Horst Kunzmann

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the German football player and coach of the same name, see Horst Kunzmann (football player, April 1935) .

Horst Kunzmann (born March 29, 1937 in Niebelsbach ; † July 6, 1999 in Birkenfeld (Württemberg) ) was a German soccer player who played 20 international matches for the German national soccer team from 1958 to 1966 .

career

Association, 1947 to 1977

Horst Kunzmann spent his entire active playing career with his home club 1. FC 08 Birkenfeld . When he started club soccer in 1947 in the youth of FC 08, he brought a good portion of technical and game experience from street soccer with him, which also accompanied club soccer throughout his school years (until 1954). At the age of 17, in 1954, the A-youth played for the first time in the 1st team from Birkenfeld, which played its championship games in the 1st Amateur League North Baden in the 1954/55 season . Birkenfeld and Horst Kunzmann held membership in the top amateur class of the time for eleven years. In 1957, FC 08 achieved the best placement with 2nd place. When Horst Kunzmann and Birkenfeld took fourth place in the 1st Amateur League North Baden in the 1957/58 season, the 21-year-old player - Kunzmann played outside runner until the end of his career - was for the first time from the DFB into the German amateur national team for the international game on 4 Called up against France at Le Mans in May 1958. When Kunzmann was a permanent member of the amateur national team from 1961, the performance curve in his 08ers in the highest amateur class in North Baden fell. At the end of the 1964/65 season, Birkenfeld was relegated to the 2nd Amateur League Middle Baden. With captain Kunzmann 1. FC 08 Birkenfeld celebrated the championships in 1966, 1967 and 1970, in 1967 and 1970 the return to the first amateur league, but also the other relegations in 1968 and 1971. The senior laced in the 2nd amateur league for his club up to the age of 40 the football boots and ended his active career after the 1976/77 season. With a farewell game against Bayer 05 Uerdingen , the 40-year-old said goodbye to the 1st team of 1. FC 08 Birkenfeld after 23 years. The close proximity to Pforzheim (about 7 km away), the accessible cities of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, with their national soccer clubs VfR Pforzheim , 1. FC Pforzheim , Karlsruher SC , VfB Stuttgart and Stuttgarter Kickers make this permanent stay with his youth club one Specialty. The admired free-kick specialist has played 1,000 rounds of games for his club, which he has been honored with all kinds of awards, over the years in addition to official training in extra shifts. He was in his club not only because of his footballing class (persistent technician with outstanding passing and combination play), also because of his modest demeanor and the decades of discipline for training and association games, which only brings such a long activity at a high level a role model for amateur football in North Baden.

Selection appointments, 1958 to 1967

After his debut in the DFB amateur national team on May 4, 1958, two years passed before the man from the North Baden amateur league made his second international appearance. Due to the appearances in the association selection of the Badischer Fußballverband in the competition of the national cup , the Birkenfeld was not able to distinguish himself particularly well in these years of his career. Until the mid-1960s, North Baden did not play a notable role in the association selection teams' cup. In the only international match of 1961, on June 1st in Oberhausen, he formed the German pair of outside runners together with Dagmar Drewes from Langendreer 04. In the 5-3 win against Holland, center forward Dieter Zettelmaier made his debut alongside captain Heinz Höher . In 1962 the DFB carried out two international matches with the amateur national team. On April 7th in Hanover against Italy and on May 31st in Merlebach against France. Kunzmann held the left outside runner position. In both games, his partner on the right was Werner Lungwitz , who moved to Prussia Münster in the Oberliga West for the 1962/63 round , where Dagmar Drewes had landed for the 1961/62 round.

When DFB coach Helmut Schön started to rebuild the amateur national team at the end of 1962 / beginning of 1963 with the aim of qualifying for the Olympic Games in 1964 , Horst Kunzmann belonged to this group of players from the start. The first major test for the newly formed DFB team was the anniversary tournament of the English Association in May 1963 in England. With the players Maier (Tor), Michel , Liebich , Kraus, Birkhold , Zott , Kunzmann, Himmelmann , Hönig , Zettelmaier, Kreh , Neuser and Leydecker , the team of Helmut Schön played against after successes over Holland, England and France in the final Scotland. In the second half of the game, the DFB amateurs paid tribute to the strain of four games within seven days and lost the final after a 2-1 halftime lead with 5-2 goals. With Birkhold, Zott and Kunzmann, coach Schön established his game-defining standard runner series in this tournament. After the 4-0 success in victories against Japan on June 5, it was noted in the sports magazine that the runner row with the positional artist Zott and the pushy and urgent outside runner Kunzmann would have been the best part of the team. The clubs of those appointed by Schön, Heidenheim (Birkhold), FC Wacker Munich (Zott) and Birkenfeld (Kunzmann), document the criteria for the composition of the amateur national team at the time. The word amateur was still filled with real life and, thanks to Helmut Schön's gift for the right player selection and composition, it was accompanied by an internationally respected performance.

The sporting highlight for Horst Kunzmann and his national team mates was the two German-German elimination games against the GDR national soccer team in September 1963. Before the Olympic qualification games for the 1964 summer games in Tokyo, the two German associations first had to play off the representative of Germany. Due to the summer break, the immediate preparation for achieving a high and stable competition performance was not ideal. Since the games were already played on September 15 and 22, the DFB was only able to play one test match against the Rhineland selection in Koblenz at the end of August and the training week from September 8 to 14 in Hof immediately before the first leg in Karl- Marx city hope. Like almost all of his teammates, Horst Kunzmann had tried additional running training to quickly bring his form to a higher level at the end of the preparatory period / beginning of the first half of the 1963/64 season, but it was true for everyone that the actual top performance was only achieved in cooperation with the Could stop competition operations in the course of the association round.

The team of DFB coach Helmut Schön was unable to repeat the strong performances from May of that year in the first leg in Karl-Marx-Stadt and suffered a 3-0 defeat. In the second leg in Hanover eight days later, the team improved significantly and won with 2-1 goals. In both games, Horst Kunzmann acted in the midfield of the DFB-Elf, serving the team as usual and reliably. In October Kunzmann was with the amateur selection at the “Pre-Olympic Tournament” in Tokyo. He completed his tenth international match, won the tournament with the DFB amateurs and gathered a variety of impressions in Tokyo that clearly enriched his previous worldview. When Bernd Dörfel , Friedrich Giegeling and Helmut Sandmann made their debut in the international match against France on May 2, 1964 in Bamberg, the 27-year-old led the amateur national team onto the field for the first time as captain. From May 24th to June 2nd, 1964, the Birkenfelder took part with the DFB team in an international amateur tournament in Italy and after the 1-1 draw in the final against Spain in Genoa was able to receive the trophy as captain by drawing lots for the German team . When Kunzmann and his club 1. FC 08 Birkenfeld were relegated from the 1st Amateur League North Baden in the 1964/65 round, he did not take part in any of the four amateur international matches from May 2 to October 27, 1965. As a player from the 2nd Amateur League Middle Baden, he returned to the national team on March 20, 1966. Together with Peter Klepatz and Hans Baldauf , he formed the runner-up in the 2-2 draw in Chateauroux against France. Kunzmann experienced his last three appointments to the amateur national team during the UEFA Amateur Cup in 1966/67. On October 2, 1966, he resumed his usual role of left outer runner in the 0-0 first leg in Sisak against Yugoslavia. On November 16, the amateurs lost 1-0 in Eskisehir against Turkey and parted ways with Yugoslavia in the second leg on December 7, 1966 in Koblenz with a 3: 3 goal. In all three matches Walter Birkhold, Dieter Zorc and Horst Kunzmann formed the runner row of the German selection. With the game in the Oberwerth stadium , the career of the man from North Baden ended with 20 international matches and two goals in the amateur national team. Kunzmann was the only Baden man who was called to this DFB team for years.

When the amateur national player was able to celebrate the championship in the 1966/67 round and the return with Birkenfeld to the 1st amateur league, the captain of the North Baden amateur team won the final in Viernheim against Hessen (with the 21-year-old Bernd Hölzenbein ) also won the amateur country cup in 1967. In the semifinals, the team of coach Herbert Widmayer prevailed against the strong Westphalian selection ( Erhard Ahmann , Dieter Mietz , Friedhelm Schulte and Dieter Zorc) with 1-0 goals.

Horst Kunzmann was appointed honorary captain of the Baden Football Association after 58 appearances in the North Baden association.

Next to the square

Horst Kunzmann, who learned the trade of a locksmith, was employed as an administrative clerk in the municipality of Birkenfeld until his death. His strong sense of home and his satisfaction with what he had achieved in sport and his life prevented the footballer Kunzmann from pursuing a career in the Oberliga or Bundesliga. After his playing career, he worked at FC 08 as a youth coach, first team coach, secretary and on the game committee.

literature

• Kicker Almanach 1990, Copress-Verlag Munich, 1989, ISBN 3-7679-0297-4
• Football Yearbook 1980, DFB, Limpert-Verlag, Bad Homburg vdH, 1980, ISBN 3-7853-1304-7
• Badischer Fußballverband, 50 years young…, BFV, 1996, Karlsruhe, Bürker Offsetdruck
• 50 Years of Football Nordbaden, Volume 1, National Leagues, 1996, publisher Ludolf Hyll, Karlsruhe, Ruf-Druck

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sports magazine. Volume 18. No. 23 / A. Date June 10, 1963. p. 21