Karl-Heinz Struth

Karl-Heinz Struth (born April 17, 1948 in Cologne ) is a former German soccer player . The mostly playful Libero from Cologne is led in the first and second Bundesliga with a total of 248 league games and 83 goals. In the then second -rate regional soccer league West , he played another 162 competitive games for SC Fortuna Köln , scoring 36 goals and being promoted to the Bundesliga (BL / AR: 8-4) in the 1972/73 season.

career

Cologne, until 1975

Struth had passed through the successful youth department of 1. FC Köln - from 1964 to 1971, FC and VfL Bochum alternated permanently in the championship list in the West German regional association in the A-youth group - and got a licensed player contract for the 1966/67 season. The other talents Jürgen Jendrossek , Paul Alger , Helmut Bergfelder and Josef Röhrig jun. accepted. The youth national player Heinz Flohe came from TuS Euskirchen and the Swedish winger Roger Magnusson from Juventus Turin came to the cathedral city. Struth, a slim, lean technician with good shooting technique, made his debut like Flea on September 3, 1966 in a 0: 1 away defeat against Eintracht Braunschweig in the Bundesliga . Struth made 11 BL appearances under coach Willi Multhaup and scored two goals. In his second round, 1967/68, he did his military service and had problems with the time off. He came to no further use in this round and left the club when it became clear that he would not be able to prevail there. Struth went a class lower and joined local rivals Fortuna Cologne in the Regionalliga West for the 1968/69 season.

Under coach Josef "Jupp" Schmidt Struth made his debut on August 18, 1968 at the home game against VfL Bochum (0-2) in the Regionalliga West. He played in midfield alongside teammates like Peter Boers , Karl Lambertin and Friedhelm Otters . At the end of the round, the Fortuna finished 12th and Struth had scored five goals in 23 league games. In his second Fortuna season, 1969/70, Wolfgang Fahrian was now guarding the gate and President Hans Löring had played eight games himself, he experienced an intense relegation battle, which was passed with the 14th place. Struth improved his personal record to 30 missions and eight goals. When Ernst-Günter Habig, a new coach, and Wolfgang Glock , Gerd Zimmermann and Helmut Bergfelder, three newcomers in 1970/71, who hit the ground right away, made a clear advance in the table. Fortuna Köln reached fourth place and Struth had scored five goals in 29 league games. Now Vorstopper Gerd Zimmermann and Libero Struth shaped the Fortuna defense center. In the fourth year, 1971/72 , Fortuna improved to third place and Struth had played all 34 rounds with five goals. The squad had been strengthened with Rolf Bauerkämper , Rolf Kucharski and Hans-Günter Neues . In the fifth regional round , 1972/73 , under coach Martin Luppen, he was promoted to the Bundesliga as runner-up. Struth screwed his record as a Libero to 13 goals in 34 games and also completed all eight promotion round games where he scored another four goals. Overall, he played 162 league games with 36 goals at Fortuna from 1968 to 1973 in the Regionalliga West.

In the Bundesliga, Fortuna Köln made their debut on August 11, 1973 with a 1: 3 away defeat against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Libero Struth got to know the speed of the three Gladbach leaders Bernd Rupp , Henning Jensen and Jupp Heynckes . In the course of the round, the lack of specialist capacity in the coaching area was seriously noticeable. At the beginning, President Löring relied on the former athlete Volker Kottmann (until December 31, 1973), took over interim from January 1 to January 20, 1974 and brought the former decathlon Olympic champion from 1964 in Tokyo, Willi Holdorf , to the south of Cologne for the second half of the season . In fact, it didn't help , just like Julio Baylón's signing for the attack (13 games, 1 goal). On the 33rd match day, May 11th 1974, Fortuna won the home game against Hamburger SV 3-0 and was in 16th place with 25:41 points. Wuppertaler SV was one point behind in 17th place. On the final day (May 18), Fortuna Köln lost 4-0 at Kickers Offenbach and Wuppertal took the saving point for the tie with a 2-2 away draw at VfB Stuttgart. With 42:65 (WSV) versus 46:79 (SC Fortuna), the goal difference decided on relegation. Struth had scored the most hits of all Liberos of the 1973/74 season with nine goals (33 games). Per Röntgen followed with seven, Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Zewe with four goals each in the next ranks.

After relegation with Fortuna for the 1974/75 season, Struth went to the 2nd Bundesliga, his colleague Gerd Zimmermann signed with Fortuna Düsseldorf. Roland Hattenberger and Johannes Linssen came as newcomers . Martin Luppen, who returned as a coach, was replaced by ex-national player Heinz Hornig in December 1974 . The immediate BL return was clearly missed with the fifth place. Struth had scored nine goals in 29 appearances. For the second round of the 2nd Bundesliga, 1975/76, President Loering signed Rudi Gutendorf, a well-known name in the coaching sector, but switched back to Heinz Hornig in October. For financial reasons, Struth was sold to Karlsruher SC in the Bundesliga after the turn of the year 1975 ; a move to Bayern Munich had previously failed at the last second. After a total of 244 league games (RL West, AR / BL, BL, 2nd BL) and 62 goals for Fortuna Cologne, Struth moved to Karlsruhe and strengthened the blue-whites from the Wildpark Stadium from January 1976 .

Karlsruhe, 1976 to 1982

On the first matchday in the second half of the season, January 17, 1976, in the home game against Eintracht Frankfurt, the winter debut in the team of KSC coach Carl-Heinz Rühl . KSC went into the short winter break with 13-21 points and needed every point, especially from the home games. In front of 35,000 spectators, they went 0-0 into the half-time break. Struth played in midfield alongside Winfried Schäfer , Wilfried Trenkel and Martin Kübler , while Ewald Schäffner acted as the sweeper . The Eintracht was led by the two 74 world champions Jürgen Grabowski and Bernd Hölzenbein . In the 69th minute of play, the ex-Cologne scored the winning goal to make it 1-0 for KSC. The debut was successful, he returned to the Bundesliga with a success. At the end of the round, Karlsruher SC was in 15th place with 30:38 points and Struth had contributed to staying in the league with 16 games and four goals. In his second Bundesliga year at KSC, 1976/77, the ex-Cologne man increased his values ​​to 30 appearances and eleven goals, but the KSC missed relegation due to desolate final games. Big defeats such as against Schalke 04 (1: 7), Bayern Munich (0: 5) and Borussia Mönchengladbach (1: 5) marked the final of the second half of the season. Unsuccessful personnel decisions such as those with Vančo Balevski and Thomas Sjöberg had also contributed to the unrest in Karlsruhe.

The dreaded free-kick taker, the man for hard and placed long-range shots, Struth, stayed with Karlsruher SC after relegation to the 2nd Bundesliga and after the 1979/80 season achieved the runner-up championship and assertion in the relegation against Rot-Weiss Essen (5 : 1, 1: 3), with the team from the wildlife park, the return to the Bundesliga. In 37 league games, the strongest offensive Libero in the 2nd Bundesliga scored 15 goals. Under coach Manfred Krafft , Struth drove to a surprising 10th place in the table in 1980/81 with 32:36 points in 21 games, another five goals alongside other players like Rudolf Wimmer , Rolf Dohmen , Stefan Groß , Rainer Ulrich , Gerhard Bold , Uwe Dittus , Reinhold Fanz , Wilfried Trenkel , Martin Wiesner and Emanuel Günther . But his long career was coming to an end; With the substitution on November 14, 1981 in the 1: 3 defeat at 1. FC Nürnberg, his career as a licensed footballer ended for the 33-year-old.

“Kalli” Struth, who grew up in the Cologne suburb of Zollstock , lived in Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen and Stutensee-Friedrichstal during his time in Karlsruhe .

statistics

• Bundesliga

  11 games, 2 goals 1. FC Köln

  33 games, 9 goals Fortuna Cologne

  69 games, 20 goals Karlsruher SC

• 2nd Bundesliga

  41 games, 13 goals Fortuna Cologne

  94 games, 39 goals Karlsruher SC

• DFB Cup

  4 games 1. FC Köln

  13 games, 1 goal Fortuna Cologne

  17 games, 4 goals Karlsruher SC

• Goal of the month

  Goalscorer of the month August 1974 (scored on the 4th matchday of the 2. Bundesliga North 1974/75 (25 August 1974) to the 1: 2 winning goal in the 68th minute of the game Rot-Weiss Oberhausen - Fortuna Köln)

successes

• 1968 DFB Cup winner

literature

• Thomas Hardt, Thomas Hohndorf, Bruno Morbitzer, Hubert Dahlkamp, ​​Hardy Grüne: Hennes & Co. The history of 1. FC Cologne. Publishing house Die Werkstatt. Göttingen 2005. ISBN 3-89533-470-7 .
• SC Fortuna Cologne (Ed.): Lück wie ich un du. 50 years SC Fortuna Cologne. Cologne 1989. ISBN 3-00-002350-X .
• 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 .

Web links

• Karl-Heinz Struth in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Karl-Heinz Struth in the weltfussball.de database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl-Heinz Struth - player profile. Retrieved August 26, 2019 . 
2. ↑ First went the "Schäng", then the light from general-anzeiger-bonn.de