Karl Allgöwer

Karl Allgöwer
Personnel
birthday	5th January 1957
place of birth	Geislingen an der Steige ,  Germany
size	184 cm
position	Defense , midfield , storm
Juniors
Years	station
1965-1975	SV Altenstadt
	SC Geislingen
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1975-1977	SC Geislingen
1977-1980	Stuttgart Kickers	116 0(59)
1980-1991	VfB Stuttgart	338 (129)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1980-1986	Germany	10 00(0)
1980-1982	Germany B	2 00(1)
1 Only league games are given.

Karl Allgöwer (born January 5, 1957 in Geislingen an der Steige ) is a former German football player . The midfielder, known for his hard shot and dangerous free kicks (“Knallgöwer” brand), played 116 second division games for the Stuttgarter Kickers and 338 Bundesliga games with 129 goals for VfB Stuttgart between 1977 and 1991 . During his time at VfB, he was nicknamed "Wasen-Karle" and became German champions in 1984 with the club, reached the final of the DFB Cup in 1986 and made it to the final of the UEFA Cup in 1989. In addition, Allgöwer played ten times for the German national team, with which he was runner-up in 1986.

Allgöwer's brother Ralf also played in the Bundesliga from 1986 to 1989 for VfB Stuttgart and the Stuttgarter Kickers.

career

Career start in Geislingen and with the Kickers

The worker's son Karl Allgöwer attended secondary school and completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk. At SV Glück Auf Altenstadt , he began playing football in 1965 in the D youth team before moving to SC Geislingen as a B youth team . Even in his youth, his shots and free kicks were feared. At the age of 18, his orthopedic surgeon diagnosed a congenital malposition of the right hip and advised him against high-performance sport. Nevertheless, the talent Allgöwer continued to play football and was already used in his junior days for the first team of his club playing in the 2nd amateur league, for which he scored five times in his first league game in 1975 at TSV Heubach. In the 1975/76 season the SC Geislingen missed despite Allgöwers more than 30 goals this season scored the championship and finished fourth. In the following year, the sports club fought in a three-way battle with SpVgg Au and FV Nürtingen for the championship, which Allgöwer finally decided with three hits in the game against Au for SC Geislingen. The sports club finally won with 45:15 points and 82:36 goals due to the better goal difference ahead of the two teams from Au and Nürtingen with the same points. Allgöwer scored a total of 42 goals in the 1976/77 season.

From 1977 he played for the second division side Stuttgarter Kickers . After playing the first competitive game for the Kickers in the first round of the DFB Cup a week earlier, his first second division game followed on August 6, 1977. In the 3-2 away win against FC Augsburg Allgöwer was in the starting line-up and scored the 3-2 final score in the 89th minute. At the end of his first professional season, in which he played all 38 league games and scored eleven goals, he finished tenth with the Kickers. Also in the following two seasons, in which the Stuttgarter Kickers were ninth in the 1978/79 season and even third a year later, Karl Allgöwer was not absent in a single game. After a total of 116 second division games and 59 goals, Allgöwer moved in the summer of 1980 for 700,000  DM to local rivals VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga .

Championship and cup final with VfB

Karl Allgöwer also quickly made his way into the starting line-up at VfB. On August 20, 1980 he played his first Bundesliga game under coach Jürgen Sundermann when he came on as a substitute for Bernd Schmider at halftime in the away game against 1. FC Kaiserslautern . The following weekend he came on again against 1. FC Köln on the 67th minute and scored his first Bundesliga goal two minutes later to make it 3-0. Due to his good performance at VfB Stuttgart, national coach Jupp Derwall called him to the national team for a friendly against France at the end of the year. Allgöwer played for a full 90 minutes in the 4-1 win in front of 63,000 spectators in the Lower Saxony stadium in Hanover. At the turn of the year he took part in the Mini World Cup with the DFB team . It was not used in the first game against Argentina at the tournament in Uruguay , which was held in Uruguay to mark the 50th anniversary of the football World Cup . In the 1: 4 defeat in the second group game against Brazil, he came on in the 78th minute for Klaus Allofs . In the next few months Allgöwer came in the jersey of the national team in another friendly match against Brazil and in qualifying for the 1982 World Cup against Austria and Finland, where he was substituted on in the second half. With his club VfB Stuttgart, he finished third behind FC Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV in his first Bundesliga season 1980/81, alongside players like Roland Hattenberger , Karlheinz Förster and Hansi Müller, and qualified for the UEFA Cup . Allgöwer played 32 games and scored 10 goals.

In the 1981/82 season, VfB started the fight for the German championship with the midfield axis Hermann Ohlicher - Hansi Müller - Karl Allgöwer as Bayern's toughest competitor, according to Kicker . The euphoria quickly turned into disappointment and in the end the title contender missed qualifying for the UEFA Cup for the first time since 1978, after which coach Sundermann switched to the Stuttgarter Kickers at the end of the season and Helmut Benthaus took over from summer 1982. With the national team, Allgöwer played his last game against Portugal in February 1982. He did not take part in the 1982 World Cup in Spain. For the new season, VfB suddenly surprised again with the new coach Benthaus with a refreshingly attractive attacking game and thus reached the semi-finals of the DFB Cup and third place in the Bundesliga. Of the 80 league goals scored by VfB in the 1982/83 season, Allgöwer alone scored 21. This put him in second place in the Bundesliga shooting list behind Rudi Völler , who scored two more goals this season.

The great success finally came in the following season. After the first day of play, VfB were at the top of the table after a 3-0 win against Eintracht Braunschweig . After being eliminated in the first round of the UEFA Cup against Levski-Spartak Sofia , VfB played a convincing first round in the Bundesliga and won the autumn championship in December with a 2-0 win against toughest rivals Hamburger SV , with Allgöwer in 88. Minute scored the goal to make it 2-0. Was sidelined in the second half, in the Allgöwer from February to the end of April due to injury, the Swabians were the HSV head to head before the VfB at 33. Match with a 2: 1 in Bremen while losing the Hamburg the Championship practically made perfect.

After the championship, Stuttgart wanted to establish itself internationally. After the early break in the European Cup and a weak round, partly due to bad luck injuries, VfB even threatened to get into the relegation battle. At the end of the season, in which Allgöwer played 32 games and scored 19 goals, they finished tenth and clearly missed qualifying for the UEFA Cup. A short time later, the no longer undisputed Benthaus announced his return to FC Basel . Outside the square, Allgöwer, who had already been involved in the SPD before the federal election in 1983 and also had himself photographed in a garbage dump in protest against environmental pollution, campaigned for the Sportler for Peace initiative in the 1980s . This led to a confrontation with the CDU -Kultusminister of Baden-Wuerttemberg and VfB president Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder , when he a petition in April 1985 on the bulletin board in the VfB cabin to protest against the American US by President Ronald Reagan arranged SDI program to build a defense shield against ICBMs suspended. In addition to Allgöwer, only Rainer Zietsch and Jürgen Klinsmann signed before the note was removed by a club employee. As a result, Mayer-Vorfelder banned his employee from any political activity on the VfB club grounds. It was agreed to end the season peacefully and that Allgöwer should then move abroad despite a contract that ran until 1988, whereupon Mayer-Vorfelder offered him to drive him "in the wheelbarrow to the border". Nevertheless, Allgöwer stayed with VfB in the aftermath.

For the 1985/86 season, Otto Barić took over as coach of the Swabians after Benthaus' departure. After another weak round, this had to resign on March 4, 1986 after a 1: 2 defeat at the relegation candidate 1. FC Köln . When the previous co-trainer Willi Entenmann took over the sporting management, it suddenly went and Stuttgart even achieved a UEFA Cup place with 17: 3 points in a row and made it to the DFB Cup final. In the final in Berlin's Olympic Stadium on May 3, 1986, in front of 76,000 spectators, VfB lost 5-2 to Bayern Munich . Allgöwer had to be replaced at halftime with a bruise . Internationally, DFB team boss Franz Beckenbauer brought the Stuttgart back to the national team this season. Allgöwer took part in the qualifying games for the 1986 World Cup in late 1985 and was later also part of the final squad. However, Allgöwer was not used at the final tournament in Mexico, where Germany was runner-up. Following the World Cup, he voluntarily resigned from the national team after completing a total of ten international matches.

UEFA Cup final and end of career

Despite the final sprint last season and reaching the cup final, Willi Entenmann was replaced in the 1986/87 season by assistant coach Egon Coordes , who was coming from Bayern Munich . Although VfB Stuttgart was initially able to establish itself in the top group of the league, the new coach, who said of Allgöwer that he was a troublemaker, managed to turn players, fans, officials, sponsors and journalists alike against him with his gruff and dogged way. The sporting crash began in November after a 4-0 defeat at Borussia Mönchengladbach and the elimination in the round of 16 of the UEFA Cup against Torpedo Moscow . After the team recovered in the meantime and were only three points behind the leaders from Munich, the title dreams were shattered by a 1: 2 against FC Schalke 04 on matchday 22. Two and a half weeks later, on April 15, 1987, Karl Allgöwer suffered a torn tendon in his shoulder in a 5-1 win at 1. FC Köln after Cologne goalkeeper Bodo Illgner rammed him into the attack. Allgöwer had to take a break for more than a month due to injury, whereupon he sued for damages and Illgner paid him 15,000 DM out of court  . Meanwhile, his team got more and more into crisis. With seven defeats in a row at the end of the season, they gambled away their participation in the UEFA Cup. Coach Egon Coordes then announced that he would not fulfill his three-year contract.

In the summer of 1987, the Dutch Arie Haan was signed as the new coach of the Swabians. With the team strengthened by the newcomers Fritz Walter , Maurizio Gaudino and Rainer Schütterle , VfB made it into the UEFA Cup. The most noticeable part of the team was the offensive. VfB scored 69 goals, the second most goals of all Bundesliga clubs, of which Allgöwer contributed nine in 31 games. The following year, Allgöwer, who had long replaced the injured Icelandic playmaker Ásgeir Sigurvinsson , returned to the libero position . VfB danced at three weddings late into the season, but ended up with empty hands. In the Bundesliga, defeats by the weak Swabians in Hanover, Cologne and Dortmund ended the fight for the German championship. The cup dreams burst in the semi-finals after an unfortunate 2-0 defeat at Borussia Dortmund . Only in European competition did VfB Stuttgart make it into the finals of the UEFA Cup through successes against Bányász Tatabánya , Dinamo Zagreb , FC Groningen , Real Sociedad San Sebastián and Dynamo Dresden . The opponent in the final was SSC Napoli for the Argentine world star Diego Maradona , who led the southern Italians to a 2-1 victory in the first leg. A penalty awarded to Maradona by the Greek referee Gerassimos Germanakos , which led to the 1-1 equalizer, was particularly controversial . VfB could not turn this result in the 3: 3 ending second leg on May 17, 1989 in front of 66,800 spectators in the sold out Neckar Stadium . In the Bundesliga they finally finished fifth despite a 3-0 defeat in Bremen and qualified again for the UEFA Cup, as Mönchengladbach lost to Hamburger SV at the same time.

In the following season, VfB was unable to confirm the positive trend. This was largely due to the departure of Jürgen Klinsmann , whose role the Allgöwer, chosen as the new leader, neither wanted nor could take on. After a 0-1 home defeat against 1. FC Kaiserslautern in March 1990, coach Haan was replaced by assistant coach Willi Entenmann. The catastrophic away record with only seven points won cost the Swabians, who ended up in sixth place, even the minimum goal of the UEFA Cup. The 1990/91 season, which Allgöwer was to be his last season as a professional footballer, also developed unsatisfactorily after a good start with two wins and 7-0 goals. In mid-November, after ten games without a win, only three goals separated VfB from the penultimate place in the table. Christoph Daum took over the team for the hapless duck man and finally led them to sixth place, as in the previous season, which this time brought VfB to the UEFA Cup thanks to Werder Bremen's DFB Cup victory. Karl Allgöwer played his last home game in the VfB Stuttgart jersey on the penultimate matchday in a 2-0 win against Hamburger SV. When he was substituted shortly before the end, the long-time VfB player was enthusiastically bid farewell to the 41,500 Stuttgart spectators in the Neckarstadion. A week later, on June 15, 1991, he played his last Bundesliga game at 4-0 in Frankfurt.

Allgöwer played a total of 338 times for VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga until 1991 , scoring 129 goals.

Allgöwer had an extremely hard, well-placed shot that made him one of the best free-kick specialists of his generation. That's why the tabloids called him Karl Knallgöwer .

Life after his active career

Since the end of his career as a football player, Karl Allgöwer has been working as an independent businessman . He looks after customers for companies at events such as the soccer world championship and is also a sales representative for a healing ointment. He lives with his wife, who works as a teacher, and their son, who was born in 1984, in Gingen an der Fils, around 55 kilometers east of Stuttgart . In his spare time he is still a frequent guest at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Stuttgart, even after his active career . He also plays golf with a handicap of 12 and is involved with the EAGLES Charity Golf Club for social and charitable projects.

On July 6, 2006, Allgöwer was the victim of a hostage situation in Stuttgart, during which he was not injured. On September 15, 2006, the Stuttgart district court sentenced the 19-year-old perpetrator to three and a half years in prison for aggravated blackmail, extortionate kidnapping, robbery and assault.

titles and achievements

with the national team

• Vice World Champion 1986

with VfB Stuttgart

• German champion 1984
• 1986 DFB Cup finalist
• 1986 DFB Cup top scorer
• 1989 UEFA Cup finalist

Awards

• Goalscorer of the month July 1978 and June 1991
• Order of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg (2018)

literature

• Karl Allgöwer: The hatchet with MV is buried . In: The VfB Stuttgart: Swabian pranks . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-462-01976-7 , p. 42 ff.
• Otto E. Lackner: The boss . In: The VfB Stuttgart: Swabian pranks . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-462-01976-7 , p. 45 ff.
• Oskar Beck: Karl, the edgy from 100 years of VfB Stuttgart . VfB Stuttgart, 1992, ISBN 3-9802290-4-1 , p. 61 f.
• Hardy Grüne: Legends: Karl Allgöwer from With the ring on his chest: The history of VfB Stuttgart . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-593-8 , p. 187.

Web links

• Karl Allgöwer in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Karl Allgöwer in the database of weltfussball.de
• Karl Allgöwer at kickersarchiv.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ «Wasen-Karle» Allgöwer turns 50. (No longer available online.) Www.fussball.com, archived from the original on January 11, 2012 ; Retrieved July 18, 2010 . 
2. ↑ Football: Fear of Reagan . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1986 ( online ).
3. ^ Peace movement at VfB Stuttgart: Knallgöwer against rockets . In: 11 Freunde , issue 90, 05/2009.
4. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Karl Allgöwer - International Appearances . Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. October 9, 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
5. ↑ Fine for foul play: burden of proof in the penalty area. In: Spiegel Online, March 11, 2004. Retrieved July 23, 2010 . 
6. ↑ When VfB was still playing internationally
7. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Karl Allgöwer - Matches and Goals in Bundesliga . Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. October 9, 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
8. ↑ Karl Allgöwer in conversation: “Actually, people are already celebrating in Stuttgart”. www.faz.net, accessed on July 21, 2010 . 
9. ↑ Current 2010: Prominent handicaps. www.golfparadise.com, accessed July 21, 2010 . 
10. ↑ Ex-national team kidnapped and robbed. www.rp-online.de, accessed on July 21, 2010 .