Helmut Traska

Helmut Traska (born November 30, 1935 ) is a former German soccer player. The goalkeeper first played a total of 122 league games from 1958 to 1963 in what was then the first-class football league West for the clubs STV Horst-Emscher (18) and Rot-Weiß Oberhausen (104), before he played 142 competitive games from 1963 to 1968 The second division of the regional football league West joined.

career

Emscher "Hussars", until 1959

The goalkeeper's sporting career began in Gelsenkirchen with the black-and-blue team from STV Horst-Emscher. Located in the middle of the settlement center of Horster Mark, the team from the Fürstenberg Stadium was a classic suburban club with a mine connection. At the beginning of the senior career of the young talented goalkeeper, there was the descent in 1953/54 from the Oberliga West to the 2nd division, the financial and sporting decline of the "Hussars". The talent of the Horster goalkeeper had already been noticed by national coach Sepp Herberger in the round of 1956/57. With his teammates he only finished sixth in the 2nd division West, but on March 27, 1957 he made his debut in the junior national team U23. Together with the other talents Alfred Pyka , Günter Graetsch , Hermann Nuber , Helmut Faeder , Josef Marx , Hans Cieslarczyk and Gerhard Cyliax , Traska was part of the victorious German youth team in the 4-2 win against Belgium in Essen. In the following season, 1957/58, the year of the football world championship in Sweden in 1958, the STV Horst won the championship in the 2nd division west and returned to the upper league before the competitors Borussia Mönchengladbach and TSV Marl-Hüls.

Right on the start day of the round, August 17, 1958, Traska and his teammates learned the significantly increased demands of the league. The debut in the West German first class brought a 6-0 defeat at Rot-Weiß Oberhausen. After the 15th matchday, the Horster graced the end of the table with 7:23 points and immediately relegated back to the second division with 13:47 points at the end of the round. Traska had guarded the goal of the "Hussars" in 18 games and the offensive talent Reinhold Wischnowsky had scored nine goals in 24 missions. Despite the clearly negative goal balance of 32:90 points at Horst-Emscher, Traska was used on May 20, 1959 for the second time in the junior national team of the DFB. In Krakow, the German juniors prevailed with a 4-2 win over Poland. At the side of fellow players Ferdinand Wenauer , Günter Herrmann , Albert Brülls and Gert Dörfel , the Horster belonged to the DFB team. The goalkeeper accepted the offer from Rot-Weiß Oberhausen for the 1959/60 round, club mate Wischnowsky moved to Baden for Karlsruher SC, and both remained in the league. Edmund Koch noted the signing of Traska in Ulrich Homann's regional league book:

“ His engagement was a masterpiece by RWO President Peter Maaßen. Half of all league clubs were after the goalkeeper talent. PM hid him in his villa near Bad Pyrmont. Traska was only allowed out of hiding after the deadline for new contracts had expired. "

At Piorr another version is reported in Volume 1 of the Lexikons des Revier-Fußball:

“ Helmut Traska is back right on time for the start of the season. By all means, the Horster keeper hope was harassed by the league's buyers. When finally even an unordered moving van that was chartered by friends of the Oberhausen club threatens to turn up, Traska decides to flee. The news that was ghosting through all the media that Helmut had been kidnapped to a country house of Oberhausen chairman Biederbeck remains unconfirmed. President Peter Maaßen: 'Sports comrade Biederbeck would be happy if he owned a country house.' Maybe Maassen had one himself. When Traska appears on the first day of the game, he is wearing the clover jersey. "

Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, 1959 to 1968

The second starting game in a league round did not end well for “Jimmy” Traska. On August 23, 1959, the “clovers” lost 4-0 at Schwarz-Weiß Essen. Eight days earlier, the Uhlenkrugt team had prevailed with 6: 3 goals in the DFB Cup at Hertha BSC and also won the final with 5: 2 goals against Borussia Neunkirchen on December 27, 1959 in Kassel. The man from Horst completed 17 games for RWO in 1959/60 and the team from the Niederrhein Stadium took 13th place. In the next two rounds, 1960/61 and 1961/62, Oberhausen moved up significantly with fourth and third place in the table. In addition to the field players Friedhelm Kobluhn , Karl-Heinz Feldkamp , Jürgen Sundermann and Hans Siemensmeyer , the goalkeeper played a major role in this. On March 4, 1962 he was in the goal of a West selection in Wuppertal, which prevailed with 3-2 goals against Berlin. Ironically in the last year of the old league system, 1962/63, the placements were decisive for the nomination for the football Bundesliga starting in 1963/64, Oberhausen faltered and crossed the finish line in 10th place in May 1963 and was thus accepted into the Bundesliga missed. After the 6-0 point start against 1. FC Köln (3: 1), Hamborn 07 (1: 0) and the 2: 1 home win against Alemannia Aachen, the goal of the Bundesliga was more than realistic. The half-time record after 15 games with 16:14 points in sixth place still spoke for Traska and his teammates. In the second half of the season, however, the place in the top five of the table was gambled away - Traska was in all 30 games for Oberhausen in action - and the "clovers" appeared from 1963/64 in the second division of the new regional football league West. With the 30th matchday, May 11, 1963, RWO said goodbye with goalkeeper Traska and a 2-3 defeat against Hennes Weisweiler 's Viktoria Köln from the Oberliga era.

At the beginning of the first half of the season, "Jimmy" Traska was part of the DFB squad for the A international matches on September 30 and October 24, 1962 against Yugoslavia and France, respectively. In the first three rounds in the Regionalliga, he continued his constant streak in the goal of Oberhausen and finally stood for five years without a break in the goal of the "clovers". From the 1961/62 season (Oberliga) to 1965/66 (Regional League) Traska was not absent in any league game for the Landwehr team. In Werner Stahl's second year as coach , 1966/67, he missed a game on the eleventh match day, October 30, 1966, at the home game against VfR Neuss. From 1961 to 1967 he played 199 out of 200 possible league games for his club. In the first year of the Regionalliga, 1963/64, on the second matchday, August 11, 1963, the 5: 8 (!) Away defeat at Fortuna Düsseldorf was a curious game. In the 1967/68 season, Wolfgang Scheid , who was seven years younger than him, took over the role of the goalkeeper at Oberhausen and Traska ended his career in higher class with his use on February 19, 1968 in a 2-0 away win against VfB Bottrop. He let his career in the amateur league with VfB Rheingold Emmerich end.

literature

• Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne : Player Lexicon 1890 - 1963 . In: Encyclopedia of German League Football . tape 8 . AGON, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Ralf Piorr (Ed.): The pot is round. The Lexicon of Revier-Soccer, Volume 2: The clubs . Klartext Verlag. Essen 2006. ISBN 3-89861-356-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrich Homann (ed.): Bauernköppe, miners and a pascha. The history of the Regionalliga West 1963–1974. Volume 1, Klartext, Essen 1991, ISBN 3-88474-345-7 , p. 117.
2. ↑ Ralf Piorr (ed.): The pot is round. The Lexikon des Revier-Fußball, Volume 1: The Chronicle from 1945 to 2005 . Klartext Verlag. Essen 2005. ISBN 3-89861-358-5 . P. 65.