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March 23rd round-up

Jay Mwamba

3/27/08
 

Standings, results and other stats

Few teams in the Cosmopolitan Soccer League (CSL) can match S.C. Eintracht’s illustrious past. Formed in Queens in 1933, the club celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

The highlight of Eintracht’s celebrations will be a dinner dance at The Inn in New Hyde Park [214 Jericho Turnpike, New Hyde Park, NY 11040] on April 19. Tickets are $100 per person for an evening that will include a cocktail hour, open bar and a six entrée meal. Call John Steigerwald at (917) 833.6373 for more information.

Coincidentally, Eintracht’s first event after its formation was a fund raising dance.
These days you have to plumb deep into the CSL’s lower tiers to find one of the League’s early members trying to stay afloat in Metro Division Two [East] – the League’s de facto fourth division.
It wasn’t always so.

Wolfgang Radermacher, whose life-long association with the club stretching back over half a century could qualify him for the tag of Eintracht’s “institutional memory,” remembers the grand old days when his beloved team was a powerhouse in American amateur soccer.

They won five championship titles in the eight years between 1943 and 1950 in CSL’s forerunner, the German-American Football Association. Eintracht were also Dr. Manning Cup winners in 1943, 1945, 1946 and 1953. Twice the club bagged the National Amateur Cup [1944, 1945] and in 1955 lifted the National Challenge Cup.

Long before MLS and its All-Star game that now features mostly European opposition, Eintracht were major players in the German-American FA’s annual All-Star match that pitted the league’s best against top German clubs.
The tradition started in 1950, the year Radermacher, then 16, arrived in the United States. Later, Eintracht would join forces with another local powerhouse, German-Hungaria, to host German sides once a year.
“The [match] would take at Randalls Oval in the spring, usually in May,” Radermacher recalls.

In one memorable encounter in 1956, Kaiserslautern, boasting at least four players from the German squad that had stunned Hungary’s magical Maygars 3-2 in the World Cup final two years earlier, were sent tumbling.
“Our select team beat them 1-0,” recalls Radermacher.

The German-American select team had some Hungarian professionals who although not at the World Cup were eager to avenge their homeland.

Recounting Eintracht’s genesis in Astoria one year before he was born near Stuttgart in 1934, Radermacher says it was founded by German immigrants in Astoria – blue collar workers and small businessmen who found the commute to College Point for games too tedious.
“At their first meeting, one of the discussions was what to [call] the club,” Radermacher recalls.

Rather than pick a name that would identify the club with a particular region in Germany, they opted for “Eintracht,” the German word for “united.”

At any rate, Eintracht would go on to showcase countless outstanding players. Names such as Oscar Roth, Sepp Antretter, Alan King, Tommy Strumpf, Prado Vicine, Bundy Doczy and Glenn Radermacher come to mind in recent decades.

Others such as Wolfgang Radermacher, current CSL president Peter Strumpf, Horst Teubner and Igon Calov would make lasting impressions off the pitch as well.

Seventy-five years later, the club, whose past stalwarts include the late Max Doss, president from 1971 to 1987, has come full circle, so to speak.

Radermacher, recruited to play for Eintracht in 1952 by a schoolmate at Newtown H.S. in Elmhurst, says the club’s destiny lies in the next generation of officials.

“Right now we’re in a period of transition,” he points out. “We have young fellows moving into positions on the executive board and eventually it will be up to them what they want to do.”

TODAY’S EINTRACHT
Wolfgang Radermacher, who was player-president for a year back in 1961-62, coaches Eintracht’s metro team.
His roster includes brothers Peter and Gus Maris -- the latter a defender and the former a striker. Stopper Greg Trani and defender Sean Plainey are two other old timers still plugging away.

Radermacher’s son Glenn and two other standouts from the club’s days in the higher echelon -- Tommy Strumpf and Doczy -- are still playing and making waves in the Over-30s.
The Eintracht old boys have been a force to reckon with these last few seasons and begin the spring undefeated this weekend atop the Over-30 First Division [East] standings with a 7-0-2 record.
Among Steigerwald’s notables are the ageless Calov brothers Jeff and Douglas -- sons of Igon -- who’ve been with the club for over 25 years.
Way to go, guys!

GUYANA HOMECOMING
Sister clubs Guyana Veterans ‘A’ and ‘B’ have been two of Eintracht’s biggest rivals in the Over-30s in recent years.
During the winter break the two Guyanese sides pooled players together for a four-match tour of their homeland, which although located on the South American continent is considered a Caribbean nation.
The Guyana Veterans select side held its own against the locals, winning two and losing two games.

In their opener against Georgetown All Stars, which according to Nigel Roberts comprised former Guyanese internationals, the CSL envoys won on penalties after a 2-2. Christopher Giles had the brace in regulation time and was named Man of the Match.

Lynden Laing and Kester Darlington were on target in the second match, a 3-2 loss to Top Class Veterans in the town of Linden.
It was then off to Berbice were their hosts, the aptly named Heart of Oak trumped them 2-1. Giles was Guyana’s scorer again.

The final game of the tour was played in Georgetown against Thomas United Football Club. It ended in a 1-1 after 90 minutes, but the New Yorkers’ proficiency from the penalty spot once again paid off in a 4-2 shoot-out victory.
Anthony Stanton, Giles, Terrence Archer, Wendell James and Noel Sargeant converted their shots.

ADIEU SAMMY
Sammy Daoud, coach of struggling CSL First Division champs Brooklyn Italians, resigned this week.
Daoud led the Italians to back-to-back titles last season, but the club’s pursuit of a third championship this year has not been going well. They lost 2-0 to Barnstonworth Rovers a week ago, their fourth defeat of the current campaign.
Brooklyn dropped to 4-4-1 (13), good enough for fourth in the six-team Western conference.

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