Josef Bothe

Josef Bothe (born April 3, 1925 in Hiltrop ) is a former German soccer player . From 1952 to 1960 he played 135 league games in what was then the first-class football league West for the clubs SV Sodingen and SC Westfalia Herne , scoring 19 goals. In the 1958/59 season he won the West German championship with the team from the stadium at Schloss Strünkede .

career

The sporting home of the attacking player was the local BV Hiltrop. There, the technically adept and extremely strong striker made a name for himself alongside his older brother Johann as the top scorer. After moving to the Herne district association SV Sodingen, the green-whites succeeded in the shadow of the winding tower of the mines of the Mont-Cenis colliery in the 1951/52 season in the 2nd league west, group 1 and thus promotion to the upper league west. In the two league years 1952 to 1954, brother Johann belonged to the side of the teammates Johann Adamik , Leo Konopczynski , Siegfried Geesmann , Gerhard Harpers , Alfons Nowak and goalkeeper Alfred Schmidt , the four years younger Josef came on the other hand only for a total of 14 appearances with four goals.

The "buddy" employed by Bergbau AG Lothringen therefore joined the promoted team in the Oberliga West, SC Westfalia Herne, in the 1954/55 round . With 29 appearances and two goals, he immediately became a regular for the blue-whites. Together with teammates Günter Grandt , Werner Hesse , Alfred Ilmer , Alfred Pyka , Kurt Sopart and Ehrenfried Wydra , they managed to stay in the league at the last minute. Sodingen, his former club, surprisingly won the runner-up and moved into the final round of the German championship. In his second round in Herne , 1955/56, two players, coach Fritz Langner and goalkeeper Hans Tilkowski , came to Herne who were to have a decisive influence on the next few years of Westfalia and the outside runner Helmut Benthaus also made his breakthrough this season. Bothe came again to 29 missions and scored five goals and the blue-whites played again permanently to stay in the league. The two following years his Herne Elf was still in the bottom third of the table, but there was a distance to the relegation ranks in terms of points.

When the Langner team surprisingly won the championship in the fifth league season, 1958/59, six points ahead of 1. FC Köln and with only 23 goals conceded in 30 games, the 33-year-old veteran was only four in seven league games Gates involved. In the final round of the German championship, he played three games against Hamburger SV, Kickers Offenbach and Tasmania 1900 Berlin. In the 2: 4 away defeat on May 23, 1959 at Hamburger SV in front of 70,000 spectators, he managed the interim 2: 2 intermediate result in the 61st minute. In his last league season 1959/60 , another seven league games and one goal followed. Herne was runner-up and Josef Bothe said goodbye with the game on February 7, 1960 at Borussia Dortmund after a total of 135 league appearances from the league. He returned to his hometown club BV Hiltrop and played there with his younger brother Gerd in the district class.

literature

• Hans Dieter Baroth : Boys, Heaven is yours! The history of the Oberliga West 1947–1963. Klartext, Essen 1988, ISBN 3-88474-332-5 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• Ralf Piorr (Ed.): Much more than just a game . 100 years of SC Westfalia Herne. FRISCHTEXTE Verlag, Herne 2004. ISBN 3-933059-38-0