EXTRA TIME

Wembley Toni

February 7, 2025 at 10:14 pm 1 comment

John Barbuti wrote an interesting piece on Austrian footballer Toni Fritsch in BBC Football Extra. Ahead of this weekend‘s Super Bowl and on the day when Austrian football finished its winter break, we remember a player who scored historic goals for the Austrian national team at the home of football, even earning him the nickname “Wembley Toni”, before switching to American Football, setting records and winning the Super Bowl. Toni is unique in having been an international footballer who went on to have a successful NFL career.

Aged 20, he was a promising striker for Rapid Vienna but would have been almost completely unknown to English football fans until he scored twice in five minutes as Austria beat England, twice coming from behind, 3-2 (0-1) on 20 October 1965 at Wembley, highlights available thanks to British Pathé.

This was an England side just months away from becoming World Champions, an England side that had only ever lost twice at home to sides outside the UK and an England side expected to thrash Austria.

Toni had other ideas, almost single-handidly silencing 65,000 fans when he scored in the 73rd and 80th minute but, alas, this was not to be the start of a very glorious football career. Toni three times won the Austrian Nationalliga and twice the ÖFB Cup with Rapid Vienna, but no further international goals would follow in nine matches, and also for Rapid the striker didn’t hit the back of the net regularly in his 123 league games for the green-whites.

Therefore aged 26, Toni thought that a change was needed, and it came when NFL side Dallas Cowboys set up their “Kicking Karavan” in Vienna and Toni had a trial with them. His first attempts at scoring field goals with the egg-shaped football were pretty successful. The scouts put a deal to Toni, the new recruit putting pen to paper on a contract he probably understood little of not knowing a word of English. 

‌As if written by Hollywood, Fritsch’s kicking success helped the Cowboys to the Super Bowl in his first season (1971), but injury ruled him out of the game itself. He had earned his Super Bowl Ring though and next season his influence only grew, setting a franchise record for field goals. He also, as you can watch here, introduced the Rabona to the NFL, using it at a crucial moment in a playoff game.

Fritsch’s NFL career lasted from 1971 to 1982 and was very successful. He had seasons leading the league for kicking points scored and three where he was top for field goal kicking percentage. He received Pro Bowl and All Bowl honours and 20 years after winning the Austrian title in football, was coming out of retirement to play for the Houston Gamblers where he would have an 84% field goal success rate.

He was to settle in Houston, but regularly returned to his birth city of Vienna. Tragically, on one such visit, he died aged 60, suffering a heart attack on 13 September 2005. Tickets were found in his jacket for the following night’s Champions League clash between Rapid Vienna and Bayern Munich. The crowd observed a minute of silence in his honour. In 2011, the “Toni-Fritsch-Weg” in Vienna-Floridsdorf (21st district) was named after him.

What an extraordinary story written by the ex-Rapid Vienna player Toni Fritsch!

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