Matthias Mauritz

Matthias Mauritz started his sports career as a field hockey player at Düsseldorfer SC, where he also played tennis, and ranked number eleven in West Germany. In 1940 he won the German Youth Field Hockey Championships and played in two youth internationals. In 1946 he started his soccer career at Fortuna Düsseldorf, where he stayed until 1960, first as a forward, later as a half-back and then as a defender. He played 760 matches for Düsseldorf and scored 108 goals. He won 13 German amateur international caps and one senior cap, against Poland in 1959, when 34-years-old. Mauritz appeared in his second Olympics at Melbourne in 1956, but Germany was beaten 2-0 by the Soviet Union in their first round match.

Mauritz then turned to tennis again after his soccer career and won 21 senior German and four European Championships. He also played golf in his later years. Mauritz trained as a baker and pastry cook but later owned a well-known sports goods shop in Düsseldorf along with tennis compatriot Otto Stuhldreier.

When Mauritz celebrated his 90th birthday in 2014 he told the local journalists proudly about his remarkable weekend in 1951. On the Saturday afternoon he played for Fortuna Düsseldorf in a soccer promotion match against Marathon Remscheid and on the Sunday morning he played in the semi-final of the German Field Hockey Championships for Düsseldorfer SC against Club Raffelberg, and in the afternoon he played a tennis league match, also for Düsseldorfer SC against CHTC Krefeld.