Hakoah Vienna were a pioneering club who can lay claim to an immeasurable impact on football culture, the first team to formalize the concept of an “ethnic” side. They were founded in 1909 by a couple of well-known Jewish businessmen: Fritz Lohner-Beda, a famous cabaret librettist, and Ignaz Korner, a dentist. The pair were inspired by the philosophy of Muscular Judaism under which Jewish people were encouraged to embrace sports in order to challenge the negative perceptions held against them. At first, they weren’t just a football club but a sports club were Jewish people could practice swimming, wrestling, athletics, hockey, fencing and other activities.

 

11 years after their foundation, Hakoah found themselves in the top flight of Austrian football. They won their first league title in the most unorthodox fashion possible. The teams goalkeeper, Alex Fabian, was bowled over by an opponent, breaking his arm. Well before the days of substitutions, Fabian put his arm in a sling and swapped positions with a forward. Seven minutes later he scored the winning goal which also clinched Hakoah the Austrian championship. The club went from strength to strength, establishing themselves as one of Europes top destinations for all the best Jewish footballers of the time. Max Gold, Max Grunwald and Jozsef Eisenhoffer joined Hakoah and helped them to their second successive title in 1925/26.

 

However, the club had their sights on even bigger targets, and shortly after they became the first ever club to embark on a world tour. The aim of the tour was not solely financial – it was also to promote Judaism, to put their prowess on display and to test themselves against some of the most formidable teams on the planet. One of their most famous victories was a 5-1 thrashing of West Ham, making Hakoah the first foreign club to beat an English side on English soil. The Austrian press largely forgot the fact that this was largely against West Hams reserve team, but it was still a great achievement. In 1924 Hakoah managed to defeat a brilliant Slavia Prague side, handing that club their first loss at home in over a decade. In addition, Hakoah are the first Austrian team to play under floodlights, which they did in a friendly in Paris.

 

Unfortunatley, Hakoah had to deal with intense anti-semitism wherever they went. They came up with a creative way to counter this, which was to travel with the Hakoah wrestling team who acted as their personal bodyguards throughout their journey. Hakoah would also send scouts ahead to their various destinations to drum up support and buzz from the local Jewish community. This adventure took the team across the length and breadth of Europe, South America, Africa and, most famously, the USA. This leg of the journey was simultaneously the clubs high point and their undoing. In a time when “soccer” was nothing more than a novelty in the United States a staggering 224,000 people showed up to watch Hakoah play out 10 matches, including a record-breaking 46,000 who crammed into New York’s Polo Grounds. This was the largest attendance at a football match ever at the time. The Americans were fascinated. A visit from a foreign team was a curiosity in itself, but a team made up entirely of Jews? Unheard of. Furthermore, Hakoah played a fast paced, elegant passing style of game that they had never seen before. 6 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses on their American tour marked the end of the era.

 

It was an eventful tour in several other ways, too. The Jewish Sabbath Alliance weren’t big fans of the club playing on Saturdays, playing under floodlights was a strange new thing with questions raised over whether a black ball should be used, and once, the team got off the train at the wrong station and ended up lost in East Orange for several hours. Hakoah’s players became so enamored by America, and the relative lack of-antisemitism they enjoyed there, that nine members of the starting lineup stayed behind and joined American clubs, where they were regarded as heroes and helped rejuvenate soccer in the country. The remainder of the team returned to Austria but struggled, bouncing between Austria’s first and second division, unable to challenge the likes of Rapid and Wien. They then went bankrupt but struggled on. Much worse was to come in 1938 when the Nazi’s made quick work of clamping down on the club, seizing their ground and assets. Seven players did not surive the war. Legendary captain Scheuer was apprehended and executed, Donnenfeld joined the French Resistance after evading capture but wasn’t to survive. Grasgrun, Horowitz, Kolisch, Erwin, Pollack and Schonfeld were all murdered by the Nazis. One of the clubs founders died in Auschwitz, beaten to death for not working hard enough. With Vienna’s Jewish population essentially wiped out and the club left in tatters, Hakoah called it a day in 1949, ceasing all operations.

 

On the 70th anniversary of the Nazis takeover of Hakoah Wien, the club started playing again under the name Maccabi Wien. Wearing the same blue and white uniforms emblazoned with the Star of David of their predeccesors, they are yet to emulate their success, hovering around Austrias lower leagues. Inspired by Hakoah’s exploits and vision, teams from Austria, Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Palestine, Canada and Ireland all launched their own world tours in 1927. The legacy of Hakoah Wien can be seen in all corners of the globe, with teams in Tel Aviv, Argentina, Berlin, Sydney, San Francisco and many other places adopting the famous name, Hakoah.  

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Achievements: Austrian championship - Champions x 2

Star player: Bela Guttmann DoB 27 Janruary 1899, PoB Budapest, Austria-Hungary

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Guttman predominantly played for MTK Budapest in the early 1920s, with whom he won two titles. In 1922 he moved to Vienna in order to escape anti-semitism where he joined the Jewish-exclusive club Hakoah Wien. With them, he won another league title in 1925 and in 1926 he joined them on their tour of the United States, playing in front of a then record crowd against an American Soccer League XI at New York’s Polo Grounds. Following the tour, Guttmann was one of several Hakoah members who decided to stay behind in America. He played for the New York Giants until they were suspended from the ASL during the Soccer Wars. The Giants, along with Guttman, defected to the Eastern Soccer League before joining New York Hakoah who were a team started up by his former Hakoah Wien squad mates. New York Hakoah and Brooklyn Hakoah merged in 1930 to form the Hakoah All-Stars. While in New York, Huttmann also bought a speakeasy but he lost almost everything in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. He played 6 games for the Hungarian national team, two of these were at the Paris Olympics. Guttmann lamented the fact that there were more officials on the Hungary team at the Games than players, that the teams hotel was more suitable for socialising than for preparing for games. To demonstrate his disapproval, he hung dead rats on the doors of team officials. He transitioned to a manager in 1932 and became one of the greatest in the history of the game. Beofre this, however, World War II raised it’s head and Guttmann was forced to hide in an attic in Ujpest before being disovered and sent to a forced labor camp. He escaped just before he was about to be sent to Auschwitz where his father and sister were both killed. After the war, he would go on to manage no less than 25 different clubs. He never stayed at a club for more than two years and was famous for saying “The third season is fatal”. At Romanian club Ciocanul, his salary was paid in vegetables due to food shortages. He walked out on several clubs during his career due to various disagreements. He went to Italy and coached the AC Milan side that included Nordahl, Liedholm and Schiaffino. He took them to top of the Serie A table, but a series of disagreements with the board led to his dismissal. He took the great late 50’s Honved team on a tour of Brazil and still stayed behind to manage Sao Paolo FC where he helped popularise the 4-2-4 formation used by Brazil’s 1958 World Cup winning team. In 1958 he landed in Portugal, taking charge of FC Porto where he won the league and then going to Benfica where he prompty sacked 20 senior players, promoted a collection of youth players and won the league again, twice. Legend has it that Guttmann signed Eusabio after a chance meeting in a barber shop where he sat next to Jose Bauer, coach of Brazil who were on tour in Portugal and who happened to mention an outstanding player he saw in Mozambique. After the 1962 European Cup final, Guttmann requested a pay rise from the Benfica board. He  was refused, and stormed out on the club with this curse: “Not in 100 years from now will Benfica ever be European champions.” Benfica have subsequently lost 8 of their European finals. Before the 1990 final, Eusabio even visited Guttmanns grave in Vienna and prayed for the curse to be broken. It wasn’t. Guttmann remained as stubborn and strong willed in death as he was in life.