Fritz Herkenrath

Friedrich "Fritz" Herkenrath (9 September 1928 in Cologne – 18 April 2016) was a football goalkeeper for West Germany at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. He earned 21 caps between 1954 and 1958.^[1]

Fritz Herkenrath

Personal information
Date of birth	(1928-09-09)9 September 1928
Place of birth	Cologne, Germany
Date of death	18 April 2016(2016-04-18) (aged 87)
Height	1.77 m (5 ft 9+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1946–1951	Preußen Dellbrück
1951–1952	1. FC Köln
1952–1965	Rot-Weiss Essen
International career
1954–1958	West Germany	21	(0)
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

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] He died on April 18, 2016, at the age of 87.^[4]