| Elemer Hirsch | |
| Birth Date: | 14 May 1895 |
| Birth Place: | Ceanu Mare, Austria-Hungary |
| Death Place: | Baia Mare, Romania |
| Position: | Defender |
| Years1: | 1921–1923 |
| Years2: | 1924–1926 |
| Caps2: | 26 |
| Goals2: | 2 |
| Nationalyears1: | 1922–1924 |
| Nationalcaps1: | 5 |
| Nationalgoals1: | 0 |
| Manageryears1: | 1947–1948 |
| Manageryears2: | 1950–1953 |
| Managerclubs2: | Armata Cluj |
Elemer Hirsch (14 May 1895 – 17 May 1953) was a Romanian lawyer, figure skater, ice hockey player and a football defender, manager and referee.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Elemer Hirsch came from a wealthy Jewish family who owned large portions of land in Beclean.[1] [5] He studied law school in Budapest and Vienna, starting to work as a lawyer at age 24.[1] He started playing football at CA Cluj.[2] Several years later he moved to Universitatea Cluj, where he also played ice hockey.[2] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 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.[1] [2] [4] [5] After he retired from playing football, he became a football referee, including arbitrating in a Romanian top-division Divizia A match.[2] [10] 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.[1] [3] [11] He managed to escape from Cluj when the authorities wanted to send him to a Holocaust extermination camp.[1] [3] [5] After the end of World War II he returned to Cluj and started his coaching career at CFR.[2] [5] [12] Between 1947 and 1948 he was the federal captain of Romania's national team.[2] In 1950 he became coach at Armata Cluj.[1] 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.[1] [5]
Elemer Hirsch played in the first official match of Romania's national team at the 1922 King Alexander's Cup, against Yugoslavia.[1] [13] [14] Hirsch bought Romania's equipment for that match from his own money.[1] [5] [13] He was also part of Romania's 1924 Summer Olympics squad.[2] [15]
Scores and results table. Romania's goal tally first:[14]
| International appearances | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| App | Date | Venue | Opponent | Result | Competition | |
| 1. | 8 June 1922 | 2–1 | Friendly | |||
| 2. | 3 September 1922 | 1–1 | Friendly | |||
| 3. | 1 July 1923 | 0–6 | Friendly | |||
| 4. | 2 September 1923 | 1–1 | Friendly | |||
| 5. | 20 May 1924 | 1–4 | Friendly | |||