 Graul in 1974 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1952-06-18)18 June 1952 | ||
| Place of birth | Gütersloh,North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany | ||
| Date of death | 22 May 2022(2022-05-22) (aged 69) | ||
| Place of death | Bad Rothenfelde,Lower Saxony, Germany | ||
| Position | Forward | ||
| Youth career | |||
| ?–1969 | SVA Gütersloh | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1970–1972 | VfL Osnabrück | 50 | (21) |
| 1972–1973 | Den Bosch | 30 | (10) |
| 1973–1976 | Arminia Bielefeld | 77 | (52) |
| 1976–1977 | Preußen Münster | 32 | (13) |
| 1977–1978 | Fortuna Köln | 49 | (22) |
| 1979–1981 | Arminia Bielefeld | 64 | (8) |
| 1981–1983 | Gütersloh [de] | ||
| International career | |||
| 1969–1970 | West Germany Youth | 7 | (2) |
| 1975 | West Germany B | 1 | (0) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1995–1996 | FC Gütersloh | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Volker Graul (18 June 1952 – 22 May 2022) was a German footballer who played as aforward. He began his career as a professional footballer in 1970 withVfL Osnabrück, with whom he became champion and runner-up in the Regionalliga Nord. In 1973, he played two half-seasons withDen Bosch in the first two Dutch leagues. As a player forArminia Bielefeld, he was the top scorer in the 2. Bundesliga Nord in 1974–75 with 30 goals. He also made 45 Bundesliga appearances for Arminia Bielefeld between 1978 and 1981, scoring six goals. Towards the end of the 1970s, he also played forPreußen Münster andFortuna Köln in the 2. Bundesliga. Throughout the mid-1990s, he had success as manager and coach ofFC Gütersloh. He would also briefly represent his home country ofWest Germany in 1969, 1970 and 1975.
Growing up inGütersloh and developing his footballing skills in the youth department ofSVA Gütersloh, the talented attacker already attracted the interest of theGerman Football Association in the A team of theWest German youth team. For his senior year debut in the 1970–71 season, Graul signed a contract withVfL Osnabrück for the1970–71 Regionalliga Nord. The team fromBremer Brücke, located in the heart of theSchinkel, had won the championships in the north in 1969 and 1970. Graul belonged to the championship team again for the 1970–71 season underFritz Langner and in 1971–72 he won the championship as runner-ups with coachErwin Türk. In the two promotion rounds to theBundesliga in 1971 and 1972, however, VfL was unable to prevail. In the 1972–73 preliminary round, the young striker played ten games with four goals for Osnabrück and then moved toDen Bosch for the1972–73 Eredivisie. In total, he has played 49 games in the Regionalliga Nord and scored 22 goals.[1]
Den Bosch, who were in the penultimate place in the Eredivisie when Graul arrived, were unable to improve until the end of the season and were relegated. In 17 Eredivisie appearances, Graul scored four goals. In the beginning of the1973–74 Eerste Divisie, Graul scored six goals in 13 games until his departure at the beginning of December 1973, four of them penalties. Most pressing news was that he no longer had a regular place in the team, which was also fighting against relegation in the Eerste Divisie. WhenArminia Bielefeld had to worry about staying in the league in the last regional league round of the1973–74 Regionalliga West, with 8:28 points after the preliminary round, Volker Graul returned to his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia and played for the team from the second half of the season. He scored eleven goals in 16 games and thus played a significant role in Arminia's 14th place in the table and the associated nomination for the inaugural1974–75 2. Bundesliga. In addition to signing Graul, Arminia Bielefeld had three coaches in action:Norbert Lessle,Willy Nolting and the coach typically regarded as the club's savior from relegation,Rudi Faßnacht, who had also signedJonny Hey with him.[1]
Bielefeld improved significantly in the debut year of the 1974–75 2. Bundesliga, compared to the last round of the Regionalliga and, under coachErhard Ahmann, finished fourth in the Nord Division with 50:26 points behind championsHannover 96, runners-upBayer 05 Uerdingen andFC St. Pauli. Volker Graul became the second league top scorer with 30 goals ahead ofGerd-Volker Schock, who would later play quite successfully for Arminia.Arminia benefited from new signingEwald Lienen, who overran the opposing defensive lines from the wing and also shone with good assists to the centre-forward after his dribbles. Since Bielefeld prevented Graul from the possibility of transferring to eitherBayern Munich or toHamburger SV, now with little motivation, scored only eleven goals in 24 appearances in the1975–76 2. Bundesliga and signed for the new1976–77 2. Bundesliga season withPreußen Münster. From 1974 to 1976, Bielefeld played 61 games in the 2nd division, scoring 40 goals.[1][2]
Münster came in sixth place in the 1976–77 season with the coachesRudi Faßnacht andWerner Biskup from April 1977, equal on points with several other teams. Graul had scored 13 goals in 32 games and accepted an offer fromJean Löring, the president ofFortuna Köln, for the1977–78 2. Bundesliga. In the cathedral city, he increased his scoring rate to 18 goals, but Fortuna only reached fourth place under coachesErnst-Günter Habig and from January 1978,Rudi Faßnacht which prevented the long-awaited return to the Bundesliga. He only stayed in Köln'sSüdstadt at the beginning of the 1978–79 preliminary round as by the end of his tenure with the club, he played a total of 47 second division games for Köln with 22 goals and returned to Bundesliga newcomers Bielefeld in October 1978. He contributed the point-scoring goal to his Bundesliga debut on 14 October in the 1–1 home draw againstVfB Stuttgart.[1]
Two points behindSchalke 04, Bielefeld finished 16th with coachesMilovan Beljin andOtto Rehhagel from 10 October 1978 and was relegated to the 2. Bundesliga once more. Graul had played 26 games and scored six goals. When Bielefeld won the championship in the1978–79 2. Bundesliga with coaches Otto Rehhagel andHans-Dieter Tippenhauer from October 1979, ahead ofRot-Weiss Essen and thus achieved an immediate return to the Bundesliga, Graul was no longer one of Arminia's top scorers asChristian Sackewitz,Norbert Eilenfeldt and Gerd-Volker Schock had since taken over his record. During the1979–80 Bundesliga, he would contribute to the club's decisive victory over Bayern Munich via one goal in a 4–0 victory on 10 March 1979.
In 16 appearances, he contributed to the championship and promotion with two goals. He ended his professional career with Arminia Bielefeld after the1980–81 Bundesliga, when Arminia narrowly managed to stay in the Bundesliga with 15th place and Graul had played another 19 games in the Bundesliga without scoring a goal. In the end, he played 45 games with 6 goals in the Bundesliga and 156 games with 78 goals in the 2. Bundesliga.[3]
On 18 October 1969, the striker made his debut in the German youth team alongside team-matesUli Hoeneß andRainer Bonhof in the international match of the youth national team in Geleen against theNetherlands.[2] He played in theAtlantic Cup [es] inLas Palmas in February 1970, in the qualifiers for the1970 UEFA European Under-18 Championship in March and April and in play in the final tournament later in May. In total, he would play in seven matches and scored two goals.[1]
In 1975, Graul came back into the sights of the DFB. He played on 8 October 1975 in the international match representingWest Germany B inDuisburg againstRomania. In the 2–0 victory, the attack was manned byReiner Geye,Karl-Heinz Handschuh, Graul,Bernd Gersdorff andJosef Pirrung.[1]
From the 1981–82 season, he played forFC Gütersloh in the amateur Oberliga Westfalen. In the1983–84 Oberliga Westfalen [de], he was involved in the FC Gütersloh affair together withRoland Peitsch and successfully sued for his promised "salary" in a total amount of 180,000DM in a civil court, whereupon the Westphalian Football and Athletics Association sentenced him to a fine of 15,000 marks and a three-year ban for violating amateur regulations.[4] Graul retired as a footballer at the age of 30 out of annoyance as in the following three years he more or less only played in the Borgholzhausen old men's team ofTuS Solbad Ravensberg and ran a trade in used cars.[2] Later he worked as a player's agent and worked part-time as a real estate agent.
At FC Gütersloh, which Graul described as "probably the most dazzling personality in the club's history", he led the club as manager through the most successful years in its history in the 1990s, serving in between April and May 1995 and from April to June 1996. In those two seasons, the club was promoted from the fourth-tier Oberliga Westfalen via the Regionalliga West/Südwest to the 2nd Bundesliga.[4] In 1998, the club reached the peak of its history with fifth place. However, the subsequent decline of the Gütersloh team was primarily blamed on him. During the1998–99 2. Bundesliga, the club was relegated from the 2. Bundesliga, with Graul sitting on the bench once on matchday 6 againstStuttgarter Kickers. In 2000, the highly indebted club had to be dissolved.[5]
In 2006, Graul, together with player agent Fali Ramadani, played a central role in the embezzlement investigations against the ex-manager of Bayer Leverkusen,Reiner Calmund, in which the family ofBurim Osmani [de] are also said to have been involved.[6][7][8] In 2007, Graul and Ramadani were again involved in a scandal over player transfers withTuS Koblenz.[6][9][10]
Volker Graul was the son ofFranz Graul [de], who played forWerder Bremen in the Oberliga Nord between 1947 and 1950. During his career as a player, he was often compared to his teammateEwald Lienen due to both being from the same state ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia as it would experience a boom in football throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This was due to their contrasting perspectives in their careers, whereas Lienen refused to sign autographs and was a critic ofcapitalism, Graul would often have no qualms with it.[2]
In his later years, Graul had suffered from heart problems for years, died on 22 May 2022, a few weeks before his 70th birthday in a clinic inBad Rothenfelde.[1][4]