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 le ...

who played as a

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. 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 is a professional football league and the top tier of association football in Latvia. Organised by the Latvian Football Federation, the Higher League is contested by 10 clubs. The full name of the league is Op ...

(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 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 Single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in Latvian Football (soccer), football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Game Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due ...

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

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and the former's sports clubs were disbanded Raisters was selected to play for

FK Dinamo Riga FK or fk may refer to: In arts and entertainment: * Flyer Killer, fictional automated robots in the ''Terminator'' film franchise. * Fox Kids, a former American children's television programming block. * Funky Kong, a video game character. Place: ...

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 (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), 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. Lithuania ...

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, 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 (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

and died during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in camp at Gorohovica,

Gorokhovetsky District Gorokhovetsky District (russian: Горохове́цкий райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #130-OZ and municipalLaw #56-OZ district (raion), one of the sixteen in Vladimir Oblast, Russia. It is located in the east of the oblast. The area of ...

in Russia on 25 May 1942. He was buried in the village of Zalino.

Honours

Club

: 1934, 1935, 1940 ( RFK) *

: 1937, 1939

International

* Baltic Cup: 1936, 1937

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Raisters, Ēriks 1913 births 1942 deaths Footballers from Riga Latvian footballers Soviet footballers Association football forwards Latvia international footballers FC Dinamo Minsk players Soviet military personnel killed in World War II