Kurt Keuerleber

Kurt Keuerleber (born December 4, 1924 ) is a former German soccer player who won the German soccer championship with the southern German league club VfR Mannheim in the 1948/49 season. The defensive player, who was primarily active as a middle runner in the then practiced World Cup system, played a total of 303 games (four goals) in the first-class soccer league south from 1947 to 1959 for the blue-white-reds from the lawn games club .

Player career

society

The 1.90 m tall defender came from the small TV 46 Mannheim after the end of the Second World War to the team from the stadium at the breweries, to VfR Mannheim. In the final phase of the 1946/47 season, the defensive player called "Korder" made his debut among the lawn players in the Oberliga Süd. On July 6, 1947 he ran for the first time in the home game against Schwaben Augsburg in the league. In the 1-0 success, he formed the VfR runner row as the right wing runner with Philipp Rohr and Philipp Henninger . This was followed by ten rounds continuously from 1947/48 to 1956/57 as a regular player in the middle position, which in the World Cup system at that time meant the task of the defensive chief, who had to guard the opposing center forward and at the same time organize the defense. He was considered a "model of an English stopper, sovereign penalty area ruler and tower in battle". After three players from the former POW Camp 133 in Canada came to VfR for the 1947/48 season with Rudolf de la Vigne , Hermann Jöckel and Jakob Müller , the other "Canadian" Philipp Henninger had been active again at his home club since 1946 was and the Mannheimer Keuerleber had stuck to the stopper role through convincing performances, with the achievement of eighth place in the season of 20 - two points behind the fifth place in the table - progress could be seen in the lawn players.

Since for the 1948/49 season , Ernst Langlotz, a strong dribbling and goal-scoring striker - also a former Camp 133 member from Canada - came to the VfR-Elf, the basic condition of the new coach Hans “Bumbas” Schmidt quickly bore fruit and the blue -White-Reds won the runner-up in the south. Defense boss Keuerleber had played all 30 league games and the defense had proven to be the main guarantor of the runner-up. The superior southern champion was Kickers Offenbach; the team of coach Paul Oßwald led the table with an eleven point lead.

In the final round of the German championship, the vice-runner in the south met the north champion Hamburger SV on June 12 in Frankfurt am Main. In the HSV attack acted with Manfred Krüger , Heinz Werner , Edmund Adamkiewicz , Herbert Wojtkowiak and Erich Ebeling recognized top division greats . The VfR defense, led by Keuerleber with confidence as usual, kept the North Germans in check and ultimately the South German representative surprisingly prevailed with 5-0 goals. In the second round on June 26th, the master and runner-up from the south met each other. The Offenbach team also needed a replay against Worms on June 19 to successfully survive the preliminary round. In front of 55,000 spectators at the Schalke Glückauf-Kampfbahn , the final result was already clear after eight minutes: Mannheim beat the southern champions 2-1 after goals from Ernst Löttke and de la Vigne. Again, the VfR defense was the backbone of this success. The blue-white-red Mannheimers were in the final, which was played on July 10th in the Neckar Stadium in Stuttgart against the West Champion Borussia Dortmund. Coach “Bumbas” Schmidt relied on the same formation in the third final match. Especially in the defense against middle runner Keuerleber and in the attack on the art of playing "Bella" de la Vigne. In front of 92,000 spectators, the final was decided in extra time with the winning goal from Löttke to make it 3-2 for Mannheim. The final was held in tropical temperatures and went down in history as the legendary "heat battle". Keuerleber and colleagues had ensured the greatest success of Mannheim football.

As the reigning German champion, VfR Mannheim took fourth place in the south in 1949/50. That was enough to get back into the finals, as this was played in 1950 with 16 teams. Keuerleber had played 29 of 30 league games for the lawn players. In the preliminary round of the final round, the VfR met on May 21 in the Gladbeck Stadium in front of 38,000 spectators on the West Champion Borussia Dortmund. The final opponent from the “heat battle” in Stuttgart was looking for revenge and also took a 1-0 lead in the 32nd minute with a goal from Edmond Kasperski . Two goals from "Bella" de la Vigne and one goal from storm tank Ernst Löttke decided the game in this encounter for the eleven from the Electoral Palatinate . In the intermediate round match on June 4th in the Frankfurt Waldstadion in front of 40,000 spectators, the grass players failed not least because of the skills of Fritz Herkenrath , the outstanding goalkeeper of West Vice-Champion Prussia Dellbrück . The Cologne team decided the game 2-1.

In the 1955/56 series , the "stopper from English cutting" experienced another round with his team in the fight for a place in the final round. Center forward Ernst-Otto Meyer took the top scorer's crown in the south with 30 goals and the lawn players won all three top games in the home stadium against Karlsruher SC (2: 0), VfB Stuttgart (3: 1) and Kickers Offenbach (7: 2) themselves. The four minus points against the surprise team Viktoria Aschaffenburg (1: 2; 1.2) prevented at least reaching the runner-up and thus the entry into the final round. With 36:24 points they were in the thankless third place in the table at the end of the round. In the world championship year 1957/58 he was absent for the first time more often due to injuries, in the series 1958/59 he could only play the game on November 9, 1958 against FSV Frankfurt. He was then declared a sports invalid in 1959 after a total of 303 league appearances (four goals) and ended his playing career.

Selection team

On September 18, 1949, the middle runner represented North Baden in the competition of the regional cup against the selection of Pfalz / Rheinhessen (1: 4), in whose ranks the brothers Fritz and Ottmar Walter stormed. In April 1950 he took part in a course under national coach Sepp Herberger . Together with Andreas Kupfer and Gunther Baumann , he formed the runner row of the southern selection on November 11, 1950 in Ludwigshafen in the representative game of Southwest against South Germany (2-2). At the beginning of May 1954 he was reported by the DFB in the 40 player list to the FIFA before the Soccer World Cup in 1954 in Switzerland in the stopper position with Josef Posipal , Werner Liebrich , Gunther Baumann and Herbert Schäfer .

Coaching career

Keuerleber gained his first coaching experience in 1959/60 with the VfR amateurs, with whom he achieved promotion to the 2nd amateur league in North Baden. He was also successful at FV Weinheim in the 1st Amateur League North Baden and was coach of his VfR in 1964/65 in the then second -rate regional soccer league South . The father of student national player Walter Keuerleber (born December 17, 1950) lived in the Lindenhof district .

Web links

• Kurt Keuerleber in the database of weltfussball.de

literature

• 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 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• VfR Mannheim (Ed.): 100 Years VfR Mannheim 1896–1996. Festschrift. Speyer 1996.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Skrentny: When Morlock still met the moonlight. P. 110.