As long as I can remember the grown ups talked at events, meetings, and socially about the strength and importance of the youth of the club. Naturally many of us kids thought often they must be talking about us! And they were but depending the year and the context they could be referring to many. This pattern goes back generations. The various speakers and writers of these ideas often enough were once the youth that a previous generation referred to.
Growing up my grandmother and others talked about the “Sport Club” mostly in reference to dancing. For a kid in the 90s and 00s era of the club that was confusing. Our Kirchweih vests said German Hungarian Sport Club on them, but we didn’t really know why. We had soccer teams, yes some pretty successful ones. We had the Cultural Group and the Schuhplattlers but we were all one club and these groups were more like things we all did together than separate “clubs” within the Club. Eventually I learned about all this by asking the right questions of the right people. Still with an organization over 100 years old, time moves fast, people move in and out and things change faster than you think. Recent digging through the 50s and 60s issue of the Monthly Progress I’ve found evidence of many of the stories those right people told me in the past.
It seems over many years the Sport Club became the breeding ground for new, good ideas eventually adopted by the greater German Hungarians. The Sport Club changed their name from Banater to German-Hungarians in 1930, while the Mother club would not change its own until 1939.
In the earlier 50s the soccer team and the dance group while both under the banner of the Sport Club were not getting along so well. Influx of immigration after the war meant more of the young men who played soccer joined the dancers and vice versa. This meant more cohesion and a lessening of the tensions. In 1958, the Sport Club reduces its officers having one president that would lead both sports and cultural pursuits. That president was Oswald Jethon as reported on in the May 1958 column of “Buzzing Around the Sport Club.”
In July of the same year Monthly Progress Editor Emily Fricker (who was all of 21 years old at the time) writes under the column “News and Comments” about the lion’s share of events being Sport Club ones:
“Most of our June affairs were sponsored by the Sport Club—and her members attended faithfully, but that’s all. What’s the matter with the other sections members? Isn’t it your club too, no matter who sponsors the affair.”
The Constitution and By-Laws of the time lists out the various “sections.” The document also states further that selections shall be self sustaining and self directing. Still each section would then submit its own program of activity and constitution to the Board of Directors for approval:
The Sport Club was that athletic and cultural section. It was also in practice a “Junior Section.” Places in writing at the time in the Monthly Progress often refer to the group as “Youngsters.” In 1955 Walter Schuetz (later the father of Susi Hartmann) was the President of the Sport Club. He was 21 years old. Joe Reiter (later the father of Joe and John) was the treasurer. He was 23. In 1956, Werner Fricker (later the father of Marlene, Werner Jr., and Janet) became President of the Sport Group. He was 20 years old.
What’s clear in countless columns of “Buzzing Around…” is that this group was active. They ran events, dances, put on shows, sang songs, danced the czardas, or for Night in Vienna, Gypsy Melody night, Kirchweih, Snowball Dance and many more. They ran, played on and supported the soccer teams, made decorations for events at either clubhouse and followed the Heimatklänge on a weekly basis. When new immigrants came over from Europe, they welcomed them in. When the boys were drafted into the service they threw them going away parties. When those boys came back men, they threw them welcome back parties. As many of them married some fell away from club life but others continued, taking on new and different positions, helping in ways they could, providing for more “youngsters” to come in after them to carry the banner.
In 1960 the Sport Club under Werner Fricker folds itself into the mother organization, giving the finances and the business processes over to the club Board of Directors. This change to the Constitution is reported on in September of 1960 in the Progress and was approved in October that year.
“With the business and financial end of the sport committee under the capable hands of our Board of Directors, the men who were interested in soccer were able to devote all their talents to the advancement of the sport they loved.” – Emily Fricker in 1971
This allows the Sport section to focus on activities leading into what would become a golden era of the German Hungarians. The new constitution, the new clubhouse in Neshaminy, countless United League Championships, the National Amateur Championship, and the founding of the Cultural Group.
This idea would not go away, as the modern constitution and by laws adopted between 1966 and 1968 would unite all the various sections under one club, one set of rules, one Board of Governors and one Executive Board. The Sport Club, the young people, did it first in 1960. Though this new Constitution and By-Laws marked the end of the Sport Club, the ideals of it, the youth & vigor of its members carried on through the decades as a defining spirit of the German Hungarians. I believe that spirit is still alive today.
Michael N. Fricker
