Eduards Freimanis (22 February 1919, in

Liepāja Liepāja (; liv, Līepõ; see #Names and toponymy, other names) is a state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest-city in the Kurzeme Planning Region, Kurzeme Region and the third-largest city in the country after R ...

- 1993) was a former

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

forward, the first Latvian footballer to play with a professional club in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Playing career

Freimanis started playing football in the early 1930s with the youth squad of

Olimpija Liepāja Olimpija Liepāja was a Latvian football club. It was based in Liepāja Liepāja (; liv, Līepõ; see other names) is a state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest-city in the Kurzeme Region and the third-larg ...

. He played with the senior squad of Olimpija from 1937 to 1939, winning two

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 ...

titles. In 1939 he joined JKS Riga. In 1939 Freimanis was first capped for

Latvia national football team The Latvia national football team ( lv, Latvijas futbola izlase) represents Latvia in international football and is controlled by the Latvian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Latvia. They have never qualified for the FIF ...

and scored two goals in his very first international match (he played his second international match the next year). In 1940 when Latvia was annexed 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 former Latvian sports clubs were disbanded, Freimanis joined RAFS 1, later he played with

Dinamo Riga Dinamo Riga ( lv, Rīgas Dinamo) is a professional ice hockey team based in Riga, Latvia. It is a member of the Latvian Hockey Higher League. The club is affiliated with HK Zemgale/LLU. The club was re-founded on 7 April 2008 as a successor of ...

. From 1941 to 1944 he played with Daugavieši and from 1942 to 1944 in the

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

selected team. In 1942 with six goals scored Freimanis was the best goalscorer in the

. After

World War II 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 ...

Freimanis ended up in the West, from 1945 to 1946 he played in

Greven Greven (; Westphalian: ''Graiwen'') is a medium-sized town in the district of Steinfurt, in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia and close to the city of Münster. Geography Greven is situated on the river Ems, approx. 25&n ...

, the next season he moved to

Holstein Kiel Kieler Sportvereinigung Holstein von 1900 e.V., simply as KSV Holstein or Kieler SV Holstein, commonly known as Holstein Kiel (), is a German association football and sports club based in the city of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. From the 1900s thro ...

, helping them to finish runners-up in the

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

championship play-offs in the summer of 1947 and in the following year he settled in

. His first club there was the amateur side Eynesbury Rovers, but in the 1947/1948 season he became the first Latvian footballer to play in a professional English football club as he joined

Peterborough United Peterborough United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Peterborough have a long-standing ...

(in 21 match for the club he scored 22 goals), for two more seasons he played with

Northampton Town F.C. Northampton Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Northampton, England. The team plays in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1897, the club competed in the Midland L ...

, until finally he landed in

Nuneaton Borough Nuneaton Borough Football Club is an English football club that is based in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The men's 1st team competes in the , the seventh tier of English football. In 1889, Nuneaton St. Nicholas FC was the first team in Nuneaton t ...

,Northampton Town transfers
/ref> where he also worked as a coach for some time.

Honours

Club Titles *

: 1938, 1939

Caps

*2 caps for Latvia (2 goals)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freimanis Eduards 1919 births 1993 deaths Latvian footballers Latvia international footballers Northampton Town F.C. players Nuneaton Borough F.C. players Peterborough United F.C. players Eynesbury Rovers F.C. players Sportspeople from Liepāja Association footballers not categorized by position