Hans Tilkowski

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Hans Tilkowski (* 12). July 1935 in Dortmund-Husen; † January 5, 2020 was a German football player and coach. As a goalkeeper, he completed from 1955 to 1963 in the then first-class football upper league West at Westfalia Herne 219 league games and won with Herne in the 1958/59 season the West German championship. From 1963 to 1967 he guarded the goal of Borussia Dortmund in 81 Bundesliga games. He won the DFB Cup with Dortmund in 1965 and the European Cup winners in 1966. On 19 December 1956 he was in the goal of the second international match of the German U-23 national team against Belgium. On 26 February 1958 he also came against Belgium for another junior international match.

On 3 April 1957 Tilkowski debuted in the A-national team. For them he played from 1957 to 1967 39 internationals. In 1962 he was part of the squad at the World Cup in Chile, but was not used. In 1966 he became vice world champion with the DFB team in England. In 1965 he was voted Footballer of the Year. Tilkowski refused any showmanship and acted objectively, with perfect positional play and always in the service of the team.

Player career

Youth, until 1955
Tilkowski was the son of a miner and grew up in humble circumstances in the Husen district of Dortmund. The family lived in the colliery directly on the railway line Kamen-Dortmund in an eight-family house on Westicker Straße 44. Under the care of father Johann and mother Martha, the children – besides Hans, the sisters Brunhilde and Renate – experienced a childhood that the later national player had in good memory despite the material limitations and to which he gladly thought back. At the age of 11, he joined the small SV Husen 19 in 1946 and initially stormed in the attack on the right wing. In the post-war years, he learned, like almost all children from the mine colony, “the careful and economical handling of everything that was halfway edible”. Food was scarce in Tilkowski’s childhood and youth for many people. During sports, one had to struggle with deficiencies in the equipment for the football match as well as with the usually only random transport possibilities to away games. When the regular goalkeeper was missing in a game, the leader sent him into the goal and Tilkowski had thus found his position. From 1947 to 1950 he boxed alongside football at the boxing ring Kaiserau. The young Tilkowski needed a lot of exercise, looking forward to every training, every game and every competition. During his time at SV Husen he met the young Alfred Preißler playing there. The real career in football began in 1949 after his transition to the youth of SuS Kaiserau. Already as a street footballer he played with Erich Pawlak (1954–1961: VfL Bochum, 131 Oberligaspiele/33 goals), which was in the student and youth teams, then in the 1st team at SuS Kaiserau and also in Westfalen-Au