Sándor Nemes
Encyclopedia
Sándor Nemes, also known as Alexander Neufeld (25 September 1899 – 27 October 1977) was an Hungarian
football player and menager. He had a playing career in Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, United States and Yugoslavia, and he represented the national teams of Hungary
and Austria
.
and Isidor Gansl. In both 1918 and 1919 they finished second in the Hungarian Championship behind the then dominating MTK Budapest. With Ferencváros he played a total of 57 league matches having scored 18 goals
On 12 May 1918 he made his debut for the Hungarian national team
playing in attack along Alfred Schaffer
and Imre Schlosser
in the 2-1 win over Switzerland in Budapest. A few weeks later, on June 2, in Vienna, he played again this time winning Austria by 2-0.
On 5 October 1919, he played his third match for the Hungarian national team, again in Vienna against Austria, however this time they were defeated by 0-2. In that period because of the political situation, many Hungarian players were emigrating abroad, and Nemes was no exception and he signed with second league Austrian club SC Hakoah Vienna. As way to overcame a bourocratic problem over the signing, he accepted a job in a bank in Vienna.
He played his first match with Hakoah in November 1919 and became soon one of the most important players in their aspiration to get promotion to the first league. By then, the Hungarian Football Federation
was having a violent confrontation with Austrian clubs over the players that begin playing for Austrian clubs without being officially released from their origin clubs in Hungary. Until the end of 1919 these players, among them Ferenc Plattkó, Jenö brothers, Kálmán Konrád
, and Sándor Nemes included, were not allowed to play under the insistency of the Hungarian Federation to sanction them. This situation lasted until March 1920 when the players could finally return to play. In his first season with Hakoah, Nemes reached the semi-finals of the Austrian Cup
.
At the end of that year 1920, he rejoined his former club Ferencváros in their tourneé in Switzerland, however instead of returning to Hungary he decided to stay and signed with FC Basel
where his former national team colleague Alfred Schaffer played. After playing only one month with the team, he received an invitation from the German businessman Otto Eidinger to participate in a newly formed Hungarian professional team that had programed during the next year exibitional matches all over Europe. Sándor Nemes accepted the invitation, along with a number of other notable players like Plattkó, Pataki, József Ging, Gyula Feldmann and József Viola. However after only a few weeks the tourneé was abandoned with players complaining about not being paid. Most of the players returned to Austria and Hungary where they were sanctioned by the respective federations with Nemes receiving a suspension to last until April 1921. He didn´t respected the suspension, and as most other players did, he moved to Czechoslovakia
and signed with Maccabi Brno. However soon afterwords an agreement was reached about an amnisty for players that would accept to return, and thus Nemes returned to Hakoah in summer 1921 and became part of Hakoah team that this time played in the Austrian Bundesliga.
In his first complete season in 1921-22 Hakoah finished second in the league, only 2 points behind the leader. In the next season Hakoah finished in mid table, but Nemes impressed by scoring 16 goals and finishing in third place as league top scorer. In 1924 professionalization begin in Austrian football and in that same year Hakoah menaged to win the Austrian Championship. They also won in the same year their first European title by wining West Ham United by 5-0 with Nemes scoring three goals in that final match.
By then, Nemes had already played four times with the city selection of Vienna, and Austrian national team menager Hugo Meisl
convoked him for the match on 5 July 1925, in Stockholm against Sweden, where he made his debut for the Austrian national team
in the 4-2 win. He will play his second match for Austria on November 8, that same year, in a 0-2 loss against Switzerland in Bern. He played both matches under the name of Alexander Neufeld.
In spring 1926 Hakoah made a successful tourneé in the United States with a number of players receiving contract offers on behalve of American soccer clubs. Nemes returned to Austria and finished that season, however he had informed that at the end of the season he will leave Hakoah and move to the United States by accepting the offer of Brooklyn Wanderers
to play in the American Soccer League
. Along with Nemes, three other Hakoah players also moved to Brooklyn, namely Hoffer, Leopold Drucker
and Heinrich Schoenfeld. After one season in America, Nemes returned to Hakoah, however he couldn´t stop the fall of the club that lost its best players, and they ended up relegated that season. Nemes returned to the States in 1929 and played with New York Hakoah
until 1930.
where he became a coach of one of the strongest clubs in the country BSK Belgrade
and soon he makes his first major coaching success by winning the 1930–31 Yugoslav Championship. Seems that he returned to Austria in 1931 and worked one season as coach with a Second league Jewish club named Hasmonea, however the club ended up relegated due to the reduction in number of clubs for the next season and Nemes returned to BSK.
After coming back to Belgrade in 1932, he wil further win the Championship in 1933 and 1935 before having a year coaching experience with Hapoel Hatzair in Palestina, with Austrian Josef Uridil
replacing him for that year at BSK. In 1936 however he returned to Belgrade where he will win another chsmpionship in 1939. Seems that he became a coach of another Yugoslav club, SK Bata Borovo still before the start of the Second World War, a club that he coached again in 1945. Afterwords, he had a breaf spell coaching Turkish Galatasaray
before returning to Israel in 1950 to coach Hapoel Tel Aviv.
It also seems that some sources confused him with another Hungarian born footballer, Perry Neufeld, who was initially named Ferenc Nemes, thus appearing Alexander Nemes as having played 2 matches and scoring one goal for the Palestine national team, when in fact it was Perry Neufeld who played for Palestine in those matches.
Austria Hakoah Vienna
Kingdom of Yugoslavia BSK Belgrade
As coach:
Kingdom of Yugoslavia BSK Belgrade
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
football player and menager. He had a playing career in Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, United States and Yugoslavia, and he represented the national teams of Hungary
Hungary national football team
The Hungary national football team represents Hungary in international football and is controlled by the Hungarian Football Federation....
and Austria
Austria national football team
The Austria national football team is the association football team that represents the country of Austria in international competition and is controlled by the Austrian Football Association ....
.
Playing career
Born in Budapest, Sándor Nemes begin playing for a local club named ILK. When the club was disbanded in 1916 he joined Ferencvárosi TC where after playing initially in the youth team in same year due to his skills he got promoted to the senior squad. At first he played as striker but shortly after he changed his playing position to right-winger. He soon became an established player within the team, forming the attacking line along with Mihály PatakiMihály Pataki
Mihály Pataki was a Hungarian amateur football player who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics....
and Isidor Gansl. In both 1918 and 1919 they finished second in the Hungarian Championship behind the then dominating MTK Budapest. With Ferencváros he played a total of 57 league matches having scored 18 goals
On 12 May 1918 he made his debut for the Hungarian national team
Hungary national football team
The Hungary national football team represents Hungary in international football and is controlled by the Hungarian Football Federation....
playing in attack along Alfred Schaffer
Alfréd Schaffer
Alfréd Schaffer was a Hungarian footballer who has the distinction of playing for a record number of professional clubs; he played for a total of 21 clubs in a 15 year career which lasted from 1910–1925....
and Imre Schlosser
Imre Schlosser
Imre Schlosser-Lakatos was a Hungarian footballer. He still holds the record as the highest goalscorer in the history of the Hungarian League....
in the 2-1 win over Switzerland in Budapest. A few weeks later, on June 2, in Vienna, he played again this time winning Austria by 2-0.
On 5 October 1919, he played his third match for the Hungarian national team, again in Vienna against Austria, however this time they were defeated by 0-2. In that period because of the political situation, many Hungarian players were emigrating abroad, and Nemes was no exception and he signed with second league Austrian club SC Hakoah Vienna. As way to overcame a bourocratic problem over the signing, he accepted a job in a bank in Vienna.
He played his first match with Hakoah in November 1919 and became soon one of the most important players in their aspiration to get promotion to the first league. By then, the Hungarian Football Federation
Hungarian Football Federation
The Hungarian Football Federation is the governing body of football in Hungary. It organizes the Hungarian league and the Hungarian national team. It is based in Budapest.György Szepesi was Chairman of the Hungarian Football Association from 1978 to 1986....
was having a violent confrontation with Austrian clubs over the players that begin playing for Austrian clubs without being officially released from their origin clubs in Hungary. Until the end of 1919 these players, among them Ferenc Plattkó, Jenö brothers, Kálmán Konrád
Kalman Konrad
Kálmán Konrád , an inside right, was one of the best football players in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 1910s, and played on the Hungarian National team with his brother, Jenő Konrád. Kálmán, who later played for Austria, coached the Romanian National team for five games in the mid-1930s...
, and Sándor Nemes included, were not allowed to play under the insistency of the Hungarian Federation to sanction them. This situation lasted until March 1920 when the players could finally return to play. In his first season with Hakoah, Nemes reached the semi-finals of the Austrian Cup
Austrian Cup
The Austrian Cup, in German: ÖFB-Cup is an annual football competition held by the Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB.It has been held since 1919, with the exception of the time of the Anschluss between 1939 and 1945 and the period between 1950 and 1958 when the competition was deemed of...
.
At the end of that year 1920, he rejoined his former club Ferencváros in their tourneé in Switzerland, however instead of returning to Hungary he decided to stay and signed with FC Basel
FC Basel
Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel is a Swiss football club based in Basel. They are one of the most successful clubs in Swiss football, having won the Swiss Super League 14 times, the third most for any Swiss club. They were most successful in the late 1960s and 1970s, winning the...
where his former national team colleague Alfred Schaffer played. After playing only one month with the team, he received an invitation from the German businessman Otto Eidinger to participate in a newly formed Hungarian professional team that had programed during the next year exibitional matches all over Europe. Sándor Nemes accepted the invitation, along with a number of other notable players like Plattkó, Pataki, József Ging, Gyula Feldmann and József Viola. However after only a few weeks the tourneé was abandoned with players complaining about not being paid. Most of the players returned to Austria and Hungary where they were sanctioned by the respective federations with Nemes receiving a suspension to last until April 1921. He didn´t respected the suspension, and as most other players did, he moved to Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and signed with Maccabi Brno. However soon afterwords an agreement was reached about an amnisty for players that would accept to return, and thus Nemes returned to Hakoah in summer 1921 and became part of Hakoah team that this time played in the Austrian Bundesliga.
In his first complete season in 1921-22 Hakoah finished second in the league, only 2 points behind the leader. In the next season Hakoah finished in mid table, but Nemes impressed by scoring 16 goals and finishing in third place as league top scorer. In 1924 professionalization begin in Austrian football and in that same year Hakoah menaged to win the Austrian Championship. They also won in the same year their first European title by wining West Ham United by 5-0 with Nemes scoring three goals in that final match.
By then, Nemes had already played four times with the city selection of Vienna, and Austrian national team menager Hugo Meisl
Hugo Meisl
Hugo Meisl , brother of the journalist Willy Meisl, was the multi-lingual football coach of the famous Austrian 'Wunderteam' of the early 1930s, as well as a referee.-Background:...
convoked him for the match on 5 July 1925, in Stockholm against Sweden, where he made his debut for the Austrian national team
Austria national football team
The Austria national football team is the association football team that represents the country of Austria in international competition and is controlled by the Austrian Football Association ....
in the 4-2 win. He will play his second match for Austria on November 8, that same year, in a 0-2 loss against Switzerland in Bern. He played both matches under the name of Alexander Neufeld.
In spring 1926 Hakoah made a successful tourneé in the United States with a number of players receiving contract offers on behalve of American soccer clubs. Nemes returned to Austria and finished that season, however he had informed that at the end of the season he will leave Hakoah and move to the United States by accepting the offer of Brooklyn Wanderers
Brooklyn Wanderers
The Brooklyn Wanderers was a U.S. soccer team which was a founding member of the National Association Football League in the late nineteenth century. It later joined the American Soccer League.-History:...
to play in the American Soccer League
American Soccer League
The American Soccer League has been a name used by three different professional soccer leagues in the United States. The first American Soccer League was established in 1921 by the merger of teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League. For...
. Along with Nemes, three other Hakoah players also moved to Brooklyn, namely Hoffer, Leopold Drucker
Leopold Drucker
Leopold Drucker was an Austrian international footballer and coach.- Biography :...
and Heinrich Schoenfeld. After one season in America, Nemes returned to Hakoah, however he couldn´t stop the fall of the club that lost its best players, and they ended up relegated that season. Nemes returned to the States in 1929 and played with New York Hakoah
New York Hakoah
New York Hakoah is a former United States soccer club based in New York City.-New York Hakoah I:Originally formed by former players from SC Hakoah Wien, including among others Béla Guttmann and Rudolph Nickolsburger, they initially played in the Eastern Soccer League in the fall of 1928. In 1929...
until 1930.
Coaching career
In 1930 Nemes moved to the Kingdom of YugoslaviaKingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
where he became a coach of one of the strongest clubs in the country BSK Belgrade
OFK Beograd
Omladinski fudbalski klub Beograd, commonly referred to as OFK Beograd , is a football club from Belgrade, Serbia, more precisely from the Karaburma urban neighborhood. It currently is the oldest team playing in the Serbian SuperLiga. The name means "Youth Football Club Belgrade" in Serbian...
and soon he makes his first major coaching success by winning the 1930–31 Yugoslav Championship. Seems that he returned to Austria in 1931 and worked one season as coach with a Second league Jewish club named Hasmonea, however the club ended up relegated due to the reduction in number of clubs for the next season and Nemes returned to BSK.
After coming back to Belgrade in 1932, he wil further win the Championship in 1933 and 1935 before having a year coaching experience with Hapoel Hatzair in Palestina, with Austrian Josef Uridil
Josef Uridil
Josef Uridil , was an Austrian footballer and coach.- Biography :...
replacing him for that year at BSK. In 1936 however he returned to Belgrade where he will win another chsmpionship in 1939. Seems that he became a coach of another Yugoslav club, SK Bata Borovo still before the start of the Second World War, a club that he coached again in 1945. Afterwords, he had a breaf spell coaching Turkish Galatasaray
Galatasaray S.K. (football team)
Galatasaray Anonim Şirketi is a Turkish football club, part of the Galatasaray S.K. multi-sport club of Istanbul. Galatasaray is a major sports club in Turkey, holding 17 Turkish Super League titles and the highest number of Turkish Cups....
before returning to Israel in 1950 to coach Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Name
His real name is Sándor Nemes, although for unknown reasons he begin to be known by the mid 1920s as Alexander Neufeld. Also, a number of Serbian sources name him in a third variant, as Antal Nemes.It also seems that some sources confused him with another Hungarian born footballer, Perry Neufeld, who was initially named Ferenc Nemes, thus appearing Alexander Nemes as having played 2 matches and scoring one goal for the Palestine national team, when in fact it was Perry Neufeld who played for Palestine in those matches.
Honours
As player: Austria Hakoah Vienna
- Austrian Championship (1): 1924–25
Kingdom of Yugoslavia BSK Belgrade
- Yugoslav ChampionshipYugoslav First LeagueThe Yugoslav First League was the premier football league in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and socialist Yugoslavia...
(1): 1932–33
As coach:
Kingdom of Yugoslavia BSK Belgrade
- Yugoslav ChampionshipYugoslav First LeagueThe Yugoslav First League was the premier football league in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and socialist Yugoslavia...
(4): 1930–31, 1932–33, 1935–36, 1938–39
External sources
- Sándor Nemes at EU-Football.info