Toni Fritsch
Toni Fritsch (left)
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Anton Fritsch | ||
| Date of birth | July 10, 1945 | ||
| Place of birth | Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria | ||
| Date of death | September 13, 2005 (aged 60) | ||
| Place of death | Vienna, Austria | ||
| Playing position | Striker | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1963–1971 | Rapid Wien | 123 | (15) |
| National team‡ | |||
| 1965–1968 | Austria | 9 | (2) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 28 June 2008. ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 28 June 2008 |
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| No. 15, 16 | |||||||||||||
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| Position: | Kicker | ||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Height: | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) | ||||||||||||
| Weight: | 190 lb (86 kg) | ||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||
| Undrafted: | 1971 | ||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||
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| Player stats at PFR | |||||||||||||
| Games played: | 125 |
|---|---|
| Field goals made: | 137 |
| Field goal attempts: | 231 |
| Extra points made: | 287 |
| Extra point attempts: | 300 |
| Player stats at NFL.com | |
Anton K. "Toni" Fritsch (July 10, 1945 – September 13, 2005) was an Austrian footballer who later started a successful career in American football in the United States. He is distinguished as being the first Austrian to play in the National Football League.
Fritsch started to play association football (soccer) at an early age and joined the Austrian record titleholder Rapid Vienna at the age of 13. After six seasons, he was admitted to the club's first league team and played his first professional game in fall 1964. During his time there, he played 123 games for Rapid, scoring 15 goals. The team won the Austrian Championship three times (1964, 1967, 1968) and the Austrian Cup twice (1968, 1969). He was described as a small, but extremely fast striker.
He played for the Austria national football team nine times. He scored two goals when Austria defeated England 3-2 in London's Wembley Stadium on October 20, 1965, from which his nickname "Wembley-Toni" is derived. This was only the third time for a continental team to beat England at home (following Hungary in 1953 and Sweden in 1959).
Fritsch was a soccer player who never played a down of American football, that the Dallas Cowboys converted into a place kicker. He was discovered by the team's scouts during a 1971 European tour, in which they were looking for soccer-style kickers, which at the time was becoming popular in the NFL. The first city they went to was Vienna and the first player they tried was Fritsch. Though hardly speaking any English at all, he decided to sign a contract as an undrafted free agent, move to the United States and join the team's training camp.
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