Kurt Clemens

Kurt Clemens
Personalia
birthday	November 7, 1925
place of birth	Homburg ,  Saar area
date of death	July 19, 2021
position	Outrunner
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
until 1948	SV Homburg
1948	VfB Mühlburg
1948 / 49-1951	1. FC Saarbrücken
1951-1953	Nancy FC
1953-1963	SV Saar 05 Saarbrücken
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1950-1956	Saarland	10 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Kurt Clemens (born November 7, 1925 in Homburg in the Saar area , † July 19, 2021 ) was a German football player .

Club career

The outside runner began his footballing career after the Second World War at SV Homburg , after he had previously played for two other local clubs (Union and VfL) and had also been very successful in athletics . Kurt Clemens was the Saarland champion in 1947 in the shot put and a year later in the pentathlon ; in the latter discipline he also held the national record until 1956. In 1948 he moved to VfB Mühlburg , for which he was not used in a single league game. He then went back to Saarland during that season, which was a partially autonomous area under French control until the mid-1950s , and played for 1. FC Saarbrücken , the first season out of competition in the second French division , until 1951 . At this point, Clemens decided to play football and gave up athletics. From 1949 the FCS played - albeit successfully  - only friendly matches against top international teams and won the International Saarland Cup, among others . In 1950 Kurt Clemens was also appointed to the Saarland national team for the first time .

In 1951 he signed a professional contract with the French first division club FC Nancy . There the playmaker developed into an important preparer, especially for the two Sturmasse Léon Deladerrière and Roger Piantoni . In Division 1 it was only enough to midfield, but in 1953 the Saarlander was in the cup final , in which he had to bow to Lille Olympique with 1: 2 with his Lorraine club . It was not foreseeable at the time that this participation in the final would remain his greatest success at club level. In the two seasons, Clemens made 48 point games, in which he also scored seven goals himself. The reason that he could only play about two thirds of all point games was due to his susceptibility to injury; At the beginning of 1951 he suffered a fracture of the base of the skull , had to cure a torn ligament on his knee, and in the following years he was repeatedly hampered by meniscus damage .

In 1953 he returned to Saarbrücken , but not to 1. FC - his new football home was the Kieselhumes sports facility in the St. Johann district, where Saar 05 played his home matches. With the zero fives he played for the next ten years in the Oberliga Südwest and stood in 173 championship games on the field, scoring 15 goals. Although Saar 05 has always only graced the middle of the table over the years - only in 1953/54 did the eleven finish fourth, otherwise seven times ninth and once each seventh or eighth - but she was considered a favorite scare and Kurt Clemens as her undisputed head. Fritz Walter still remembered 40 years later: “Clemens was an outstanding technician. He could hit long passes and fed the game with good ideas. Kurt was however now and then - just like me - not tough enough. "

With the introduction of the Bundesliga in 1963, the 37-year-old outside runner's time in first class ended. It is not known whether he contributed to the fact that St. Johanner played at the top in the Regionalliga Südwest in the following three years (one 4th and two 6th places). Kurt Clemens has worked as a translator in the Saarland Ministry of Finance since the early 1950s. He also had a football instructor license; In 1969 he was supposed to work alongside Jupp Derwall for the Luxembourg national team , but canceled for professional reasons. At the end of the 1970s he is said to have worked as a trainer for the Homburg amateur club TuS Lappentascherhof, among other things.

Stations

• SV Homburg (until 1948)
• VfB Mühlburg (1948)
• 1. FC Saarbrücken (1948 / 49–1951)
• FC Nancy (1951-1953)
• SV Saar 05 Saarbrücken (1953–1963)

National player

Between 1950 and 1956, the disputed national team of the then independent FIFA -Mitglieds Saarland 19 international matches; Kurt Clemens was used in ten of them, including the very first in November 1950 (5-3 win against the Swiss B-team ) and the last (2-3 in June 1956 in Amsterdam against Holland ); However, he did not manage to hit one in this circle. In 1953 and 1954 he was also in all four qualifying games for the World Cup in Switzerland , in which the men under coach Helmut Schön had to deal with Norway and Germany . This qualification began with a bang: In Oslo, Saarland were 2-0 down after a quarter of an hour and practically only played ten (Schön had to make the only permitted substitution after five minutes due to an injury, and broke in the 10th minute Theo Puff 's fibula, but stayed on the lawn). France pro Clemens in particular tirelessly boosted his team's game, and in the end he and his teammates turned the game around and won 3-2.

In most of these international matches he was the only Saarlander who did not belong to the 1. FCS, for which he had also played his first international match (also three during his time with Nancy and six for Saar 05). Nevertheless, he harmonized so well with the Binkert , Philippi , Martin , Siedl , Momber and Biewer that the West German national coach Sepp Herberger said of him after a qualifying game: "I could use this superman."

It remains speculation whether one can call Clemens a "prevented world champion". He himself said about the Saarland games against the Federal Republic of Germany: “I still know today that I wasn't really unhappy after the 3-0 defeat in the first leg or after the second leg in Saarbrücken. I felt like a German after all and didn't want to obstruct Herberger and the team, in which I always wanted to play as a little boy, on the way to Switzerland. We Saarlanders wouldn't have had a chance at the World Cup either. "

literature

• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: 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, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .
• Werner Skrentny (Ed.): The fear of the devil in front of the pea mountain. The history of the Oberliga Südwest 1946–1963. Klartext, Essen 1996, ISBN 3-88474-394-5 .

Notes and Evidence

1. ↑ Mark Weishaupt: Ex-national player Clemens has died. In: saarbruecker-zeitung.de (July 21, 2021).
2. ↑ Wilfried Burr: Football life with a lot of pleasure and suffering. Real Madrid and FC Barcelona once vied for the favor of Kurt Clemens from Saarland - the legend turned 80 yesterday , Saarbrücker Zeitung from November 8, 2005
3. ↑ Knieriem / Grüne, p. 52
4. ↑ Skrentny 1993, p. 208
5. ↑ after Boisson / Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o.J.
6. ↑ ^{a b} after the article about Kurt Clemens by Wilfried Burr at saarland-lese.de (accessed on July 23, 2012)
7. ↑ Wilfried Burr: From "Hiddeklowe" and "Saar-Proleten". , in Skrentny 1996, pp. 48-51
8. ↑ Wilfried Burr: "The best we have ever had in Saarland". Ex-captain Kurt Clemens stands for great times. , Saarbrücker Zeitung of November 7, 2003 (SZ series "100 Years 1. FCS", Part 45)
9. ↑ Skrentny 1996, pp. 46-47
10. ↑ Gerhard Reuther: Herberger's fear of David . In: Skrentny 1996, pp. 42–44 (on p. 43 there is also a photo of Clemens playing cards next to Helmut Schön)
11. ↑ Skrentny 1996 and Knieriem / Greens attribute the encounter in Oslo against Norway on June 24, 1953 to Saar 05; Clemens was still under contract with FC Nancy for a week.
12. ↑ Wilfried Burr: From "Hiddeklowe" and "Saar-Proleten" . In: Skrentny 1996, p. 48
13. ^ According to Daniel Meuren on ( page no longer available , search in web archives: www.die-sportzeitung.com from March 28, 2007 ) (accessed on April 19, 2007); A related Clemens quote can also be found at Wilfried Burr: Herberger's wish list. Kurt Clemens is 75 years old today. , Saarbrücker Zeitung of November 7, 2000