.jpg) Hieronymus in 1979 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1959-02-22)22 February 1959 (age 66) | ||
| Place of birth | Hamburg,West Germany | ||
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||
| Position | Sweeper | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1966–1972 | TuS Hamburg | ||
| 1972–1978 | FC St. Pauli | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1978–1979 | FC St. Pauli | 30 | (2) |
| 1979–1984 | Hamburger SV | 121 | (7) |
| Total | 151 | (9) | |
| International career | |||
| 1981–1982 | West Germany | 3 | (0) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 2001 | Hamburger SV (caretaker) | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Holger Hieronymus (born 22 February 1959) is a German former professionalfootballer who played as adefender.[1]
Born inHamburg, Hieronymus started his career with local side TuS Hamburg at the age of six and was a promising talent for thesweeper position when the thenHamburger SV general managerGünter Netzer snapped him up from local counterpartFC St. Pauli for DM 75,000 followingHamburger SV'sBundesliga title in 1979. The next Bundesliga season saw the technically gifted player playing his first games,[2] being a starter in theEuropean Cup final defeat of his side againstNottingham Forest at theSantiago Bernabéu Stadium on 28 May 1980. Failing to claim the Bundesliga trophy of 1980 and 1981, on both occasions Hamburg finished second, Hieronymus won his first trophy in 1982 when Hamburg won the league. That same summer he and his side crashed toSven-Göran Eriksson'sIFK Göteborg in the two-leggedUEFA Cup final. In 1983 his club retained the Bundesliga title and, further, beatJuventus in theEuropean Cupfinal in Athens.[3] He was back as a regular in the line-ups of Hamburg managerErnst Happel after his career had, for some time, been called to a halt due to his club signing veteran German legendFranz Beckenbauer in November 1980.
The most tragic moment of his playing days, however, happened on 31 March 1984, in theBundesliga tie againstSV Waldhof Mannheim. With less than fifteen minutes left on the clock, Hieronymus received a career-ending injury. A cruciate ligament rupture synchronized with a deltoid ligament rupture and, together with, a caused menisci and knee cartilage damage forced him to retire in 1985, over a year after that incident. At the time he finally abandoned the hope of recovery, merely 26 years of age, the talented sweeper had played in 121 Bundesliga matches (seven goals) forHamburger SV.
ForWest Germany Holger Hieronymus was capped three times in between September 1981 and October 1982,[4] each as a substitute and just the final of those (he came on for injuredKarlheinz Förster in the fifth minute in a friendly win overEngland atWembley on 13 October 1982) for a duration of more than parts of the second-half. Still, he was selected byJupp Derwall for the1982 FIFA World Cup, staying unused throughout the competition.
Looking for a different occupation after his premature retirement, Hieronymus first founded a sports center for the obese and was later, together with his former teammateDitmar Jakobs (whose career had also abruptly been ended by horrible injury), co-founder of an injury rehabilitation centre. Leaving these jobs aside, Hieronymus enjoyed a return toHamburger SV in 1997 as the new marketing manager ofDie Rothosen. From June 1998 to August 2002 he operated as general manager of the club. On 1 February 2005, he took a leading position atDFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH, which can be seen as the governing entity that governs theBundesliga competition.
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