Erwin Helmchen (10 May 1907 – 8 June 1981) was a German
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...
who played as a
striker.
He is the
most prolific goalscorer in recorded history according to
RSSSF
The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...
with at least 989 goals scored in 582 official matches, although this record include goals in regional, league and city teams. He is also the second goalscorer in league matches with over 720 goals, the second-most prolific goalscorer for a single team with at least 667 goals and the goalscorer with most career
hat-trick
A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three.
Origin
The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...
s with at least 141.
Club career
FV Brandenburg Cottbus
Helmchen started his career at
FV Brandenburg Cottbus in 1923, at the age of 16. In
Lower Lusatia
Lower Lusatia (; ; ; ; ) is a historical region in Central Europe, stretching from the southeast of the Germany, German state of Brandenburg to the southwest of Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Like adjacent Upper Lusatia in the south, Lower Lusa ...
, he took part with the FV Brandenburg in the finals of the
South Eastern German football championship. However, the
Breslau clubs
Sportfreunde Breslau and
Breslauer SC 08 dominated the competition. He scored 151 goals in 86 official games.
PSV Chemnitz
In 1928, Helmchen joined
PSV Chemnitz
Chemnitzer Polizeisportverein e.V. (commonly known as Chemnitzer PSV, or CPSV for short) is a German sports club in Chemnitz, Germany. Founded in 1920 as PSV Chemnitz, the club sees itself as their legal successor. With almost 2,000 members, CP ...
.
He scored 213 goals in his first five seasons at PSV in the regional championship rounds. However, they found fierce rivalry with local competitors
Chemnitzer BC.
In 1932, PSV managed to reach the
Central German football championship
The Central German football championship (German: ''Mitteldeutsche Fußball Meisterschaft'') was the highest association football competition in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany, in what is now the States of Germany, federal states ...
final against
Dresdner SC to win 3–2 after extra-time. Helmchen scored 51 goals in the championship for PSV, with a total of 120 goals in the 1931–32 season. PSV later participated in the
1932 German football championship, where they lost 2–3 to the eventual German champions
Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. However, Helmchen managed to score 5 goals in that competition to finish in second place behind
Karl Ehmer.
The
Gauliga Sachsen was inaugurated in 1933. In the debut 1933–34 season, PSV Chemnitz finished third behind Dresdner SC and