Kurt's stepfather

Kurt Stiefvater (born November 26, 1923 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † January 31, 1971 in Mannheim ) was a German soccer player who won the German soccer championship with the southern German league club VfR Mannheim in the 1948/49 season . The attacking player, who was mostly a half-striker in the then primarily practiced World Cup system , played a total of 248 association games from 1945 to 1956 for the club for lawn games in which he scored 33 goals in the first-class football league south .

Player career

society

Kurt Stiefvater, who came to Mannheim with his parents from Freiburg as a child, joined the youth department of the team from the stadium at the breweries, the VfR Mannheim, as a student. After school, he completed an apprenticeship as a plumber and was drafted into the navy at the age of 17 during World War II . He was a signal guest on a minesweeper off Scandinavia . During this time he also participated in naval units' soccer games. From captivity he was transported to France by train. Near Ladenburg , together with a friend, he managed to jump off the train and escape to his hometown Mannheim. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, the excellent dribbler and chances-threader, equipped with outstanding technical skills, therefore belonged to the VfR group of players with whom the lawn athletes contested their debut round in the southern German league in 1945/46. At Zeilinger's stepfather, in the local derby, lost 3-1 against Waldhof on April 20, 1946, the attacking formation was played alongside the ex-national players Karl Striebinger and Kurt Langenbein . In the league round with 16 clubs that began on November 4, 1945 and ended on July 14, 1946, the lawn athletes took 14th place. The two clubs from Karlsruhe, Phönix and the KFV, would have been relegated, but because they had such excellent connections to the military authorities and US professional sport has no relegation, the Badeners stayed in the first division thanks to higher instructions and this was 20 Participants increased. On the sixth game day of the second league round 1946/47, on November 3, 1946, the blue-white-reds managed a 2-1 victory in the home game against the later superior champions 1. FC Nuremberg. Stepfather stormed the right wing and Otto Bardorf and Striebinger scored the goals for Mannheim . The local rival Waldhof was behind the "Club" in this round of southern German runner-up and the lawn athletes reached 12th place in the 20 relay. In the attack, the VfR came mainly with the strikers Ludwig Altig , Stiefvater, Bardorf, Hans Wirthwein and Striebinger.

After three players from the former POW Camp 133 in Canada came to VfR for the 1947/48 season with Rudolf de la Vigne , Hermann Jöckel and Jakob Müller , the other "Canadian" Philipp Henninger had already been active with his home club since 1946 , the Mannheim Kurt Keuerleber had stuck to the stopper role through convincing performances and in the attack, another striker with a risk of goal, Ernst Löttke , were obvious when he reached eighth place in the season of 20 - two points behind fifth place in the table Detecting progress among the lawn players. Stepfather had scored four goals in 31 league games.

Since the season 1948/49 with Ernst Langlotz a dribbling and prolific striker - also a former camp 133 Member from Canada - came to VfR-Eleven, the conditional basis of new coach wore Hans "Bumbas" Schmidt quickly fruit and the Blue-White -Roten won the runner-up in the south. Half-forward stepfather had scored seven goals in 28 league games. On November 7, 1948, in the 1-0 home win against Eintracht Frankfurt in the 20th minute, he distinguished himself as the scorer of the winning goal. In the sports magazine it was noted: "The game-winning goal was scored by the funny and lively stepfather in the 20th minute after going it alone." He scored his other goals in the 3: 1 against FSV Frankfurt, the 6: 2 against Ulm, the 1: 2 defeat against VfB Mühlburg, he contributed two hits to the 4: 1 against VfB Stuttgart and on the last round matchday, May 15, 1949, he also played a 1-1 draw at home against the FC Bayern Munich in the list of goalscorers. The VfR regular formation around goalkeeper Jöckel, the defender couple Rößling and Henninger, the runner row with J. Müller, Keuerleber and Maier, as well as the attack with Bolleyer, Langlotz, Löttke, stepfather and de la Vigne also included Altig and Senk. With a line of 13, coach “Bumbas” Schmidt had led VfR to success in the south. The superior southern champion was Kickers Offenbach; the team of coach Paul Oßwald led the table with an eleven point lead.

In the final round of the German championship, the runner-up from southern Germany met the favorite northern champion Hamburger SV on June 12 in Frankfurt am Main. In the HSV attack acted with Manfred Krüger , Heinz Werner , Edmund Adamkiewicz , Herbert Wojtkowiak and Erich Ebeling recognized top division greats . The VFR defense, led by Keuerleber with confidence as usual, kept the North Germans in check and ultimately the South German representative surprisingly prevailed with 5-0 goals. Green notes: "Kurt Stiefvater had the soul of the HSV game, Heinz Bung bottle , under control at all times, and the goals fell at regular intervals." In the second round on June 26th, the champions and runners-up from the south met . The Offenbach team also needed a replay against Worms on June 19 to successfully survive the preliminary round. In front of 55,000 spectators in the Schalke Glückauf-Kampfbahn , the final result was already clear after eight minutes: Mannheim beat the southern champions 2-1 after goals from Löttke and de la Vigne. The blue-white-red Mannheimers were in the final, which was played on July 10th in the Neckar Stadium in Stuttgart against the West Champion Borussia Dortmund. Coach “Bumbas” Schmidt relied on the same formation in the third final match. In front of 92,000 spectators, the final was decided in extra time with the winning goal from Löttke to make it 3-2 for Mannheim. The final was held in tropical temperatures and went down in history as the legendary "heat battle". Striker colleague de la Vigne recalled in the VfR-Festbuch 1996: “And when Langlotz had scored the 2-2, the extra time was due, we knew we had the bigger reserves. I can still see in front of me how Löttke scored the 3-2 after the great preparatory work by stepfather. ”Stepfather and colleagues had thus ensured the greatest success of Mannheim football.

As the reigning German champion, VfR Mannheim took fourth place in the south in 1949/50. That was enough to get back into the finals, as this was played in 1950 with 16 teams. Stepfather had played 21 league games alongside newcomer Franz Islacker and scored two goals for the lawn players. In the preliminary round of the final round, the VfR met on May 21 in the Gladbeck Stadium in front of 38,000 spectators on the West Champion Borussia Dortmund. The final opponent from the “heat battle” in Stuttgart was looking for revenge and also took a 1-0 lead in the 32nd minute with a goal from Edmond Kasperski . Two goals from "Bella" de la Vigne and one goal from storm tank Ernst Löttke decided the game in this encounter for the eleven from the Electoral Palatinate . In the intermediate round match on June 4th in the Frankfurt Waldstadion in front of 40,000 spectators, the grass players failed not least because of the skills of Fritz Herkenrath , the outstanding goalkeeper of West Vice-Champion Prussia Dellbrück . The Cologne team decided the game 2-1. Stepfather was an outside runner in both games.

In the 1955/56 series , the player, who was now on the defensive, experienced another round with his team in the fight for a place in the finals. However, when he reached third place in the table, he was only used in two association games. Center forward Ernst-Otto Meyer had taken the top scorer's crown in the south with 30 goals. The veteran played his last league game on March 11, 1956 in a 2: 3 away defeat at SpVgg Fürth, where he played as a defender for VfR. After a total of 248 league games with 33 goals and five finals for the German championship, Kurt Stiefvater's high-class career ended in the summer of 1956.

Selection team

On September 18, 1949, the half-striker represented North Baden in the competition of the regional cup against the selection of Pfalz / Rheinhessen (1: 4), in whose ranks the brothers Fritz and Ottmar Walter stormed. Nordbaden was attacked in the line-up with Georg Herbold , stepfather, Paul Lipponer , Langlotz and de la Vigne. Before the second leg of the German national soccer team on April 15, 1951 in Zurich against Switzerland, representative games of regional selections were held for viewing purposes in March. In the 4-2 success of southern Germany on March 18 in Hamburg against northern Germany - with Herbert Burdenski , Hans Haferkamp , Josef Posipal , Heinz Spundzeile , Willi Schröder , Herbert Wojtkowiak - he temporarily stormed in the southern attack alongside Georg Platzer , Lipponer, Horst Buhtz and Ernst Kunkel .

Coaching career

Stepfather worked as a controller for the BBC in Mannheim until he fell ill with cancer in 1968 . He gained his first coaching experience as a player coach in 1957/58 at SpVgg Fortuna Edingen, with whom he was champion in the A-class and was promoted to the 2nd amateur league in North Baden. He also held the position at SG Nussloch and was later a coach at SC Käfertal and SC Neckarstadt. He lived with his family in Mannheim on Soironstrasse, in the immediate vicinity of the old VfR stadium at the breweries.

Others

He died in his regular pub "Heinrichs Brücke" on January 31, 1971 after going to church during the traditional Sunday "morning pint". He left a wife and four children.

On July 11, 2014, two traditional teams from VfR Mannheim and Borussia Dortmund played an "anniversary game" in Mannheim's Rhein-Neckar Stadium to mark the 65th anniversary of the 1949 German championship final. Kurt Stiefvater's grandson, Raphael Stiefvater, acted as referee.

Web links

• Kurt stepfather in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerhard Zeilinger: Triumph and decline in Mannheim's football sport 1945 to 1970. P. 18.
2. ↑ Werner Skrentny (ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963. Pp. 162, 164.
3. ↑ Raphael Keppel: The German Football League 1946–1963. Volume 2: Southwest, South, Finals. Sports and games publisher Edgar Hitzel. Hürth 1989. ISBN 3-9802172-3-X . P. 186.
4. ↑ Hardy Greens: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 1: From the Crown Prince to the Bundesliga. 1890 to 1963. German championship, Gauliga, Oberliga. Numbers, pictures, stories. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 1996, ISBN 3-928562-85-1 , p. 292.
5. ↑ VfR Mannheim (Ed.): 100 Years VfR Mannheim 1896–1996. A traditional club on new paths. P. 117.

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 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Football Archive Mannheim (Ed. Gerhard Zeilinger): Triumph and decline in Mannheim's football sport 1945 to 1970. Mannheim 1995. ISBN 3-929295-14-8 .
• VfR Mannheim (Ed.): 100 Years VfR Mannheim 1896-1996. Festschrift. Speyer 1996.