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 ...
who played as a
striker.
He is the
most prolific goalscorer in official matches in recorded history according to
RSSSF
The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...
with at least 987 goals scored in 577 official matches, as well as the
second goalscorer in league matches with over 720 goals, the second-most prolific goalscorer for a single team in official matches 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 wi ...
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 (; ; ; szl, Dolnŏ Łużyca; ; ) is a historical region in Central Europe, stretching from the southeast of the German state of Brandenburg to the southwest of Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Like adjacent Upper Lusatia in the ...
, 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.
He scored in his first five seasons at PSV 213 goals in the regional championship rounds, However, they found fierce rivalry with the local competitors
Chemnitzer BC
Chemnitzer BC was a German association football club playing in Chemnitz, Saxony. The club was established 2 December 1899 as ''Chemnitzer Sportclub Britannia'' and was a founding member of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußbal ...
.
In 1932, PSV managed to reach the
Central German football championship final against
Dresdner SC
Dresdner Sportclub 1898 e.V., known simply as Dresdner SC, is a German multisport club playing in Dresden, Saxony. Founded on 30 April 1898, the club was a founding member of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund) in 1900. The ...
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
The 1932 German football championship, the 25th edition of the competition, ended with the first national title for FC Bayern Munich. The title was won with a 2–0 over Eintracht Frankfurt. It was a replay of the Southern German championship fin ...
, 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
The Gauliga Saxony was the highest football league in the German state of Saxony (German:''Sachsen'') from 1933 to 1945. Shortly after the formation of the league, the Nazis reorganised the administrative regions in Germany, and the Gau Saxony r ...
was inaugurated in 1933. Helmchen with his club in the debut season 1933–34 finished third behind Dresdner SC and