Frank Wels

Frank Wels ( born February 21, 1909 in Ede, † 16 February 1982) was a Dutch football player. The forward played from the late 1920s to the 1940s for GVV Unitas from Gorinchem. From 1931 to 1938, he was 36 times the national team to use.

Life and career

Catfish debuted in 1926 as a right-winger in the second-rate GVV Unitas, with which he as a 19- year-old caught up in the tweede class in 1928 with a 3-2 win in Rotterdam against the Feijenoorder club Overmaas the championship. Although his club was second-rate, catfish belonged from 1931 laid to the root of the Dutch national team. As early as May in Belgium, he was part of the squad; the next game on June 14, 1931 in Copenhagen, he was just as Mauk Weber against Denmark on his debut in Oranje. The small but fast Crosser - 1.63 meters, it was the second shortest player in the history of the Dutch national team - brought this ability to specifically in interaction with Beb Bakhuys. In the match against Belgium on 11 March 1934 led the "red devil " after one minute; the insistence on balancing was rewarded in the 15th minute when Bakhuys turned a cross from Wels in falling with his head. Headed goals of this type were in the subsequent period in the Netherlands as kopbal a la Bakhuys ( "Header à la Bakhuys " ) referred. The game won the Dutch thanks to another goal from Bakhuys, two goals from debutant Kick Smit and a five- pack of Leen Vente in his second international game even with 9:3.

At the World Cup in Italy in 1934 he was in the team that was eliminated in the second round against Switzerland. On his first goal in the national dress he had to wait until 1935. Again it was a game against Denmark, this time at home; Catfish contributed the third goal in a 3-0 victory. Also at the 1938 World Cup in France participated catfish; the 0:3 against Czechoslovakia in the second round was his 36stes and last game in the Elftal - the last 30 of those matches were in a row, a total he missed in his playing days for the KNVB - selection only two encounters. He was able to achieve in that time Five goals. In his club career is a short time at Feyenoord to book, but since it traveling to Rotterdam did not like, he returned after a year to Unitas back - the club for which he packed a total of 25 years, the football boots and with whom he in the years 1944 and 1946 re- master of the second class was.

After his playing time Frank ran a catfish named after him in the cafeteria Gorinchemer Arkelstraat.

Honors

In the summer of 2008, a train was named on the track Dordrecht - Geldermalsen to Frank Wels.