Stefan Dembicki

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Stefan Dembicki (born July 15, 1913 in Marten , Germany; † September 23, 1985 ), usually called Stanis in France , was a French football player of Polish descent who played exclusively for Racing Lens throughout his professional career (1936-1949) .

Career

Stefan Dembicki was one of the large number of immigrants of Polish origin whose parents immigrated to the coal basin in northern France from the Ruhr area in the 1920s . Like most male family members, he worked at a mine in Sallaumines at an early age , playing soccer for the local amateur club. He was already 23 years old when the Racing Club from neighboring Lens brought him into their circle of players in 1936 . Already in his first second division season , at the end of which the team was promoted to the first division , the center forward was convincing , harmonized particularly well with Ladislas Smid alias "Siklo" and his companions Viktor Spechtl and Edmond Novicki , played 31 of the 32 point games and scored in them 22 hits, making him the fifth best shooter in the league. In the following two seasons he also scored a double-digit number of goals; He was only 1.72 m tall, but of a beefy stature, did not shy away from a duel, proved to be assertive, efficient and also popular with the spectators. Racing's then president even described Stefan Dembicki, who had taken on French citizenship, at the beginning of 1938 as a “prime example of the sporting and social virtues of naturalized Polish immigrants”. Lens' British trainer Jack Galbraith used to address him by the more easily pronounced name "Stanis"; He kept this throughout his career, and this is how he will be called in a number of printed works well into the 21st century. In addition to sports, Dembicki continued to work for the mining company of Lens-Liévin, which had a dominant position in the club due to its financial support and also provided the president.

In 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War , he was drafted into the army and was taken prisoner during the German invasion in 1940 . In 1942 he benefited from the fact that his employer was able to bring him and a number of other miners back to Lens, arguing that they were indispensable for coal mining, which was essential for the war effort. From autumn of that year Dembicki played for Racing again, and he had lost none of his scoring threat while in captivity. In the “War Championship ” in 1942/43 , the team was by a large margin champions of the North Season, and “Stanis” had scored 43 of their 98 goals. In the national cup of the same season, he also set a record that was unmatched into the 21st century: in Racing's 32-0 victory against the amateurs from Auby-Asturies - also a “sidekick” - he scored 16 goals himself. "Stanis" remembered this game from December 1942 long after the end of the war:

“We didn't do anything but shoot for 90 minutes. All the strikers had already met, except for Siklo. In the end we decided to give him a goal after all. But the best man of the opponent, the goalkeeper, had something against it and prevented that with a number of successful saves ... [Siklo then also got his share] of a bonus of 500 francs per hit, which a group of Polish sports fans had offered. "

In this cup season, Lens was the winner of the partial competition of the "forbidden zone of France" (zone interdite) and failed only in the interzone final against the Girondins AS du Port . In the following year, the government of “free France” replaced all professional teams with “federal selections ” (équipes fédéraux) ; Stefan Dembicki stormed for the ÉF Lens-Artois , with which he became the all-French champion in 1943/44 - a title nowadays, however, only unofficial - and this time with 41 hits in 30 encounters again at the top of the scoring list. In the subsequent final war championship , which was again held by club teams , he finished second with Racing in the northern group behind FC Rouen . In the first, now again official season after the liberation of the country , "Stanis" succeeded, who still worked for the soon-to-be nationalized mining company (Houllières nationales du bassin minier du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais) - albeit not for a long time underground  -, with 18 goals, another top placement (5th place) among France's best first division shooters. At the end of the 1946/47 season, however, was Racing's relegation to the second division.

Nevertheless, there followed two sporting highlights for "Stanis", who was also used repeatedly in his career in the northern French selection, the military and the B national team, but was never called up to the A national team. In the national cup of 1947/48 , the lower-class Lenser switched off, among other things, three first division clubs ( AS Saint-Étienne , Stade Rennes UC , Stade Français Paris ) and met the neighbors of OSC Lille in the final . A total of nine sons of Polish miners faced each other on both sides, which received broad media coverage given the fact that a few weeks earlier in Dembicki's home community of Sallaumines there had been a serious mining accident with 15 deaths. France Football, for example, wrote ambiguously: "The elite of French football is growing up in the shadow of the coal heaps". In the final, Stefan Dembicki equalized Lille's opening goal twice, but shortly before the end the opposing team scored a third goal that made Lens a loser. Despite this setback, Racing ended the following season , in which the "old guard" still set the tone on the offensive, as champions of Division 2 and rose to the top division.

This was when Stefan Dembicki ended his playing career after 13 years at Lens; at the age of 36 he no longer wanted to face the top division, although in 1949 he had become the top scorer in Racing for the third time after the end of the war. At least in the 1950s he ran a bar-tabac in the " Kumpelsiedlung ", which was around "his" former pit 4; the bar was also the seat of the local section of the supporter organization of Racing ( Supporteurs Club Lensois or Sang-et-or for short after the club's colors) and the official advance booking point for the home games in the Stade Félix-Bollaert . What later became of "Stanis" is not stated in the literature used or on its data sheet of the association (see under web links ).

Palmarès

  • French champion: 1944 (unofficially, as well as the championship title in the northern group in 1943)
  • Division 2 Champion : 1937, 1949
  • French Cup finalist: 1948 (and in the 1943 interzone final)
  • Military and B national players

literature

  • Marion Fontaine: Le Racing Club de Lens et les "Gueules Noires". Essai d'histoire sociale. Les Indes savantes, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-84654-248-7 .
  • Sophie Guillet, François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2009. Vecchi, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-7328-9295-5 .
  • L'Équipe, Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 .
  • Alfred Wahl, Pierre Lanfranchi: Les footballeurs professionnels des années trente à nos jours. Hachette, Paris 1995, ISBN 978-2-0123-5098-4 .

Web links

Notes and evidence

  1. ^ Stanis ( French ) In: FootballDatabase.eu . Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  2. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 134; Fontaine, p. 61
  3. ↑ Almanach du football éd. 1936/37. Paris 1937, p. 74
  4. ^ A b c Paul Hurseau, Jacques Verhaeghe: Les immortels du football nordiste. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003, ISBN 2-84253-867-6 , p. 127.
  5. ↑ Fontaine, p. 84
  6. ↑ Fontaine, p. 62
  7. ↑ Fontaine, pp. 70 and 93
  8. ↑ Guillet / Laforge, p. 142
  9. ^ Hubert Beaudet: La Coupe de France. Ses vainqueurs, ses surprises. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003, ISBN 2-84253-958-3 , p. 48; L'Équipe / Ejnès, p. 359; Hurseau-Verhaeghe, p. 127; Fontaine, p. 93.
  10. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, p. 157
  11. ↑ Guillet / Laforge, p. 143
  12. ^ Fontaine, p. 149
  13. ↑ Guillet / Laforge, p. 145
  14. ^ Fontaine, p. 127
  15. ↑ Wahl / Lanfranchi, p. 121
  16. ↑ L'Équipe / Ejnès, p. 364
  17. ^ Fontaine, p. 115
  18. ↑ according to Dembicki's data sheet on sitercl.com (see at web links ) and according to the deployment dates in Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o. J.
  19. ^ Fontaine, p. 174
personal data
SURNAME Dembicki, Stefan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stanis (common name in France)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Marten , Germany
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1985