Horst Hoffmann (soccer player)

Horst Hoffmann (born June 8, 1922 in Halle ; † December 28, 1993 ) was a German soccer player who, as an active member of SpVgg Fürth, played 268 games in the South Football League from 1946 to 1956 and scored 72 goals. The attacking player, who stormed the right wing in the then predominantly practiced World Cup system , was champion in the Oberliga Süd with Fürth in the 1949/50 season .

career

Youth and World War II

Horst Hoffmann grew up in Halle on the Saale . Until 1942 he went hunting for goals for VfL Halle in 1896 , and in the war years also in the Gauliga Mitte . In 1942 he moved from the blue-reds to the blue-whites from FC Wacker Halle . Due to the upheavals of the Second World War, he came to Fürth after the end of the war and was able to play two league games for the game association in the first round of Oberliga Süd, 1945/46, in June 1946.

Fürth, 1946 to 1956

In his first full league season 1946/47, the fast and powerful winger scored 17 goals in 37 league appearances for the "Kleeblatt-Elf" from Ronhof. Fürth took 10th place. Although the future playmaker legend Max Appis had returned to Fürth from captivity in the spring of 1948 and immediately rejoined his old club, the game association was relegated to the amateur camp in the summer of 1948 as the 15th of the season of 20. In order to reduce the league, relegation had come to six clubs this season. The stay in the Bavarian State League in 1948/49 lasted only one round, in the promotion round runner-up Fürth sat with 11: 1 points against the competition CSC 03 Kassel , 1. FC Pforzheim and FV Zuffenhausen and immediately returned to the top division South back. The high after the ascent also continued in the former first class in the south. The league returnees surprisingly won the South German championship in 1949/50 , relegating VfB Stuttgart to second place with a five point lead. The league champions of the previous year, Kickers Offenbach , and the German champions 1949, VfR Mannheim followed in the places. The championship attack with right-winger Horst Hoffmann, half-right Otto Brenzke , center forward Horst Schade , half-left Max Appis and left-winger Hans Nöth shot his way into the Fürth Oberliga annals forever with his 77 hits. The top scorer in the South led Schade with 21 and Brenzke with 20 goals in Hoffman contributed 13 goals and playmaker Appis brought it to eight goals in winning the league title round. In the final round of the German championship , the southern champion failed in the semifinals on June 11, 1950 against the southern vice VfB Stuttgart. The Swabians then also prevailed in the final with 2-1 goals against the third third from Offenbach. In the preliminary round match on May 21 in Worms against STV Horst-Emscher, with their top performers Heinz Flotho , Alfred Kelbassa and Bernhard Klodt , Hoffmann decided the game 3-2 for Fürth with two goals in the second half.

To defend the title in 1950/51 only two points were missing . The Franconian local rival 1. FC Nürnberg relegated Fürth to second place. Hoffmann had scored twelve goals in 34 league games. In the group games for the German championship , the team of coach Helmut Schneider could not prevail against the competition from Kaiserslautern, Schalke and St. Pauli. Hoffmann had played in all six group games. Overall, the right winger is led with nine finals and two goals.

In the 1952/53 season, Hoffmann and colleagues with third place, placed just behind champions Eintracht Frankfurt and runner-up VfB Stuttgart, narrowly missed the re-entry into the finals. Schade had scored 22 goals and Hoffmann had played in all 30 league games (four goals). Fürth won both home games against the two South German finalists: 3-0 against Frankfurt and 3-1 against Stuttgart. But when goal scorer Horst Schade switched to the “Club” in the summer of 1953 and Hoffmann celebrated his 32nd birthday, this had a negative impact on the hit rate of the “Kleeblattelf”. Despite good teammates such as Max Appis, Hans Bauer , Herbert Erhardt , Richard Gottinger and Karl Mai , Hoffmann could no longer qualify for the final round of the German championship with the game association in the next few years of the league under the coaches Wilhelm Hahnemann and Hans Schmidt . The highlight was still the derbies against 1. FC Nürnberg. The 34-year-old played his last league game on April 29, 1956, the final day of the round in 1955/56, in Ronhof at home in a 2-1 home defeat against FSV Frankfurt.

From the 1956/57 season onwards, Hoffmann, who was employed as a commercial clerk at Grundig-Werke, held the post of player coach at SpVgg Jahn Forchheim .

Selection appointments

On October 2, 1949, the right winger of SpVgg Fürth, together with his club colleagues Brenzke, Gottinger and Schade, was in the attack of the southern German selection at the representative game in Munich against northern Germany (2-2). In early August 1950, the winger took part in a national team course under national coach Sepp Herberger in Duisburg. He was in the squad for the international match of the senior national team on June 17, 1951 in Berlin against Turkey (1: 2), but was not used. On the other hand, Hoffmann stormed on October 13th that year in Stuttgart in the game of southern Germany against the Southwest team in a 3-2 win on the right wing. Max Morlock , Horst Schade, Richard Herrmann and Rolf Blessing completed the southern attack line. Four days before his 31st birthday, on June 4, 1953, the German B national team met the South German selection in a test match in Augsburg. In the 5: 3 success of the South selection, Hoffmann scored a goal on the side of half-forward Morlock.

literature

• Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963 . Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Werner Skrentny (Ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963 . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .

Web links

• Biography on greuther-fürth.de