Jan Banaś

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jan Banaś (born Hans Dieter Banas in March 29, 1943 in the Schönberg district of Berlin), nicknamed Bubi, is a Polish footballer, who began his career as a youngster playing for AKS Mikołów (1956-59) before moving to play for Zryw Chorzów in 1959-62, and then for Polonia Bytom (1962-69) and Górnik Zabrze (1969-75). Between his first call-up for Poland in 1964 and his last in 1973, he earned 31 caps, scoring nine goals (or ten, if the ambiguous goal in the 1973 win over England is credited to him). Aged 32, he was allowed to move to the United States, and then played in a string of countries including Mexico, Belgium, and France well after his fortieth birthday.

Recently he has been coaching low-level Silesian clubs, including Szombierki Bytom.

Like many Polish footballers of German origin, he was tempted to illegally migrate to West Germany, and indeed he did so in 1966 together with Jan Liberda and Norbert Pogrzeba, but was unable to achieve much success even in the German Oberliga, and half a year later he returned and was pardoned by the Polish FA. Apparently one of the conditions of pardon was changing his name to the Polish form, and Banaś took the name Jan in March 1967. Probably because of this adventure, and fear of another defection, Banaś was excluded from the squad to the 1972 Olympic Games and 1974 World Cup, even though play played in qualifiers for both.