Siegfried Kessler (soccer player)

Siegfried Kessler (born March 29, 1941 in Karlsruhe-Durlach ; † February 7, 2013 ) was a German football player . The goalkeeper played for Karlsruher SC from 1965 to 1977 and played 64 Bundesliga and 75 regional and second division games.

career

season	League 1	Missions 2
1965/66	BL	6th
1966/67	BL	33
1967/68	BL	13
1968/69	RL	33
1969/70	RL	13
1970/71	RL	0
1971/72	RL	21st
1972/73	RL	7th
1974/75	2L	1
1975/76	BL	12
1976/77	BL	0
1 BL = Bundesliga 0RL = Regional League 02L = 2. Bundesliga 2 only league games

Born in Durlach, he moved from his home club SpVgg Durlach-Aue to the Karlsruhe Wildlife Park during the 1965/66 season after KSC trainer Werner Roth became aware of him. In the first year he first played with the amateurs, but came in the second half of the season to his first appearances in the professional team. The relegation-threatened Bundesliga club had to accept a juicy 8-2 defeat at Meidericher SV on matchday 28 , and the following week the DFB Cup played the quarter-final against the same opponent. Trainer Roth decided to employ the young Siegfried Kessler instead of the regular goalkeeper Manfred Paul . Kessler took his chance and delivered an impeccable performance on his debut in the professional team on April 7, 1966; The game in the Wedaustadion was only lost 0-1 through a controversial penalty decision . Due to his performance - the press also expressly praised Kessler's safety and good positional play - he was also in goal in the remaining six games of the Bundesliga round. The KSC finished the season as 16th in the table and was able to keep the class, since only the last two were relegated at the time.

Manfred Paul left the club after this season, so that Kessler was set as the undisputed number 1 for the following season 1966/67 and completed 33 of the 34 league games. The KSC, however, was from the 4th matchday on in the last place in the table, so that coach Werner Roth was dismissed in November 1966 and replaced by Paul Frantz . Under his direction, the sporting situation gradually improved, at the end of the season the KSC reached 13th place and was able to hold the class again. One of the new signings of Karlsruher SC for the 1967/68 season was a young goalkeeper: Jürgen Rynio from the western regional division of Eintracht Gelsenkirchen . After two 0-2 defeats against Nuremberg and Duisburg at the beginning of the round, the young talent initially ousted the more experienced Siegfried Kessler. Only in the second half of the season, when the Baden team had to put away a 0-5 and 0-4 respectively in two consecutive away games in Dortmund and Cologne with Rynio in the goal, did Kessler return to the KSC goal. At this point the team was already in last place in the table and several coach changes in the second half of the season could not prevent their first relegation from the Bundesliga.

Rynio went to Nuremberg after the Karlsruhe team was relegated, while Kessler stayed. Again he was the goalkeeper for one season, albeit only in the second-rate Regionalliga Süd. Under the newly signed coach Kurt Baluses , the relegated reached the championship in the first regional league season 1968/69 , but failed in the promotion round to the Bundesliga. As reinforcements for the 1969/70 season , Baluses also brought two Offenbachers to Karlsruhe: the attacker Gerd Becker and the goalkeeper Rudolf Wimmer , whom he knew from his coaching at OFC. For Kessler, Wimmer's commitment again meant “banishment” to the reserve bank. After Wimmer broke a finger in a preparatory game, Kessler played the first eleven league games, but although none of them were lost, Baluses put him up instead of Kessler after Wimmer's recovery.

From then on, Wimmer shone with excellent performances, so that Siegfried Kessler only came into play in the following years if Rudi Wimmer was injured. The only longer series of missions Kessler had in the Regionalliga season 1971/72 , after Wimmer had suffered a complicated broken arm in the away game at 1860 Munich in December and was canceled until the end of the season. Kessler, who is connected to his home country, did not think of leaving Karlsruhe, although offers were made to him by, among others, 1860 Munich and 1. FC Nürnberg.

After KSC was promoted back to the Bundesliga in 1975 after seven years of abstinence, Rudi Wimmer was hit again by bad luck with injuries and was dropped at the beginning of the round. Kessler came again to a total of twelve missions in the preliminary round 1975/76 . He finally ended his career as a professional footballer after the 1976/77 season , which Rudi Wimmer had played through without injury, so that he did not have to step in once. Kessler then coached the KSC amateur team for a year, then left the club and coached SV Spielberg and SpVgg Durlach-Aue for three years each , after two more years at SV Spielberg he finally ended his coaching activity.

literature

• Siegfried Kessler - The Anti-Radi. In: Up, you heroes! KSC special edition no. 3, pages 26–33 ( excerpt ).
• Matthias Kropp: Germany's great football teams. Part 11: Karlsruher SC. Agon, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89609-115-8 .

Web links

• Siegfried Kessler in the database of fussballdaten.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Stephanie Haag: KSC mourns Siegfried Kessler. In: Karlsruher SC . February 11, 2013, accessed October 3, 2017 .