 148 goals for Offenbach in the major league. In his last season he scored 5 goals. The club's internal league record scorer scored the last goal on May 3, 1959 in the 3-2 home defeat against 1860 Munich. For the second time he celebrated the runner-up in the south with Offenbach in 1959. In Offenbach, Gerhard Kaufhold (112), Hermann Nuber (102), Engelbert Kraus (101) and Siegfried Gast follow with 94 hits in the top scorer list of the soccer Oberliga Süd in the ranks.

Selection games, DFB Cup and finals, 1952 to 1959

National coach Sepp Herberger invited the Offenbach goalscorer once to a DFB inspection course in mid-November 1952. This also included a test match on November 24th in Berlin, where Preisendörfer stormed in a DFB selection as left winger in a 4-1 win against a Berlin team. In the DFB Cup he came in the competitions 1953 and 1955 in seven games and failed with Offenbach 1955 only in the semifinals at Schalke 04. For the city selection Frankfurt / Offenbach he scored in the Messestädte Cup 1955-1958 on March 27, 1957 in the second leg against the city selection London in the 72nd minute the 1-0 winning goal.

In the first two attempts in the final round of the German football championship in 1955 and 1957, the powerful enforcer was able to prove his scoring qualities, not as usual in the Oberliga Süd. It was only enough to score one goal in eight games. In his third final round, 1959 , he asserted himself impressively as a goalscorer on duty. In six group games, he distinguished himself as a goalscorer in five games, where he succeeded in the games against Westfalia Herne and Tasmania 1900 Berlin in the final minutes of the 2-1 or 3-2 winning goal and Offenbach thus moved into the final. Werner Skrentny describes the final in the following words:

“ As a 'last minute team' they went down in the history of these DM finals in '59. Against Hamburger SV they were in the Waldstadion before 82,000 after half an hour 0: 2, six minutes before the end they turned everything around, won 3: 2. When everyone was already dreaming of the southern final, the Kickers brought Pinkpank and Fiebach back to the ground in front of 38,000 in Frankfurt: 2-0 for Tasmania. But there were still four minutes left to play and an unbelievable happened: `Men who have grown old in the curves of the sports fields confessed: We have never seen that! They said it as if touched by a miracle '(“ Sport-Illustrierte ”). What had happened that `` almost drove the whole arena crazy '' in the 'most incredible game of all time'? Nuber had scored the next goal in the 87th minute. Berti Kraus equalized in the 88th minute. Helmut Preisendörfer took the leather out of the air halfway up in the 89th minute - 'the five-meter space and the goal line were full of Tasmania players' - put it between defender Bäsler and the post in the goal - 3: 2,' the best Goal of my life, 'said the striker afterwards, and Berlin center runner Peschke:' I still don't understand how the three Offenbach goals could be scored. "

In the final, Preisendörfer equalized Eintracht Frankfurt's 2-1 lead in the 23rd minute with his sixth goal in the final round and the two arch-rivals went into overtime after 90 minutes. The Frankfurt team prevailed with 5: 3 goals. The OFC attack on June 28, 1959 in Berlin consisted of the following players: Engelbert Kraus, Hermann Nuber, Siegfried Gast, Gerhard Kaufhold and Helmut Preisendörfer. The 32-year-old attacker ended his career at Kickers Offenbach after eight league rounds in the summer of 1959 and returned to his hometown club TSV Heusenstamm as a player-coach for the 1959/60 round.

In addition to their sporting successes, Preisendörfer and Offenbach were also able to experience a lot of impressions off the field thanks to their lively "travel activities" abroad. The five-week East Asia trip in 1953 with the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, Calcutta and Pakistan are part of it, as well as a trip to the Soviet Union and in 1958 to the USA.

Successes in the amateur camp

With the blue-whites from the “Alte Linde” sports field, Preisendörfer experienced impressive rounds in the first amateur league in Hessen. After sixth place in his debut year as a player-coach, 1959/60, he brought the runner-up to Heusenstamm in the rounds of 1960/61 and 1961/62 after the return of goalkeeper Walter Zimmermann .

literature

• Werner Skrentny (Ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963. Klartext, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .
• Raphael Keppel, The German Football League 1946–1963, Edgar Hitzel Sports and Games Publishing House , 1989, ISBN 3-9802172-3-X .
• Klaus Querengässer: The German football championship. Part 2: 1948–1963 (= AGON-Sportverlag statistics. Vol. 29). AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 1997, ISBN 3-89609-107-7 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Preisendörfer - A football legend from Obersinner
2. ^ Matthias Weinrich, Der Europapokal 1955 to 1974, AGON-Sportverlag, 2007, p. 40.
3. ↑ Werner Skrentny, "When Morlock still met the moonlight", The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963, p. 50.