Ēriks Raisters (26 November 1913 – 25 May 1942) was a Latvian

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 forward. He made 27 international appearances for the Latvia national team between 1934 and 1940.

Club career

Raisters' first senior club was JKS Riga, a club known for raising young players who then left for bigger and stronger sides. Raisters joined the side in 1931 and in his first year the club earned promotion back to the

Latvian Higher League Latvian Higher League or Virslīga, also known as TonyBet Virslīga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Latvia and the highest level of the Latvian football league system. Organised by the Latvian Footbal ...

(Virsliga). Raisters played two more years for JKS and it finished 5th in the league in both years. However, before the 1934 season he joined the most successful Latvian club - RFK Riga for which he played until 1940. Over the years he played with RFK Raisters, won three Latvian league titles and the

Latvian Cup The Latvian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Latvian football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Gaming Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due to the sponsorship by sports betting company ...

two times (in 1937 and 1939).Miķelis Rubenis - History of Latvian football After Latvia was taken over by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the former's sports clubs were disbanded Raisters was selected to play for FK Dinamo Riga in 1940. The next year he played for Belarusian team Dynamo Minsk.
Football in Latvia 1907-1940, biography Eriks Raisters (Latvian language), accessed 15 March 2022.

International career

Raisters made his international début for Latvia national football team, Latvia on 10 June 1934 in a friendly match against

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, the only match he played for the national team in 1934. He became a regular in the national team in 1935. In his second match for Latvia (against Lithuania once again) on 30 May 1935 Raisters scored his first goal for the country. In total he played four matches for Latvia in 1935, two in 1936, eight in 1937, eight in 1938, three in 1939 and one in 1940 - in the last international match for Latvia before 1992. With 27 appearances (and six scored goals) for the Latvia, Raisters was the 11th most capped footballer in the pre-war country.

Personal life and death

Raisters was born in Riga, son of accountant Ernest Raisters and his handcraft teacher wife Berta Antonija (''nee'' Rubene). He was educated at Riga 1st Gymnasium, graduating in 1933. In early 1941, he was arrested and tried for a dispute with a Soviet official and sentenced to 9 years imprisonment or being directed to play for Dynamo Minsk. Later in 1941 he was drafted into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and died during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

in camp at Gorohovica, Gorokhovetsky District in Russia on 25 May 1942. He was buried in the village of Zalino.

Honours

Club

: 1934, 1935, 1940 ( RFK Riga) *

: 1937, 1939

International

* Baltic Cup: 1936, 1937

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Raisters, Eriks 1913 births 1942 deaths Footballers from Riga Latvian men's footballers Soviet men's footballers Men's association football forwards Latvia men's international footballers FC Dinamo Minsk players Soviet military personnel killed in World War II