Elemer Hirsch

Elemer Hirsch (14 May 1895 – 17 May 1953) was a Romanian lawyer, figure skater, ice hockey player and a football defender, manager and referee.[2][3][4][5]

Elemer Hirsch
Personal information
Date of birth (1895-05-14)14 May 1895[1]
Place of birth Ceanu Mare, Austria-Hungary[1]
Date of death 17 May 1953(1953-05-17) (aged 58)[1]
Place of death Baia Mare, Romania[2]
Position(s) Defender[2]
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1921–1923 CA Cluj
1924–1925 Universitatea Cluj
National team
1922–1924 Romania 5 (0)
Teams managed
1947–1948 CFR Cluj
1950–1953 Armata Cluj
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Life and career

Elemer Hirsch came from a wealthy Jewish family who owned large portions of land in Beclean.[2] He studied law school in Budapest and Vienna, starting to work as a lawyer at age 24.[2] He started playing football at CA Cluj.[3] Several years later he moved to Universitatea Cluj, where he also played ice hockey.[3][5] Hirsch also competed in figure skating competitions, managing to win three Romanian national titles in 1924, 1925 and 1927, also becoming an international figure skating judge.[2][3][5] After he retired from playing football, he became a football referee, including arbitrating in a Romanian top-division Divizia A match.[3][6] In the 1940s following the Second Vienna Award, due to his Jewish origin, the Hungarian authorities prohibited him from working as a lawyer and deprived him of his property which was later nationalized by the Romanian communist regime.[2][4][7] He managed to escape from Cluj when the authorities wanted to send him to a Holocaust extermination camp.[2][4] After the end of World War II he returned to Cluj and started his coaching career at CFR.[3][8] Between 1947 and 1948 he was the federal captain of Romania's national team.[3] In 1950 he became coach at Armata Cluj.[2] In May 1953 after the end of a match in Baia Mare he collapsed on his way to the team bus, the goalkeeper Nicolae Szoboszlay tried to give him first aid but Hirsch died in his arms.[2]

International career

Elemer Hirsch played in the first official match of Romania's national team at the 1922 King Alexander's Cup, against Yugoslavia.[2][9][10] Hirsch bought Romania's equipment for that match from his own money.[2][9] He was also part of Romania's 1924 Summer Olympics squad.[3][11]

Scores and results table. Romania's goal tally first:[10]
International appearances
AppDateVenueOpponentResultCompetition
1.8 June 1922Belgrade, Yugoslavia Yugoslavia2–1Friendly
2.3 September 1922Chernivtsi, Romania Poland1–1Friendly
3.1 July 1923Cluj, Romania Czechoslovakia0–6Friendly
4.2 September 1923Lviv, Poland Poland1–1Friendly
5.20 May 1924Vienna, Austria Austria1–4Friendly
Elemer Hirsch ice skating.
Elemer Hirsch's certificate of exemption from Jewish law restrictions.
Elemer Hirsch's Olympics participation diploma.

References
  1. Elemer Hirsch at National-Football-Teams.com
  2. "Elemer Hirsch, aristocratul care s-a stins în iarbă" [Elemer Hirsch, the aristocrat who passed away on the grass] (in Romanian). Gsp.ro. 23 March 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  3. "Dr. Hirsch Elemér labdarúgó és műkorcsolyázó" [Dr. Elemér Hirsch, a footballer and figure skater] (in Hungarian). Szabadsag.ro. 10 June 2008. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  4. "Az embertelenség idején másképp is lehetett cselekedni" [In times of inhumanity, things could have been done differently] (in Hungarian). Szabadsag.ro. 11 October 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  5. "Istoric patinaj" [History of ice skating] (in Romanian). U-cluj.ro. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  6. "Elemer Hirsch referee profile". Labtof. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  7. "Se închide Grădina de Vară Boema" [Grădina de Vară Boema is closing] (in Hungarian). Clujulliber.ro. 24 July 2013. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  8. "Elemer Hirsch manager profile". Labtof. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  9. "8 iunie 1922. Primul meci din istoria nationalei de fotbal" [8 June 1922. The first match in the history of the national football team] (in Romanian). A1.ro. 8 June 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  10. "Elemer Hirsch". European Football. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  11. "Elemer Hirsch". Olympedia. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
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