Piet Fransen (soccer player)

Piet Fransen
Personnel
birthday	July 5, 1936
place of birth	Groningen , the  Netherlands
position	midfield
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1957-1965	GVAV Groningen	190 (41)
1965-1967	Feyenoord Rotterdam	40 0(6)
1967-1973	GVAV Groningen	166 (17)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1964-1966	Netherlands	6 0(1)
1 Only league games are given.

Piet Fransen (born July 5, 1936 in Groningen ; † August 2, 2015 there ) was a Dutch football player for the Dutch first division club FC Groningen .

He was a member of the Dutch national football team from 1964 to 1966 .

career

Fransen began his footballing activity in 1952 at the Groningen amateur football club Velocitas 1897 , which played in the semi-professional Tweede Divisie from 1956 after the restructuring of the Dutch football league . Since 1957, Fransen played as a professional player at GVAV Rapiditas Groningen , the predecessor team of FC Groningen. In the summer of 1965 he moved to the reigning Dutch champions Feyenoord Rotterdam , with whom he played, among other things, in the European Cup . Just a year and a half later, Fransen returned to the GVAV in Groningen.

In the qualifying game against Albania for the 1966 World Cup on October 25, 1964, Fransen was used for the first time in the Dutch national team. He played a total of six international matches. In the friendly against Israel on January 26, 1965 , he scored his only goal in the national team's jersey. It was the 1-0 winner. His last international match was on March 23, 1966 in a friendly against Germany in Rotterdam , which ended 4-2 for the Germans.

Fransen was part of the legendary team at his home club in Groningen, which in 1971 made it to the Dutch Eredivisie , the top Dutch division. The club was renamed FC Groningen and re-established in the same year . Fransen bears the player name Mister FC Groningen and is considered to be the embodiment of this significant event in the club's history.

After retiring in 1973, he played for a while at ACV Assen and Gronitas Groningen . The FC Groningen climbed into the season after leaving Fransens again and came only in 1980 again in the Eredivisie , which he has since continuously listened to a brief interruption from 1998 to 2000. Fransen continuously followed the fate of his Groningen club after his career and commented on it publicly; he appeared frequently in the media and in the stadium and was considered a "club icon" of FC Groningen.

At the home game against FC Twente on August 12, 2015 (score 1: 1), before the kick-off in the Euroborg Stadium, more than 21,000 spectators remembered the deceased club idol with a minute's silence, during which a large-format banner with a portrait of Piet Fransen was in the audience was unfolded.

Individual evidence

1. ^ 'Mister FC Groningen' Piet Fransen overleden ("'Mister FC Groningen' Piet Fransen passed away"). In: Algemeen Dagblad , August 2, 2015, as seen October 2017.
2. ↑ ^{a b} photo report on SoccerNews.nl , August 15, 2015; Accessed February 14, 2017.
3. ↑ Match report on fcupdate.nl ; Accessed February 14, 2017.