Gerhard Kraft

Gerhard Kraft
Personnel
birthday	December 13, 1944
position	Storm
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
0000-1969	1. FC Hochstadt
1969-1971	Kickers Offenbach	13 (3)
1971–0000	1. FC Hochstadt
1 Only league games are given.

Gerhard Kraft (born December 13, 1944 ) is a former German football player . The striker won with Kickers Offenbach in the season 1969/70 the championship in the Regionalliga South , rising with the elf from Bieberer mountain in the Bundesliga on.

Career

Kraft was already at a young age in the Hessian amateur area with the purple-whites from 1. FC Hochstadt's forest stadium , successfully hunting for goals. He belonged to the championship teams of 1965/66 and 1966/67, before he was promoted to the Hessen League in 1968/69 . Kraft had scored 42 goals this season. Despite the promotion, he accepted the offer from Bundesliga relegated Kickers Offenbach, and played for the 1969/70 round with the Kickers in the then second-rate Regionalliga Süd. The OFC's goal was to return to the Bundesliga immediately. President Horst-Gregorio Canellas and his board colleagues were therefore intensely active in the transfer market and signed seven new employees: Horst Gecks , Walter Bechtold , Erwin Kremers , Helmut Kremers , Klaus Winkler , Hans Reich and the striker from Hochstadt. Despite the well-known internal competition from the professional sector, Gerhard Kraft was the Kickers' top scorer with 20 goals in the 1969/70 season.

He made his debut on August 30, 1969 in a 2-1 away win at Jahn Regensburg in the Regionalliga Süd. On the following game day, September 7th, he scored his first competitive goal in a 3-2 home win against the Stuttgarter Kickers. On November 9, 1969, he distinguished himself as a three-time goalscorer in a 4-1 home win against ESV Ingolstadt. On January 25, 1970, he scored the winning goal for a 1-0 away win at rivals in the championship race, 1. FC Nuremberg. Under the coaches Paul Oßwald (until December 1969; ended his activity for health reasons) and Zlatko Čajkovski (from January 1970) Offenbach won the championship with 93:47 goals at the end of the round. One point ahead of runner-up Karlsruher SC and two points ahead of 1. FC Nürnberg in third place. Gerhard Kraft had played 28 regional league games and scored 20 goals. He led the internal Kickers goalscorer list ahead of Gecks (17 goals), Bechtold (12 goals) and Roland Weida (10 goals).

In the Bundesliga promotion round in 1970, Kraft and colleagues prevailed with 12: 4 points against the competition with VfL Bochum, Hertha Zehlendorf, VfL Wolfsburg and FK Pirmasens and thus managed to return to the Bundesliga immediately. Kraft had scored two goals in six appearances. In the attack, the Offenbachers ran mainly with Horst Gecks, Kraft and Erwin Kremers. On January 3, 1970, this storm trio was also in the 1st main round of the DFB Cup 1970 in the 4-1 home win against TSV Munich 1860 in action. Kraft scored a hit. In the other games of the successful cup competition he was no longer used.

In 1970/71 he played with Offenbach in the Bundesliga for a year . He played 13 games and scored two goals. Before the start of the round, the ex-Dortmund master player Aki Schmidt took over the training management. Kraft made his Bundesliga debut on August 22, 1970 in a 2-1 home win against Werder Bremen. In his second Bundesliga appearance on September 19 against MSV Duisburg, Kraft scored his first goal in the Bundesliga at the side of attacking partners Gecks and Winkler in a 2-0 home win. Coach Schmidt was replaced by Rudi Gutendorf on September 28th . When Kuno Klötzer became the third coach to look after the OFC professionals on February 24, 1971, Kraft had been active seven times in the Bundesliga. Only on May 1, 1971, in the final sprint to avoid relegation, was the man from Hochstadt used again. In the last six rounds against Dortmund (1: 1), Oberhausen (3: 2), Essen (3: 2), Schalke 04 (2: 1), Eintracht Frankfurt (0: 2) and on the final day, June 5th In 1971, against 1. FC Köln (2: 4), Kraft was used in all games. He gave his team a 1-0 lead in Cologne in the third minute, but the hosts prevailed with 4-2 goals and Offenbach rose tied with RW Oberhausen - both teams had 27:41 points after 34 match days into the regional league. On the day after the league final, Offenbach's President Canellas invited to a press conference to present evidence of "sold" games by means of tape recordings.

After two years in Offenbach, Kraft returned to the Hessen League for the 1971/72 season in Hochstadt. Under player- coach Hans Nowak , he formed a dreaded storm trio with his storm colleagues Horst Geis and Seppl Adam and finished sixth in Hesse's amateur upper house in 1972 and fourth in 1973.

literature

• Christian Karn, Reinhard Rehberg: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 9: Player Lexicon 1963-1994. Bundesliga, regional league, 2nd league. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2012, ISBN 978-3-89784-214-4 .
• Hardy Greens : Legendary football clubs. Hesse. Between FC Alsbach, Eintracht Frankfurt and Tuspo Ziegenhain. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-89784-244-0 .
• Ulrich Merk, Andre Schulin, Maik Großmann: Bundesliga Chronicle 1970/71, points for money. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2007, ISBN 978-3-89784-090-4 .

Web links

• Gerhard Kraft in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Gerhard Kraft in the database of kicker.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Fischer: Vollmar's goals will not be forgotten. In: Mittelhessen.de. January 25, 2013, accessed July 17, 2016 .