Heinz Flotho

Heinz Flotho
Personnel
birthday	February 23, 1915
place of birth	Osnabrück ,  German Empire
date of death	January 29, 2000
Place of death	Gelsenkirchen ,  Germany
position	Goalkeeper , striker
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1929-1936	TV Friesen Schinkel
1936-4 / 1942	VfL Osnabrück
4 / 1942-1944	FC Schalke 04
1944-1945	Dresdner SC
1945–2 / 1946	Hessen Kassel
2 / 1946-1949	VfL Osnabrück
1949-1954	STV Horst-Emscher
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1939	Germany	1 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Heinz "Schangel" Flotho (born February 23, 1915 in Osnabrück - Schinkel , † January 29, 2000 in Gelsenkirchen ) was a German national soccer player. The goalkeeper became German football champions with FC Schalke 04 in 1942 . After the end of the Second World War, from 1947 to 1954, he played a total of 173 league games in what was then the first-class North and West football leagues at the clubs VfL Osnabrück and STV Horst-Emscher . After his playing career, he also worked as a coach.

career

societies

Heinz Flotho was initially a track and field athlete and handball player before joining football relatively late.

He began his career in 1929 at TV Friesen Schinkel, mainly as a track and field athlete, continued his career as a handball goalkeeper in brief stops at Reichsbahn and SC Rapid Osnabrück, before becoming an outstanding football goalkeeper at VfL Osnabrück from 1936 . The all-round athlete from the Osnabrück working-class district of Schinkel became the undisputed supporter of the legendary “Gartlager Elf” at VfL, which caused a sensation in the Lower Saxony Gauliga from 1937 onwards . This team beat the reigning German champion Hannover 96 on the Gartlage sports field 3-0 in 1939 and became Lower Saxony champions . It is said to have been 23,000 spectators who completely overcrowded the small facility after days of rain. The final triangle of the “Gartlager Elf” was formed by Flotho, the defenders Otto Coors and Eduard Sausmikat and Matthias Billen , Addi Vetter and “Schimmel” Meyer whirled in the attack . Eight players from this team were at home in the Schinkel district. The second Gauliga championship was won by Flotho and colleagues under coach Walter Hollstein in 1939/40 . In the Tschammer Cup on November 19, 1939, Osnabrück defeated FC Schalke 04 3-2, with Schalke attacking with a top-class cast of Hermann Eppenhoff , Fritz Szepan , Ernst Kalwitzki , Ernst Kuzorra and Karl Barufka .

In the middle of World War II, Reich trainer Sepp Herberger pushed through Flotho, who was stationed as a soldier first in Göttingen and then in the Rhineland, to become a guest player at FC Schalke 04. In the “Knappen” national goalkeeper Hans Klodt was out of the game due to a leg shot at the front. Flotho played his first game for the traditional club from Gelsenkirchen on April 19, 1942 in a 12-0 win against SpVgg. Herten. With Schalke, the fast-reacting and powerful goalkeeper won the German championship on July 5, 1942 in Berlin in front of 90,000 spectators with a 2-0 win against First Vienna Vienna . When Green is to Flotho and the final quoted the following: "Outstanding actor was re-keeper Flotho who had the Wiener driven with its fine saves to despair and had luck on given over its move to Kampfbahn it so ugly rumors." Four months after At the championship final, Flotho was also in the final of the Tschammerpokal in 1942 with the Westphalia . But here in 1860 Munich prevailed with a 2-0 win against Schalke. When Hans Klodt recovered from his severe injury, he and Flotho took turns in the field and in the goal. In the final round of the German soccer championship in 1943 , the all-round soccer player Flotho stormed right winger in the games against Spielverein 06 Kassel and in the intermediate round against Holstein Kiel and scored two goals in the 8-1 victory in Kassel. In between he was on May 16, 1943 at the home game against SpVgg. Wilhelmshaven in front of 35,000 spectators in the 4-1 win in goal.

From 1944 to 1945 he was a guest player at Dresdner SC . Immediately after the end of the war he was with SG Kassel-Süd from 1945 to February 1946 and then anchored again in the stadium at the Bremer Brücke at VfL Osnabrück from February 1946 to 1949. In the 1948/49 season , Flotho fought doggedly for the championship title with teammates like Karl-Heinz Gehmlich , Otto Coors, Erich Gleixner , Josef Arens and North top scorer Addi Vetter (24 goals) in a three-way battle with Hamburger SV and FC St. Pauli. In the end, HSV prevailed in a play-off for 1st place with 5: 3 against St. Pauli and VfL Osnabrück finished 3rd, one point behind. Flotho had played all 22 league games in the 12th season and played representative games with Northern Germany in March and May 1949. From 1947 to 1949, the goalkeeper played 43 league games for VfL Osnabrück in the Oberliga Nord.

For the 1949/50 season he moved to the league team of STV Horst-Emscher , for which he played five years. At their debut in the Oberliga West, the "Emscher Hussars" defeated Borussia Dortmund 2-1 on September 11, 1949 in the Fürstenberg Stadium at home in front of 22,000 spectators. Flotho completed all 30 league games and STV reached 4th place, which was enough for participation in the final round of the German soccer championship this season. On May 21, 1950, Flotho and colleagues met the South German champion, SpVgg Fürth, in Worms. Fürth sat down with their attack with Horst Hoffmann , Otto Brenzke , Horst Schade , Max Appis and Hans Nöth end up with 3: 2 goals against the Horster defense with Alfred Mikuda , Bernhard Wieschmayer , Franz Wichelhaus , Erich Wieding and Ewald Wischner by and that ended the finals for Flotho after one game. From 1939 to 1950 he played a total of 22 games for the German championship with Osnabrück, Schalke 04 and Horst-Emscher. Significantly weakened by various players leaving - Bernhard Klodt , Alfred Kelbassa , Alfred Mikuda, Kurt Sahm - Horst-Emscher went to the bottom of the table in the next rounds. In the 1954 world championship year, STV suffered relegation. On February 21, 1954, the 39-year-old goalkeeper played his last league game against VfL Bochum . He played a total of 173 league games at VfL Osnabrück and STV Horst-Emscher from 1947 to 1954 in the top league.

Selection player

Heinz Flotho was on duty more than 50 times for Lower Saxony and Northern Germany. Already in the 1936/37 season he had been in action with the Lower Saxony region selection in the Reichsbund Cup in the games against Silesia (2: 1) and Saxony (0: 1) in November and December 1936. When he reached the finals at the tournament of the regional associations at the German Gymnastics and Sports Festival in 1938 in Breslau, he was one of the outstanding players of the tournament. When the DFB held a double match day with the national team on March 26, 1939, the goalkeeper of VfL Osnabrück was used in the game in Differdange against Luxembourg. At the same time, a so-called "A selection" with Peter Platzer from Admira Vienna entered the goal in Florence for an international match against Italy (2: 3). In Differdingen, the German selection around team captain Reinhold Munzenberg surprisingly lost 1: 2. Flotho was credited with fabulous reflexes in the match report and he was listed as the best German player. He was still a member of the squad for the international match on July 14, 1940 in Frankfurt against Romania (9: 3), but was not used because Reich coach Sepp Herberger brought goalkeeper Alexander Martinek from Wacker Vienna to his debut. He was also in the international matches on April 12 and September 20, 1942 against Spain (1: 1) and Sweden (2: 3) as a substitute on the bench, behind his goalkeeper competitor Helmut Jahn from BSV 92 Berlin. The “Black Panther” also belonged to the last national team course under Herberger in February 1943 in Frankfurt. In the ranking list of German football, he was listed as number 3 by the “Football Week” at the beginning of 1943 behind Jahn and Hans Klodt.

With the beginning of the first-class league era, in 1947/48 in Northern Germany, the so-called representative games, in which regional teams face each other, became the highlights of football. We still have to wait for international matches because Germany has not yet returned to the international sports community as a result of World War II. The goalkeeper of VfL Osnabrück is also in the goal of the Lower Saxony selection at the age of 33. When on May 19, 1948 in Frankfurt in front of 54,000 spectators of a combination of northern Germany / western Germany, Flotho managed to protect the goal in the combined team and his old competitor Helmut Jahn (Stuttgarter Kickers) that of southern Germany. On October 17, 1948, northern Germany wrestled a 1-1 from the south in Nuremberg in front of 45,000 spectators. Flotho shows his skills in the north selection and Toni Turek (Ulm 1846) in the host's goal. For the second leg on March 13, 1949 in Hanover, the anniversary publication of the Lower Saxony Football Association (NFV) noted: “The number of spectators shows how popular such games were at the time: 40,000 saw this game in the stadium, which was sold out before the game, including Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Hinrich-Wilhelm Kopf. “The north wins with Flotho in goal 1-0 and Heinz Spundzeile from Hamburger SV excels as a goal scorer.

After the playing career

After the end of his playing career, Flotho was active as a coach for several years. With Sportfreunde Gladbeck he rose to the association league in 1955/56. He continued to work at Wacker Butendorf and Wattenscheid 09 as a trainer and led his last club as an active player, STV Horst-Emscher, in 1967 to win the German amateur championship . Previously, Flotho was a coach with Horst-Emscher in the Association League Westphalia , Group 2 (Southwest), runner-up in the 1966/67 season. “Schangel”, as Flotho was called, is said to have been a fanatical coach, as can be read in Baroth's story about the Oberliga West: “He sat on the bench and rowed his arms like a Dutch windmill. The team captain avoided eye contact with him during the game because Heinz Flotho was fundamentally dissatisfied. "

Even at the beginning of his active time in Horst, Flotho worked as an innkeeper. First, he ran the STV Horst-Emscher club. From the end of the 1960s to the mid-1970s he ran his own restaurant "Haus Flotho" on Markenstrasse, which he later leased.

literature

• Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne: Spiellexikon 1890-1963. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2006. ISBN 978-3-89784-148-2 . P. 88.
• Jürgen Bitter: Germany's football. The encyclopedia. FA Herbig. Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-7766-2558-5 . P. 205.
• Jürgen Bitter: The football history of VfL Osnabrück. purple white. Steinbacher pressure. Osnabrück 1991. p. 54.
• Harald Pistorius: We are all part of VfL Osnabrück. VfL Osnabrück, 2000, pp. 156-160.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jürgen Bitter: The football history of VfL Osnabrück. purple white. P. 54
2. ↑ Jürgen Bitter: The football history of VfL Osnabrück. purple white. P. 59
3. ^ Matthias Weinrich, Hardy Green: German Cup History since 1935. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2000. ISBN 3-89784-146-0 . P. 57
4. ↑ Jürgen Bitter: The football history of VfL Osnabrück. purple white. P. 54
5. ↑ Hardy Greens: 100 Years of the German Championship. Publishing house Die Werkstatt. Göttingen 2003. ISBN 3-89533-410-3 . P. 254
6. ^ Matthias Weinrich, Hardy Green: German Cup History since 1935. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2000. ISBN 3-89784-146-0 . P. 90
7. ^ Klaus Querengässer: The German Football Championship, Part 1: 1903-1945. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 1997. ISBN 3-89609-106-9 . Pp. 218, 220, 221
8. ↑ Jürgen Bitter: The football history of VfL Osnabrück. purple white. P. 54
9. ↑ Bernd Jankowski (Ed. I. A. d. NFV): Football in the north. 100 years of the North German Football Association. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2005. ISBN 3-89784-270-X . P. 359
10. ^ Raphael Keppel: Germany's international soccer games. Documentation from 1908–1989. Sports and games publisher Edgar Hitzel. Hürth 1989. ISBN 3-9802172-4-8 . P. 140
11. ^ Raphael Keppel: Germany's international soccer games. Documentation from 1908–1989. Sports and games publisher Edgar Hitzel. Hürth 1989. ISBN 3-9802172-4-8 . P. 173
12. ^ Lower Saxony Football Association (ed.): Football in Lower Saxony. 50 years of the Lower Saxony Football Association. A. Schlaeger printing house. Peine 1996. p. 18
13. ↑ Hans Dieter Baroth: "Boys, Heaven belongs to you!" The history of the Oberliga West 1947–1963. Klartext Verlag. Essen 1988. ISBN 3-88474-332-5 . P. 57