Günter Grandt

Günter Grandt (born June 25, 1926 in Wanne-Eickel ; † 1995 ) was a German soccer player who played 81 games in the Oberliga West for Westfalia Herne from 1954 to 1958 and scored 33 goals.

career

Günter Grandt is one of the Westfalia Herne players who got the ball rolling again immediately after the end of the Second World War , first under the name SC Westfalen Strünkede Herne . At the beginning of 1946 the Westphalian Football Association was founded and a championship operation was initiated. Westfalia competed in the Landesliga Westfalen, Group 1 and had to do with VfL Bochum, SpVg Röhlinghausen and especially the old champions Schalke 04. The 19-year-old young player Grandt was a member of the Westfalia team on March 31, 1946, which defeated the "Royal Blues" with a 3-1 win in front of 20,000 spectators. He played alongside center forward Paul Matzkowski on half left and scored a goal. Due to the fourth place in the series 1946/47, Herne was not accepted for the newly installed football Oberliga West from 1947/48. When the contract player era was introduced in the west from the 1949/50 round, Grandt and the team from the stadium at Schloss Strünkede belonged to the newly introduced 2nd League West. The candidate and later elementary school teacher spent five rounds with his club in the 2nd West League. He was playmaker and goalscorer rolled into one. From 1949 to 1954 he scored 83 goals in 127 league games. Outstanding was the round in the 1954 world championship year when Westfalia achieved direct promotion to the league with the runner-up. On May 30, 1954, Grandt scored the winning goal for the 2-1 away win against Wattenscheid 09 and the promotion for Herne was perfect. Under coach Rudolph Prokoph , he completed 28 second division games in the promotion season and scored 28 goals. In the SC ranking of the 2nd League West, teammate Herbert Pogner takes second place behind Grandt with 45 goals in 83 league games.

In his first year in the Oberliga West, 1954/55 , the playmaker and scorer completed all 30 games and scored 18 goals. Westfalia kept the class as close as possible with 13th place. The first Oberligaderby against the district rivals SV Sodingen took place on October 3, 1954 in front of 27,000 spectators and ended with a 0-1 home defeat for Westfalia through a goal by Gerd Harpers . In the 1955/56 round, Fritz Langner took over the coaching position in Herne and Hans Tilkowski's career as a goalkeeper began . For the teacher at the elementary school on Schützenplatz, today's Berlin Platz, there were two international appointments in his second league year. In 1955, the DFB played an international match with the German national soccer team of amateurs . The game took place on November 12, 1955 in London against England. The German amateur selection won with 3-2 goals and the man from Herne contributed one goal. Together with Matthias Mauritz , Hans Zeitler , Herbert Schäfer and Fritz Zimmermann , he formed the German storm on half right. In his second appointment to the DFB amateur team, he scored a goal in the 3-3 draw on May 19, 1956 in Freiburg against France.

The last championship game played Grandt at the age of 31 on December 1, 1957 in the 1: 3 away defeat at Alemannia Aachen on the side of Hans Tilkowski , Alfred Pyka and Helmut Benthaus . Piorr quotes a fan on page 212:

“My favorite post-war player was Günter Grandt, a playmaker like I haven't seen anyone else to date: half-left, tall guy, black hair, feeling for the ball, who could hit passes over 40 meters. And when he hit you from 25 meters, there was only a line in the air. Before the goalkeeper could jump into the corner, the ball was already wriggling in the net. "

Günter Grandt worked as a teacher and ended his career in the Oberliga West after the 1957/58 season. The family man, who has been married since 1956, died in 1995 of a sequelae of kidney dialysis. He was also active as a field handball player for years and remained an amateur, although he was courted by large clubs such as Borussia Dortmund and Fortuna Düsseldorf. A total of 280 competitive games are credited to Westfalia Herne.

literature

• Hans Dieter Baroth : Boys, Heaven is yours! The history of the Oberliga West 1947–1963. Klartext, Essen 1988, ISBN 3-88474-332-5 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Ralf Piorr (Ed.): Much more than just a game . 100 years of SC Westfalia Herne. FRISCHTEXTE Verlag, Herne 2004. ISBN 3-933059-38-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ralf Piorr (ed.): Much more than just a game. P. 338.