Raymond Braine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raymond Braine
BraineRaymondStar340301.jpg
Personnel
Surname Raymond Ernest Michel Braine
birthday April 28, 1907
place of birth BerchemBelgium
date of death December 25, 1978
Place of death AntwerpBelgium
size 175 cm
position Striker , central defender
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1923-1930 Beerschot VAC 142 (141)
1930-1936 Sparta Prague 106 (120)
1937-1943 Beerschot VAC 174 (105)
1943-1944 CS La Forestoise 21 00(0)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1925-1939 Belgium 52 0(23)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
KFC Mol Sport
Stade Kortrijk
KFC Beringen
1 Only league games are given.

Raymond Braine (born April 28, 1907 in Berchem , Antwerp , † December 25, 1978 in Antwerp) was a Belgian football player . He was one of the best Belgian players before World War II and the first professional footballer in his country.

Player career

Raymond Braine started playing football for Antwerp club Beerschot VAC . At the age of only 15, the striker made his debut for Beerschot in the Belgian league against Daring Club on February 11, 1923 . Soon after, the talented Braine was called up to the Belgian national team. He helped his club to the national championship title in 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1928.

It was only a matter of time before the great talent would move abroad. Belgian football was still an amateur affair at the time. Braine passed tests at the London club Clapton Orient , but the English officials did not succeed in securing a work permit for Braine. In 1930 Braine finally moved to the top Czech club Sparta Prague , whose Scottish coach John Dick had initiated the transfer. Braine was well received in the Czechoslovak capital and immediately secured a regular place. In his first game for Sparta on July 12, 1930 in the Mitropapokal against First Vienna , he scored the 2-1 winner a few minutes before the end of the game. In the second leg in Vienna he also scored a goal in a 3-2 away win.

Braine won the championship title with Sparta in 1932 and 1936, and in 1935 he and his team also won the Mitropa Cup. In 1932 and 1934, here together with Jiří Sobotka from Slavia, he was top scorer in the first division with 16 and 18 goals respectively.

Before the World Cup in 1934 , the Czechoslovak Association Braine offered Czechoslovak citizenship, but Braine declined after long deliberation. For Belgium, he completed 54 international matches between 1924 and 1939, in which he scored 26 goals. He took part in the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1938 World Cup.

Braine was considered a typical professional footballer in Prague. Allegedly, he sometimes only played what he really had to, and he is said to have been a tough negotiator in contractual negotiations. He also traded in robusta coffee from the Congo .

At the end of 1936 Braine extended his contract with Sparta for a further two years and went to his Belgian homeland during the winter break. He was supposed to return to Prague on January 1, 1937, but that never happened again. Braine stayed in Antwerp and played for Beerschot again despite a valid contract with Sparta Prague. Finally, the Belgian association stepped in and subsidized Beerschot when paying the transfer fee.

Braine scored 300 goals in 281 league, cup and friendly matches for Sparta. He is considered the best foreign player of all time in Czechoslovak and Czech football. With 120 first division players he is a member of the ligových kanonýrů club , which includes all players with at least 100 first division goals.

Braine won the Belgian championship again with Beerschot in 1938 and 1939. In 1943, the striker moved to CS La Forestoise , where he spent a season as a central defender and then ended his career.

successes

team
  • Belgian champion: 1924, 1926, 1926, 1928, 1938 and 1939
  • Czechoslovak champion: 1932 and 1936
  • Mitropa cup winner: 1935
Individually
  • Belgian top scorer: 1928 and 1929
  • Czechoslovak top scorer: 1932 (16 goals) and 1934 (18)

Coaching career

After his playing career, Raymond Braine worked as a coach for the Belgian teams Mol Sport, Stade Kortrijk and KFC Beringen .

Others

  • In addition to football, Braine also devoted himself to speed skating and fencing , in which, according to his own statements, he was also a multiple Belgian champion.
  • His name is also rarely spelled Raimond Braine .
  • In 1940 he played one of the leading roles in the film Wit is Troef ; this was also his only notable engagement in a film production.
  • Raymond Bane's older brother Pierre was also active as a soccer player, later also as a soccer coach, spent his entire playing career at Beerschot VAC and made an international match record of 44 appearances and four goals. His son Roger also played briefly in the top Belgian football league in the 1950s, but only with moderate success.

swell

  • Karel Vaněk a kol. (Ed.): Malá encyklopedie fotbalu. Olympia, Prague 1984.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. He only held this position at his last station (La Forestoise).