Rudolf Hiden

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Rudolf Hiden
Rodolphe Hiden en avril 1939.jpg
Rodolphe Hiden in April 1939
Personnel
birthday March 19, 1909
place of birth Graz ,  Austria-Hungary
date of death September 11, 1973
Place of death Vienna ,  Austria
size 184 cm
position goalkeeper
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1925-1927 Graz AK
1927-1933 Vienna AC
1933-1940 RC Paris
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1928-1933 Austria 20 (0)
1940 France 1 (0)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
RC Paris
Turkey
1951-1952 US Salernitana
1952-1953 ACR Messina
1953-1954 US Palermo
1956-1957 ACR Messina
Carrarese Calcio
1963-1964 US Salernitana
1 Only league games are given.

Rudolf Hiden (born March 19, 1909 in Graz , Austria-Hungary ; † September 11, 1973 in Vienna ; actually Josef Rudolf Hiden , also Rodolphe Hiden in French ) was an Austrian and French football player , coach and goalkeeper of the wonder team .

Career in Austria

Rudolf Hiden, called Rudi, was already the goalkeeper sensation of Graz at the age of 16. The baker's apprentice was retrained from a center forward to a goalkeeper by the GAK youth worker Oppitz. In 1927, at the age of 18, he moved from the Grazer AK for a transfer of 500 schillings to the then top club Wiener AC . He was one of the best goalkeepers of his time, very sure of his fist and catch, brave and particularly strong in running out and in the air. Contemporaries also described it as very robust to brutal and was feared by strikers.

His debut at Vienna AC was anything but encouraging for the young goalkeeper. Just on his debut for the Vienna team, Hiden produced the first “Steirertor” in history. The term itself, which in Austrian football jargon has become an avoidable, easy-to-hold or even stupid and unnecessary goal, was coined by his team-mate Karl Sesta . A well-known story tells: When Rudolf Hiden let a long-lasting shot pass by an opponent who was no longer known by name in his first game for Vienna AC in 1927, his front man and defender Karl Sesta etched visibly excited: "So a door can only get a Styrian " (German: “Only a Styrian can get such a goal”) The authenticity of this incident is, however, doubtful, the origin of the word itself is not known.

The Steirertor was born. However, this did not detract from the young player's career. He prevailed and became an indispensable part of the Vienna team for the next few years.

Rudi Hiden celebrated his greatest successes with the Vienna AC at the beginning of the 1930s. As early as 1928 he was in the final of the Vienna Cup with the WAC, but lost the game with his team just 1: 2 against SK Admira Vienna . In 1931 he won the Austrian Cup for this and reached the final in the Mitropacup with the WAC . There, however, the Vienna AC lost to the First Vienna Football Club with 2: 3 in Zurich and 1: 2 in Vienna .

Hiden's career in the national team

At the age of 19, Rudi Hiden made his debut in the Austrian national team on May 6, 1928, in a 3-0 win against Yugoslavia in Vienna. It then took two years before Hugo Meisl called him back into the national team, who until then had preferred to trust the previous team goalkeeper Friedrich Franzl . On March 23, 1930, Hiden played his second international match. Austria and Czechoslovakia split in Prague 2-2. Rudi Hiden impressed with brilliant performances despite two goals conceded by his front men. His greatest act in this game was the defense of a failed cross by his teammate and team debutant Leo Machu , which prevented the Austrians from an own goal. With these performances, the Graz native also convinced the association's captain Hugo Meisl and was from now on the standard goalie of the Austrian national team.

Rudolf Hiden played his third international match on March 23, 1930 against England . Austria and England parted 0-0 in Vienna, a merit that was mainly attributable to the goalkeeper, who brought the stormy English to despair with incredible parades. Hiden received offers from English clubs after the game and signed with Arsenal in the same year . In order to be eligible to play for an English club as a foreign professional footballer, a work permit was required at that time, but the issue of which was handled very restrictively. The national goalkeeper from Austria did not receive this work permit and had to return home without having achieved anything.

Member of the wonder team

On May 16, 1931, Rudi Hiden saw the birth of the wonder team with the unbelievable 5-0 victory in Vienna against Scotland . At that time he was only 22 years old and had seven appearances in the Austrian national soccer team. With Hiden as support, Schramseis and Blum in defense, Braun, Smistik and Gall as runners and Zischek, Gschweidl, Sindelar, Schall and Vogl in the storm, the Austrians started an impressive winning streak. The miracle team achieved successes against Germany (5: 0 and 6: 0), Switzerland (8: 1), Italy (2: 1), Hungary (8: 2), Belgium (6: 1) and France (4: 0 ) for cheering mood all over Austria.

The man from Graz also guarded the Austrian goal in the historic game against England on December 7, 1932, but was unable to prevent the miracle team's 3: 4 defeat despite brilliant performances. After this defeat, many said that coach Jimmy Hogan had frightened the Austrian players with his warnings and his repeated admiration for British football. Only in the second half was the Austrian team able to seize the game and brought the English into dire straits with goals from Zischek, Sindelar and Schall. The game, which was played in front of 70,000 spectators at Stamford Bridge , the Chelsea London facility , went down as Austria's most glorious defeat in football history.

The most important game of his career in the national team for Rudi Hiden, however, the international match on February 12, 1933 against France in the Paris Prinzenparkstadion . The Austrian team dealt with the French with goals from Sindelar, Zischek, Weselik and Schall 4-0. In return, Rudolf Hiden destroyed the few attacks by the French with spectacular parades and thus aroused the interest of the President of Racing Club de Paris , Jean Bernard-Lévy . He made an offer to the Austrian goalie, which Hiden immediately accepted. With this game, Hiden ended his career in the Austrian national team and moved in 1933 from Vienna AC to Paris for a transfer fee of 80,000 francs .

Career in France

In his first season in Paris, Rudi Hiden finished 11th in Division 1 with his new club and made it to the second round of the French Cup. In the game year 1934/35 Hiden came to 28 missions in the championship and led the RC Paris already to third place in the table. His most successful year in France was 1936, in which he was able to become both French champions and cup winners with the Parisians . Gusti Jordan , who was born in Linz, was also part of the former championship and cup winners' team . In the following years, the championship did not go so well, the Racing Club only finished 3rd (1937 and 1939), 13th (1938) and 9th (1940). In return, the people from the capital held themselves harmless in the Coupe de France , which they won in 1939 and 1940. Especially in the exciting final of 1940, which was played on May 5th in the Paris Prinzenparkstadion against Olympique Marseille , Hiden distinguished himself with spectacular actions and celebrated with his team the third cup victory of its era in France.

Hiden, who became a French citizen in 1937 and has called himself Rodolphe since then , even got his first and only team appointment for the Équipe Tricolore on January 18, 1940. In the Prinzenparkstadion in Paris, the now 31-year-old but still powerful goalkeeper won the international match against Portugal 3-2 with the French national team , which also included his two club colleagues and native Austrians Auguste Jordan and Henri Hiltl .

After the end of the 1939/40 season, Hiden ended his career as a footballer and switched to coaching, which he exercised only with very little success.

life and death

Tomb of Rudolf Hiden

As successful as his career as a footballer was, Hiden's life as a private person and person was just as tragic. When the simple baker's journeyman came from Graz to Vienna as a young man and made a career, he played his way into the hearts of the female fan base. Because of his looks and elegant demeanor, he has even been called the idol of female fans and the beau of the wonder team. Hiden loved the glamorous life from a very early age and liked to move around in the circle of the chiceria . In Paris, after his engagement at Racing Club, he opened a neat bar where the “ haute société ” went in and out. He put all his money into this bar, but could not hold his own as a businessman and was soon shipwrecked. After the end of his playing career, the former beau fell so deep that he even had to earn a living as a penalty killer at public shooting in the circus . After he got up again, he earned his living as a coach at second and third class Italian clubs, which he usually had to leave after a season.

In 1962 Hiden returned to Austria; he tried his hand at hotelier on Lake Wörthersee when he opened a sports pension in Hörtendorf on March 24th, where sports activities were provided with facilities for mini golf, table tennis and badminton as well as a French bowling alley. - an interlude that failed just as quickly as his attempt in Paris to run a bar. One of the reasons for this failure may have been his advanced cancer disease , which made life a torture for the once acclaimed star. On January 25, 1968 he finally returned to Austria, even required a residence permit and was not naturalized again until 1970; this was also a prerequisite for being able to draw a disability pension. His former club Wiener AC supported him with a 3,000 Schilling donation and the club has also set up a donation account. He received donations from all over the world and the former team boss Karl Geyer , former club colleague Hidens, provided him with an apartment on Wittelsbachstrasse. In 1972 the Viennese surgeon Prof. Chiari had to amputate his right leg. A year later, on September 11, 1973, Rudi Hiden died completely forgotten by the public in Vienna. The then Chancellor Bruno Kreisky organized the funeral of the impoverished star and had Hiden's French wife given an honorary pension. Hiden's grave is in the Stammersdorfer Zentralfriedhof .

In 2005 the Rudi-Hiden-Gasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

Success as a player

literature

  • Christoph Bausenwein: Rudi Hiden. A career between Viennese coffee houses, Parisian bars and German prisons. In: Diethelm Blecking , Lorenz Peiffer (ed.) Sportsmen in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2012, pp. 338–345.
  • David Herrmann-Meng: Rudi Hiden - The hand of the miracle team. Leykam Buchverlag , Graz 2017, ISBN 978-3-7011-8079-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D. Demmelmair: Unnecessary knowledge from May 7th. Graz week. 2008.
  2. ^ "Wonder team goalkeeper Rudi Hiden as a hotelier" in "Neue Zeit" Klagenfurt, No. 75 of March 30, 1962, page 6, POS .: columns 4 and 5, above
  3. ↑ Box at the bottom left: “One of the old wonder team” . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 31, 1968, p. 14 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
personal data
SURNAME Hiden, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hiden, Josef Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian and French soccer goalkeeper
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1973
Place of death Vienna