Norbert Hess

Norbert Heß (born March 11, 1942 - † April 28, 2013 ) was a German soccer player who played a total of 371 league games in the Oberliga Südwest , Regionalliga Südwest and 2nd Bundesliga from 1961 to 1975 for the clubs Wormatia Worms and Borussia Neunkirchen and scored 14 goals as a defensive player. With Neunkirchen, Heß won the championship in the Regionalliga Südwest three times in 1971, 1972 and 1974 and has a total of 23 additional games in four Bundesliga promotion rounds. With 300 competitive appearances, he leads the rankings in the second-rate Regionalliga Südwest from 1963 to 1974.

career

Worms, 1955 to 1968

Starting in 1955, when he joined the student team, Hess went through the youth department of Wormatia Worms and, after the junior period in 1960/61, played for one year with the Rheinhessen in their amateur team. From the 1961/62 season he belonged to the Wormatia league squad in the first-class Oberliga Südwest. On August 27, the young player made his debut under coach Radoslav Momirski in a 3-1 home win against SV Saar 05 in the league. Together with Hans Mechnig and Wilfried Lösch , he formed the row of runners in the World Cup system at that time . On December 17, 1961, Hess saw goalkeeper Petar Radenković's debut in German league football. When Worms won the home game against the previous series champions 1. FC Kaiserslautern 3-1 on January 21, 1962, he formed the final triangle with Radenkovic and Mechnig. At the end of the round, the talent from within his own ranks had completed 19 games in his first season in the Oberliga Südwest and Wormatia came in 5th. With the second league year of Hess, 1962/63, the era of the first class of the regional associations ended, from the 1963/64 season the DFB started a league top in a Germany-wide season for the first time with the central soccer Bundesliga . 1. FC Kaiserslautern became champions with 47:13 points, Borussia Neunkirchen, FK Pirmasens, Worms and 1. FC Saarbrücken fought for the runner-up and thus for the last time in the final round of the German soccer championship. Neunkirchen drew tied against Pirmasens and Worms as runner-up in the final round. Hess had contributed to reaching the 4th rank in 25 league games. Srbeljub Krivokuca had guarded the goal in all 30 games and on the offensive Harald Braner (18 goals), Reinhold Straus (16) and Walter Dächert (8) scored the best. For Wormatia it was not enough for inclusion in the Bundesliga and Hess started 1963/64 with his club in the new second division of the Regionalliga Südwest.

There was a lot of coming and going at the start of the new league constellation in Worms: The departures of Braner, Dächert and Straus should be replaced by the additions Lothar Buchmann , Dieter Needürftig, Dieter Franzreb, Dieter Kraft, Horst Schlagowski, Slavko Stojanovic (goalkeeper) and Wolfgang Wittemaier be compensated, the lap goal was participation in the Bundesliga promotion round. The club for lawn games fought a close battle for two places for the first round of promotion with Borussia Neunkirchen and FK Pirmasens - both clubs were controversial about not being included in the Bundesliga. Defensive all-rounder Heß played all 34 rounds and the red-whites ended up in 3rd place with 58:18 points. Two points behind master Neunkirchen, one point behind Pirmasens as runner-up.

In the following round - 1964/65 - Worms won under Momirski successor Nandor Lengyel behind the Bundesliga relegated and new champion, 1. FC Saarbrücken , the runner-up and thus moved into the promotion round to the Bundesliga in 1965. Hess had played in 25 (1 goal) league games. In all six games of the promotion round, the home grown was then used. Right in the opening game, he and his teammates experienced the offensive power of the western champions Borussia Mönchengladbach . The Gladbach attack by Herbert L Bäumen , Jupp Heynckes , Bernd Rupp , Günter Netzer and Werner Waddey prevailed in Worms with 5-1 goals. The 4: 3 away win at Nordmeister Holstein Kiel surprised on June 13 and the 1-1 draw on June 26, 1965 on the Bökelberg in Mönchengladbach in front of 35,000 enthusiastic spectators was a remarkable performance on the final day of the promotion round. Hess was used both as a full-back and as an outside runner.

In the following three rounds, Worms did not come close to the top positions, and in 1967 and 1968 even sank into the lower midfield of the table. Hess had long since developed into a top performer and also played on June 16, 1968 in the Wormatia anniversary game for the 60-year-old against Eintracht Frankfurt (2: 3). For the 1968/69 season he signed a new contract with Bundesliga relegated Borussia Neunkirchen and moved to Saarland.

Neunkirchen, 1968 to 1978

In the black and whites of the Ellenfeldstadion , after relegation to the Bundesliga, they tried the departures of Wolfgang Gayer , Peter Czernotzky , Günter Kuntz , Hans Linsenmaier , Jürgen Rohweder , Jürgen Wingert and the end of Erich Leist's career with the manageable number of newcomers around Emil Braß (FC 08 Homburg), Ljubomir Milic (FK Vojvodina Novi Sad) and Hans Hauser (VfR Kaiserslautern) next to Heß and built on the two takeovers of Heinz-Jürgen Henkes and Hans-Günter Müller from their own amateur team. In the course of the round, however, the sporting loss of the departures from the summer of 1968 turned out to be so serious that Hess's performance in his 28 league appearances (1 goal) was not nearly enough to still play at the top of the table. Although the Borussia led the home table with 27: 3 points, with an away balance of 10:20 points, the black and whites were not competitive in the battle for the top of the table. Hess had made his league debut at Borussia on September 1, 1968 in a 0-0 home draw against FK Pirmasens. Before goalkeeper Hauser, he had formed the defender pair with Gerd Regitz . In the second year in Neunkirchen, 1969/70, under the new coach Kurt Sommerlatt, he again belonged to the regular circle of regular players with 29 appearances, but the achievements of the newcomers Horst Brand (17 goals) and Gerd Zewe were more confident than the fourth place . In fact, Neunkirchen prevailed in the southwest in 1970/71 and Hess won the first regional league championship. Due to illness, he was only able to play 19 games in the association round. In the promotion round, however, he was on the pitch for coach Sommerlatt's team in all eight matches against rivals Fortuna Düsseldorf, FC St. Pauli, 1. FC Nürnberg and Wacker 04 Berlin. With 9: 7 points, the southwest champion took second place behind promoted Düsseldorf. In front of 32,000 spectators, Heß and his teammates Willi Ertz (goalkeeper), Gerd Schley, Heinz Histing, Werner Martin, Heinz-Jürgen Henkes, Erich Hermesdorf, Gerd Zewe, Jochen Dries, Horst Brand and Ludwig Lang started on May 26, 1971 with a 1 : 0 home win against 1. FC Nürnberg in the promotion round. The round ended on June 27 with a 2-2 home draw against Fortuna Düsseldorf, where Hess was able to experience the offensive qualities of Reiner Geye and Dieter Herzog , among others .

With the new coach Alfred Preißler , he successfully defended his title in the south-west in 1971/72, but did not return to the Bundesliga in the Bundesliga promotion round. In the last year of the old second-rate regional league system, 1973/74, Heß celebrated his third championship with Borussia. But even under coach Erwin Türk the hurdle of the promotion round was too high, the southwest champion landed with 7: 9 points in 4th place. After a total of 300 regional league appearances and 23 games in the Bundesliga promotion round, this era ended for Hess in the summer of 1974.

Neunkirchen was qualified for the new 2nd Bundesliga for the starting season 1974/75 and the 32-year-old defensive strategist made his debut as senior and captain on August 21, 1974 in a 1: 3 away defeat at FC Augsburg in the new league. Due to the financially limited possibilities, the correspondingly modest team reinforcement - players from FV Eppelborn, Sportfreunde Saarbrücken, VfB Theley - was not sufficient in the course of the round to be able to maintain relegation. With 28:48 points, Borussia Neunkirchen rose to 18th place in the summer of 1975 in the amateur camp. Hess said goodbye with a 3: 5 away defeat on June 15, 1975 at FK Pirmasens from the 2nd Bundesliga. The team captain had again played in 27 league games for Neunkirchen. He ended his career in the Saarland amateur league.

literature

• Christian Karn, Reinhard Rehberg: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Player Lexicon 1963–1994. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2012, ISBN 978-3-89784-214-4 , p. 199.
• German Sports Club for Football Statistics (DSFS): Südwest-Chronik. Football in southwest Germany 1963/64 to 1968/69. Berlin 2014.
• German Sports Club for Football Statistics (DSFS): Südwest-Chronik. Football in southwest Germany from 1969/70 to 1973/74. Sulingen 2017.
• Ulrich Homann (Hrsg.): Hellfire on Ascension. The history of the promotion rounds to the Bundesliga 1963–1974. Klartext, Essen 1990, ISBN 3-88474-346-5 .
• Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 2: Bundesliga & Co. 1963 to today. 1st division, 2nd division, GDR Oberliga. Numbers, pictures, stories. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1997, ISBN 3-89609-113-1 .