Illés Spitz

The native form of this personal name is Spitz Illés. This article uses the Western name order.

Illés Spitz

Personal information
Full name	Illés Spitz
Date of birth	(1902-02-02)2 February 1902
Place of birth	Budapest, Austro-Hungary
Date of death
Place of death	Skopje, FPR Yugoslavia
Position(s)	Forward
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1916–1926	SC Nemzeti
1926–1934	Újpest FC
1935	FC St. Gallen
1936	FC Zürich
International career
1925-1931	Hungary	6	(3)
Managerial career
1937–1939	Hajduk Split
1939–1941	Građanski Skopje
1941-1946	Macedonia Skopje
1946	SR Macedonia
1946–1955	Partizan Belgrade
1955–1957	Radnički Belgrade
1958–1960	Partizan Belgrade
1960–1961	Vardar Skopje
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Illés Spitz (Hungarian: Spitz Illés, Serbo-Croatian: Ilješ Špic / Иљeш Шпиц, Bulgarian/Macedonian: Илеш Шпиц) (2 February 1902, in Budapest – 1 October 1961, in Skopje) was a Hungarian international football player and manager.

Playing career

Illés was part of the Újpest FC first "golden era" helping the club win the Coupe des Nations 1930 and three championships. In 1935 he moved to Switzerland where he played one season in FC St. Gallen and another in FC Zürich. During his playing career he played over 1000 matches and scored over 600 goals.

Spitz also played a total of six matches for the Hungary national football team, having scored three goals.

Managerial career

After finishing his playing career in Switzerland, Illés moved to Yugoslavia where he had a long managerial career. In 1937 he took charge of HNK Hajduk Split, one of the four dominant clubs of the Yugoslav Championship. Despite not winning any titles during the period of time he spent there, he is remembered in Split for having formed the generation that will later win the Croatian League in 1941 and end the years of disappointment the club had during the 1930s. In 1939 he moved to Gragjanski Skopje playing back then in the Serbian League from which the top clubs qualified to the final stage of the Yugoslav Championship.

In 1941 with the beginning of the Second World War, the region of Vardarska Banovina where Gragjanski was located, was annexed by Bulgaria, and the club was merged with other city clubs to form Macedonia Skopje. Illes Spitz remained as main coach and most of the players of Gragjanski became part of the new team, some even becoming Bulgarian internationals. The club successfully competed in the Bulgarian Championship. The league was played in a cup system and Spitz managed to take the club to the league final in 1942.

At the end of the war, the region returned to Yugoslavia, however the country was no longer a monarchy and the new socialist authorities disbanded a series of clubs and created new ones. Spitz stayed in Skopje until 1946 but by then Belgrade club FK Partizan was recruiting the best players all over the country, and Spitz along with Kiril Simonovski as player, were brought from Skopje. Spitz will stay in command of Partizan for almost a decade, helping them win two national Championships and three Cups. Afterwords he managed FK Radnički Beograd and took them to the Cup final in 1957. In 1960 he returned to Skopje to coach the new city's top-flight team, FK Vardar, and it will be in the dressing-room, after a league match, that he suddenly died from a heart-attack on 1 October 1961.

Honours

As player:

• Újpest FC
  • Hungarian League: 1929-30, 1930-31, 1932-33
  • Coupe des Nations 1930
  • Mitropa Cup: 1929

As coach:

• Partizan Belgrade
  • Yugoslav First League: 1946-47, 1948-49
  • Yugoslav Cup: 1947, 1952, 1954

• Vardar Skopje
  • Yugoslav Cup: 1961

External sources

• Short career story at Nogometni leksikon

See also: Spitz