Fritz Herkenrath

Fritz Herkenrath
Personal information
Date of birth9 September 1928
Place of birthCologne, Germany
Height1.77 m (5 ft 9 12 in)
Playing positionGoalkeeper
Senior career*
YearsTeamApps(Gls)
1946–1951Preußen Dellbrück
1951–19521. FC Köln
1952–1965Rot-Weiss Essen
National team
1954–1958West Germany21(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
† Appearances (Goals).

Friedrich "Fritz" Herkenrath (born 9 September 1928 in Cologne) is a former football goalkeeper for Germany at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. He earned 21 caps between 1954 and 1958.[1]

He took his club team Rot-Weiss Essen to the peak of its history and won a national championship in 1955. The following season, Rot-Weiss Essen became the first German side to qualify for the European Cup.

Initially, Herkenrath played handball. He started out as a right winger and only later became a goalkeeper. Soon after World War II, Herkenrath switched from handball to football. Herkenrath began studying at the German Sport University Cologne where he first encountered Sepp Herberger, who was a tutor there.[2] Playing for 1. FC Köln in the early 1950s, Herkenrath was mostly the second goalkeeper behind the Dutchman Frans de Munck. He joined Rot-Weiß Essen in 1952 and soon rose to prominence playing for Essen. Herkenrath became known as the "flying schoolmaster" due to his main occupation as a teacher.

He retired in 1962 after 336 games in the Oberliga West and became a professor at the college of education in Aachen.[3]

References

  1. "Fritz Herkenrath" (in German). fussballdaten.de. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  2. Bitter, Jürgen. Deutschlands Fußball Nationalspieler, Sportverlag, 1997, p. 179.
  3. Bitter, Jürgen. Deutschlands Fußball Nationalspieler, Sportverlag, 1997, p. 180.

External links