Gerhard Graf (soccer player)

Gerhard Graf (born December 8, 1921 in Berlin-Tempelhof ; † August 9, 1962 ) was a German football player who won the championship in the Berlin City League three times in a row from 1950 to 1952 as an active player in Tennis Borussia Berlin .

Player career

Gauliga, until 1945

At the age of 18, the offensive player was appointed to the Berlin-Brandenburg district selection. For the first time he worked on May 26, 1940 in the 3-0 in Sofia against the local city selection and scored a goal. As part of the Reichsbund Cup, he made his debut on October 6, 1940 in a 4-3 win against the Middle Rhine. At the side of goalkeeper Rudolf Schönbeck , defender Hans Appel and center forward Hans Berndt , the young talent of Blau-Weiß 90 Berlin was used as a right connector in the attack. He played for Blau-Weiß since 1931 in the youth and made his debut in 1939 at the age of 17 in the league team. In the Gauligarunde 1940/41 he finished third with blue-white 90 behind champions tennis Borussia and Hertha BSC . As a 20-year-old, he celebrated winning the championship in 1941/42 and making it into the finals of the German soccer championship. Only in the semi-finals did the team around Karl Decker , First Vienna FC 1894 , prevent the blue-whites from reaching the final. The team from Mariendorf ended the final round with a 4-0 win on July 4, 1942 against Kickers Offenbach and was able to achieve 3rd place in the German championship in 1942. Graf played all five finals and scored the 1: 2 goal in the semifinals against Vienna in the 48th minute. With the Gau selection he failed in the Reichsbund Cup in 1942 in the semifinals after two games against the Nordmark. In the club cup in 1942 Gerhard Graf scored eight goals in the games against Lufthansa SG Berlin , SV Fortuna 02 Leipzig , NSTG Falkenau and TuS 1883 Lipine and thus ranked second on the top scorer list of this competition. National striker Ernst Willimowski won the trophy with Munich in 1860 and led the scorer list with 14 goals ahead of Graf and Ludwig Janda - also eight goals.

After the Second World War, until 1955

As an active member of the municipal sports group Tempelhof , Graf took second place behind SG Wilmersdorf in the first city championship after the war in Berlin, 1945/46 . In the Berlin Cup, he shot his team with three hits in the semifinals on January 20, 1946 against Spandau-Altstadt in the final. In the final, Wilmersdorf won 2-1 goals after extra time on March 17, 1946 against Tempelhof. Due to the extremely difficult food situation, working conditions and housing situation in Berlin, he moved to Hanover on April 9, 1946 and played with the "Blauen" from Bischofsholer Damm, with SV Arminia Hanover in the Oberliga Niedersachsen-Süd. In 1946/47 he contributed significantly to the achievement of the second rank of the Arminen behind TSV Braunschweig, and thus the qualification for the soccer Oberliga Nord from the season 1947/48.

In April 1947 Graf returned to his hometown and temporarily joined the SG Neukölln, also played in the Neukölln district selection. From then on he belonged to the SG Charlottenburg . At the top, the championship in 1947/48 was marked by the "four-way battle" between Oberschöneweide , Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg and Prenzlauer Berg West . Charlottenburg was in third place at the end of the round and the Berlin returnees had won the top scorer's crown in the Berlin City League with 20 goals . In the cup, the master Oberschöneweide prevailed in the replay on April 25, 1948 with 3-1 goals. As runner-up, Tennis Borussia won the RIAS Cup in 1949 with a 2-0 win against Alemannia 1890 Berlin. Graf scored both final goals.

From 1950 to 1952 Graf celebrated three championship wins in a row with the “Veilchen”, including the two-time double in 1950 and 1951 through the cup successes against Wacker 04 and SC Union 06 . In 1954 Graf and his comrades once again reached the cup final - they lost 1-0 goals against Spandauer SV - and in 1955 they reached the runner-up position four points behind Viktoria 1889 Berlin. The 33-year-old veteran had scored eleven goals in 21 league games for Tennis Borussia and ended his playing career with Fritz Wilde at the end of the season. In his farewell game on June 19, 1955 in the Mommsen Stadium against Eintracht Braunschweig - it ended 6: 3 for TB - he scored five goals. The strong center forward was tech-savvy and had an excellent header game. Teammate Karl-Heinz Steinbeck describes Graf in the following words:

“ For us players he was the ultimate striker, also a comrade to the point of no-longer-possible. A never-despairing header artist. An excellent coach after his active career who unfortunately passed away much too early. For me, he was the best footballer in Berlin in the post-war period. "

The trained toolmaker was also regularly involved in the selection of cities from 1947 to 1955. According to his own line-up, he has scored a total of 39 goals in 61 missions (since 1940), leaving the match between West and East Berlin (3: 3) on Christmas Day 1954 in the Poststadion “unrated”, ie not counting.

Stations

• 1939 to 1945: Blau-Weiß 90 Berlin
• 1945 to 1946: SG Tempelhof
• 1946 to 1947: SV Arminia Hannover
• 1947: SG Neukölln
• 1947 to 1955: SG Charlottenburg
• 1957: Blau-Weiß 90 Berlin

Coaching career

Graf, who had already successfully completed the football teacher training course in 1953 together with Hanne Sobek and Werner Schwenzfeier , immediately took over Tasmania 1900 in the Stadtliga Berlin as a coach for two seasons in 1955. For the 1957/58 season he was persuaded by his youth club Blau-Weiß 90 to play again as a player in the city league. The 36-year-old played the first nine game days with the Mariendorfern and scored one goal. With the use on November 17, 1957 against Spandauer SV, he finally ended his playing career. From 1950 to 1957, Gerhard Graf had 106 city league games with 59 goals in the statistics. Graf played 61 games in the Berlin city selection from 1940 to 1955. There were also 17 finals with five goals. From 1958 he continued his coaching career and won 3rd and 2nd place in the city league with Hertha BSC in 1959 and 1960. Then he coached VfB Hermsdorf in the 1960/61 season . The last coaching station was Tennis Borussia Berlin from January 1962 until his illness. He died on August 9, 1962 at the age of only 40.

Stations

• 1955 to 1957: Tasmania 1900
• 1958 to 1960: Hertha BSC
• 1960/61: VfB Hermsdorf
• 1962: Tennis Borussia Berlin

Others

• Graf acted in the role of a football player in the sports film "The Big Game", produced by Robert Adolf Stemmle in 1941 and published in 1942 .

Web links

• Gerhard Graf in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of April 27, 1947, page 4
2. ^ Deutsches Sport-Echo (Berlin) of May 12, 1947
3. ↑ LIBERO, No. 3, Oct./Nov. 1988, p. 40.
4. ↑ Berlin Football Program (ed.): The Little Football Primer for the Berlin City Championship , Berlin (West) 1949, page 27
5. ^ Gerhard Graf: Meine Städtespiele , unpublished manuscript. Lutz Rosenzweig also mentions 61 missions: 75 Years of the Association of Berliner Ballspielvereine , Berlin 1972, page 175
6. ↑ The big game on imdb .com

literature

• Hans Dieter Baroth , "Kick off in ruins", football in the post-war period and the first years of the top leagues South, Southwest, West, North and Berlin, Klartext-Verlag, 1990, ISBN 3-88474-454-2 .
• Wolfgang Hartwig / Günter Weise, 100 years of football in Berlin, SVB Sportverlag, 1997, ISBN 3-328-00734-2 .
• LIBERO, No. 3, IFFHS, Oct./Nov. 1988, p. 40.
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Klaus Querengässer: The German football championship. Part 2: 1948–1963 (= AGON Sportverlag statistics. Vol. 29). AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1997, ISBN 3-89609-107-7 .