Elf Freunde müsst ihr sein, wenn ihr Siege wollt erringen...

The textbook of coaching that was the cornerstone of the development of football-thought in pre war Germany was Fußball. Theorie, Technik, Taktik by Richard Girulatis.
The book was the source of Sepp Herbergers oft quoted dictum Elf Freunde müsst ihr sein, wenn ihr Siege wollt erringen...(you must be 11 friends to win your victories)*

In the 1920s two dominant rival forces from the south arose in German football- 1. FC Nürnberg and SpVgg.Fürth. Rivalry between the two clubs (the cities are just 8 km apart) was intense. There is a story of a player who had to leave SpVgg after he married a Nuremberg girl. 

	Deutsche Meisterschaft	Süddeutsche Meisterschaft	Kreisliga Bayern
1920	1. FCN	1. FCN	1. FCN
1921	1. FCN	1. FCN	1. FCN
1922			SpVgg	Bezirksliga Bayern
1923		SpVgg	SpVgg
1924	1. FCN	1. FCN		1. FCN
1925	1. FCN			1. FCN
1926	SpVgg
1927	1. FCN	1. FCN		1. FCN
1928				SpVgg
1929	SpVgg	1. FCN		1. FCN

The strength of the neighbours gave rise to a situation whereby a German team selected to face the Netherlands in Amsterdam on 21.04.1924 was made up entirely of Nürnberg and Fürth players.
Elf Freunde? No way!
The 2 rival factions that made up the national team traveled to Amsterdam in separate railway carriages, eating and sleeping as 2 distinct parties. 
On the field things were no better. When  Karl Auer got Germany's goal in the 14th minute the 1. FC players did not celebrate or congratulate him.

GK	Heiner Stuhlfauth	1. FC Nürnberg
RB	Josef Müller	SpVgg.Fürth
LB	Anton Kugler	1. FC Nürnberg
RH	Hans Hagen	SpVgg.Fürth
CH	Hans Kalb	1. FC Nürnberg
LH	Hans Schmidt	1. FC Nürnberg
OR	Karl Auer	SpVgg.Fürth
IR	Andreas Franz	SpVgg.Fürth
CF	Lony Seiderer	SpVgg.Fürth
IL	Heinrich Träg	1. FC Nürnberg
OL	Willy Ascherl	SpVgg.Fürth

* Claims that the statement appeared on the original Viktoria trophy appear to be inaccurate. 

German National Champions 1920-33

1920 1. FC Nuremberg 
The regional leagues produced 7 qualifiers, joined by defending champions SpVgg Furth, to contest the national championship. The final was a local derby in which 1. FC Nuremberg defeated Furth 2-0 at Frankfurt. Acrowd of 35,.000 saw Luitpold  Popp put Nuremberg ahead in the 12th minute. Hungarian international  Péter Szabó added a second in the 73rd minute. 

1921 1. FC Nuremberg 
Nuremberg defended their title, defeating Berliner FC Vorwärts 1890 in the final at Dusseldorf.  Luitpold  Popp scored 3 and fellow German international Heiner Träg got 2 in a 5-0 victory. The legendary Hungarian Dori Kürschner was now in charge of Nuremberg.

1922  Hamburger SV*
 Nuremberg's attempt to secure a third successive championship was thwarted in what was one of the most remarkable encounters in football history. 
1. FC Nuremberg met Hamburger SV in the final at Berlin's Deutsches Stadion on 18th June 1922. The scores were level at 2-2 on 90 minutes. Following a conventional period of extra time an attempt was made to play to a result, but  referee Dr. Peco Bauwens was forced to abandon the game after 180 minutes due to darkness.
The 2 sides met again in Liepzig on August 6th. Nuremberg were reduced to 10 men when Dr. Bauwens sent off Willy Böß in the 18th minute. Nuremberg were further weakened when Anton Kugler was forced to retire with an injury with 15 minutes remaining.  Hamburg were unable to capitalize, and with the scores level at 1-1 the game again, ominously , moved into extra time. Heiner Träg was ordered off in the 100th minute and 5 minutes later Luitpold Popp, incapacitated by asthma, left the field.  With Nuremberg reduced to 7 players the referee ended the game, mistakenly believing the laws of the game demanded it. 
There was some controversy over the award of the championship. The DFB awarded the title to Hamburg by default, but they declined to accept it. 

1923 Hamburger SV
Hamburg returned and secured the title in a more conventional manner, beating SC Union Oberschöneweide at Deutsches Stadion watched by 64,000.

1924 1. FC Nuremberg .
Nuremburg and Hamburg resumed their rivalry in the 1924 final. Georg Hochgesang and Wolfgang Strobel scored in Nuremberg's 2-0 victory at Deutsches Stadion.

1925 1. FC Nuremberg 
The national championship had now expanded to include 16 teams. 
Ludwig Wieder scored an extra time winner as FSV Frankfurt were beaten 1-0 in the brand new Waldstadion (Frankfurt ).

1926 SpVgg Fürth
The Waldstadion was again the venue as SpVgg Fürth beat Hertha BSC 4-1.  Former Blackburn Rovers star William Townley was manger of Fürth.

1927 1. FC Nuremberg  
A  fifth title for Nuremberg, 50,000 were at Deutsches Stadion to see them beat Hertha BSC 2-0.  Fred Spiksley was back as manager, having previously been at the club at the outbreak of the 1914-18 war. Trag was dismissed in the 75th minute for Nuremberg.

1928 Hamburger SV
It was not a case of third time lucky for Hertha BSC. They lost their third final in a row, beaten 5-2 by Hamburg at Altona. The finals were played in high summer, having been delayed by the absence of top players at the Amsterdam Olympics
.

1929 SpVgg Fürth
Another late end to the season, this time because fixtures had been disrupted by the very harsh winter.  Misery again for Hertha  They beat Nuremberg in a replayed semi final (the first game had gone to 150 minutes without a goal being scored) - the final was played at Nuremberg's ground, and Hertha received a very hostile reception from local fans as they lost their fourth consecutive final. Hertha were reduced to 10 men by an injury to  Gerhard Schulz with the score at 1-1.Karl Rupprecht won it for Fürth (3-2) five minutes from time. 

1930  Hertha BSC
Hertha supporters and players must have been fearing the worst when , appearing in their 5th successive final, they were 2-0 down to Holstein Kiel after just 8 minutes. The game see sawed but  
Hans Ruch gave the Berlin side their long awaited victory with an 87th minute strike to round off the 5-4 thriller. Holstein had levelled at 4-4 despite being down to 10 following a sending off in the 80th minute.

1931  Hertha BSC
Hertha had developed a new habit-scoring late winners.  SV 1860 München were beaten 3-2 in the final thanks to Willi Kirsei's 89th minute goal. 

1932 Bayern Munich
The National final of 1932 was a repeat of that season's South German final . Eintracht Frankfurt won that game, with Bayern joining them in the National championship as runners up. Bayern got revenge in front of a 55,000 crowd at Nuremberg, beating Eintracht 2-0.  It was Bayern Munich's first title. 

Julius Hirsch- Juller

Karlsruher FV 1909: Hirsch seated far right.

This blog was originally inspired by a comment that a German friend made to me regarding the record win by Germany over Russia in 1912.

Since working on this blog I have had the good fortune to come into contact with a number of German football enthusiasts. Karlsruher FV , through their President, Steffen L. Herberger, have shown an interest, as has Dirk Leu, a lifelong supporter of Hamburg SV. It was thanks to Dirk that I was put in touch with the esteemed German football historian Werner Skrentny.

Werner Skrentny has written extensively on the history of German football. He has kindly sent me a book that he published on the occasion of the Fuchs family reunion in Canada in 2012:

Werner has also written a biography of Julius Hirsch:

The following is the text of a brief post on Julius Hirsch that I was writing before Werner contacted me:

Hirsch (white jersey) in action.

Germany side that played Austria June  1912: Hirsch standing far left.

Julius Hirsch joined the youth of Karlsruher FV as a ten year old. He was a regular in the first team from 1909-1913. In 1910 he was in the National Championship winning side and made his debut for Germany aged 19 in  December 1911. Gottfried Fuchs made his debut in March 1911 so Hirsch is not, as is often stated, 'the first Jew to play for Germany'.
In Hirsch's second international he got 4 goals in a 5-5 draw with Netherlands, the first German player to achieve this. A promising start, but these turned out to be his only international goals in his seven appearances.
Juller was back in the German team for the 1912 Olympics, but missed the game with Russia in which Fuchs scored his 10.
Hirsch moved to SpVgg Fürth in 1913, winning a second National Championship in 1914, but returned to Karlsruher FV  after the end of the war (during which he won an Iron Cross).
Hirsch terminated his membership of  Karlsruher FV in 1933 when southern German clubs were directed to exclude Jewish people.
Whilst his erstwhile teammate Gottfried Fuchs managed to move to Canada, Hirsch remained in Germany  He was interned in 1943 and was killed in Auschwitz.

A brief sketch of a remarkable man.
Readers of the German language who wish to know more about these great men need look no further than Herr Skrentny's works.
http://www.werkstatt-verlag.de/?q=taxonomy/term/101

German National Championships 1903-14

The Deutscher Fußball Bund has always been a large organization.  86 clubs were involved in the foundation in 1900. 
As early as 1898 regional championships had been played in Southern Germany and Brandenburg. In 1903 it was decided to determine a national champion by holding playoffs among the winners of the various regional championships. 
There were up to eight regional leagues and the winners of these leagues progressed into a play off tournament to decide the national champions.

1903 VfB Leipzig
Interestingly Leipzig's second goal in their 7-2 win over DFC Prag is recorded as being scored directly from a corner kick by  Friedrich. As such, the goal should not have stood under the rules at the time. 

1904 Annulled.
Eight regional winners had formed a quarter final round and VfB Leipzig and Britannia Berlin had reached the final when Karlsruher FV (who had lost 6-1 to Britannia Berlin in the quarter finals) lodged a complaint with the DFB that the tournament rule regarding playing matches at neutral venues had been ignored. Karlsruher argued that they could not field a full strength team in their match with Britannia as it had been played in Berlin. The DFB cancelled the tournament as a result of this protest.

1905 Union 92 Berlin
Holders (from 1903)  VfB Leipzig qualified automatically. They joined 11 other regional winners in the tournament. Preliminary rounds were held in order to get to a last 8 (the preliminary rounds were contested by weaker teams). Interestingly VfB Leipzig withdrew from the competition, citing financial difficulties (as had Schlesien Breslau in the second preliminary round).
Union 92 Berlin beat Karlsruher FV  2-0 in the final at Cologne. The attendance was 3,500.

1906 VfB Leipzig
Seven champions of regional football associations joined holders Union 92 Berlin. The final was played in Nuremburg and VfB Leipzig beat 1. FC Pforzheim 2-1 to claim their second title. The attendance was 1,100. 

1907 Freiburger FC
Six teams were entered, and the competition took the form of two preliminary matches leading to a semi final round. A crowd of 3,000 were at Mannheim to see Freiburger FC beat BTuFC Viktoria 89 3-1.

1908 BTuFC Viktoria 89
Back to eight teams and a straight knock out- attendances were creeping up- 4,000 were at Germania-Platz Tempelhof (Berlin) to watch a final in which Viktoria led against Stuttgarter Kickers from the 6th minute. They doubled their lead in the 84th minute and  and Kickers pulled one back before Viktoria added a third in the last minute to win 3-1.

1909 Phönix Karlsruhe
Eight entrants- a high scoring final was on the cards as Phönix Karlsruhe had scored 14 goals in their two rounds. Opponents Viktoria 89 had topped that, with 19 goals in two matches!
The final at Breslau produced 6 goals-  Phönix winning 4-2.

1910 Karlsruher FV
Nine entrants. Karlsruher FV beat local rivals Phönix Karlsruhe 2-1 in the semi finals before beating Holstein Kiel 1-0 after extra time in the final at Cologne,  Max Breunig getting the winner from the penalty spot. Englishman  Billy Townley was the manager/ coach.

1911 BTuFC Viktoria 89
Viktoria won their second national championship beating VfB Leipzig 3-1 in Dresden, watched by a crowd of 12.000.

1912 Holstein Kiel
Eight entrants. The final in Hamburg saw Northern German Champions Holstein Kiel beat Karlsruher FV 1-0 in a repeat of the 1910 final. Holstein's winner came from a penalty, as did Karlsruher's in the 1910 final.

1913 VfB Leipzig
Six entrants. VfB Leipzig 3-1 Duisburger SpV. The final was played at Sendling  in Munich and the attendance was 5,000.

1914 SpVgg Fürth
Eight entrants. The final  between Fürth (coached by Billy Townley) and VfB Leipzig, held in Magdeburg was a real marathon. With scores level at 90 and 120 minutes a 'golden goal' type scenario was needed to settle the match Fürth eventually getting the winner in the 153rd minute.