Rudiger Gratz

Rudiger Gratz
Personnel
birthday	April 6, 1936
position	striker
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
0000-1963	VfB Theley
1963-1965	Borussia Neunkirchen	21 (12)
1965-19 ??	VfB Theley
1 Only league games are given.

Rüdiger Gratz (born April 6, 1936 ) is a former German soccer player . In the Bundesliga , the offensive player completed a Bundesliga game for Borussia Neunkirchen in the 1964/65 season. In the 1963/64 season he won the championship in the Regionalliga Südwest with Neunkirchen.

Career

Gratz comes from the Saarland VfB Theley , with whom he played from 1958/59 to 1962/63 in the second division of the 2nd Southwest League . For the 1963/64 season, the attacker moved to Borussia Neunkirchen, with whom he played in the second-rate regional league. In addition to Gratz, the two players Volker Münz and Heinz Simmet from SV Holz 05 joined the team of the new Borussia coach Horst Buhtz . The regional league was newly introduced as a substructure for the newly founded Bundesliga. Despite the better placement in the final table of the first-class league played last time, Neunkirchen was not nominated for the Bundesliga, 1. FC Saarbrücken had been given preference. So Gratz played in the 1963/64 season in the southwest season. He made his debut in the Regionalliga on the start of the round, August 4, 1963, in a 1-0 home win against SpVgg Weisenau. On matchday 21, January 5, 1964, he scored three goals in a 10-0 home win against SV Niederlahnstein. On January 19th he was a two-time goalscorer in the 3-1 away win on the Erbsenberg against VfR Kaiserslautern. Gratz played his last regional league game on March 15, 1964 in a 4-2 home win against Phoenix Ludwigshafen when he attacked on the right wing with Karl Ringel , Heinz Simmet, Volker Münz and Günter Kuntz. In the storm he was a constant alongside Günter Kuntz , Elmar May and Heinz Simmet. He scored eleven goals in 20 games and was, together with Heinz Simmet, the third best goalscorer of his team, behind the two goalscorer Günter Kuntz and Elmar May with 25 goals each. He contributed to the success of his team, which could celebrate the championship. In the subsequent round of promotion, Borussia left FC Bayern Munich , SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin and FC St. Pauli behind, so the promotion was perfect.

In the Bundesliga, Gratz was no longer able to play for professional reasons - he was a senior civil servant at the Ottweiler District Office and his manager's enthusiasm for football was limited - so the goal-scoring winger only played one game. On matchday 3, on September 5, 1964, he was on the field for 90 minutes in the 3: 4 away defeat against the reigning German champions 1. FC Köln . After three minutes, Neunkirchen led 2-0 at the "billy goat elf" and led 3-2 goals at half time. Cologne center forward Christian Müller decided the game in the second half with two goals in favor of the defending champion. Gratz stormed the left wing and had to do with Fritz Pott in the majority of the duels .

For the 1965/66 season Gratz returned to his home club VfB Theley in the 1st Amateur League Saarland . In 1966/67 he finished 4th with Theley and 3rd in 1967/68 and was also used in these years in the Saarland association selection in the DFB country cup .

Gratz worked as a civil servant in the senior service of the Ottweiler District Office.

literature

• Christian Karn, Reinhard Rehberg: Player Lexicon 1963–1994. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2012. ISBN 978-3-89784-214-4 . P. 163.
• German sports club for football statistics (ed.): Südwest-Chronik. Football in Southwest Germany 1963/64 –1973/74. 2 volumes. KGT new media. Berlin 2014 / Verlag Lindemann. Offenbach a. M. 2017.

Web links

• Rüdiger Gratz in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Rüdiger Gratz in the database of kicker.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jürgen Bitter: Germany's football. The encyclopedia. FA Herbig. Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-7766-2558-5 . P. 258
2. ↑ saarbruecker-zeitung.de: Gratz: "This game was my most beautiful football experience" , from August 20, 2009, accessed on August 22, 2014