John Hansen (footballer born 1924)

John Hansen

Personal information
Full name	John Angelo Valdemar Østergaard Hansen
Date of birth	June 24, 1924
Place of birth	Copenhagen, Denmark
Date of death	January 12, 1990(1990-01-12) (aged 65)
Place of death	Copenhagen, Denmark
Height	1.87 m (6 ft 2 in)
Playing position	Left inside wing
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1943-1948	BK Frem	86	(81)
1948-1954	Juventus FC	187	(124)
1954-1955	S.S. Lazio	27	(15)
1957-1960	BK Frem	28	(32)
National team
1947	Denmark U23	1	(1)
1948	Denmark	8	(10)
Teams managed
1956-1957	BK Frem
1969	Denmark
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

John Angelo Valdemar Østergaard Hansen, known simply as John Hansen, (June 24, 1924 – January 12, 1990) was a Danish footballer who played professionally for seven years in Italy. He scored 124 goals in 187 matches for Juventus FC, and won two Serie A championships with the club, finishing as Capocannoniere top-goal scorer in the 1950 Serie A season . He also played for Italian club SS Lazio, and won the 1944 Danish championship with childhood club BK Frem. Hansen scored 10 goals in eight games for the Denmark national football team in 1948, and won a bronze medal with Denmark at the 1948 Summer Olympics. In 1984, Hansen received the Italian order of chivalry.

He was the son of Danish national team player Niels Peder Hansen and the father of Henning Hansen, who played for BK Frem in the late 1960s and early 1970s..

Biography

Born in Frederiksberg, Hansen started his career with Copenhagen club BK Frem, with whom he won the 1944 Danish championship. He played as an left inside wing, and was a world-class header of the ball. He was the top goal-scorer of the 1948 Danish championship.

Hansen made his debut for the Danish national team in June 1948. He was not well known outside Scandinavia until he played at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, which made his name well-known across Europe. Hansen scored seven goals in four games at the tournament, including four goals in Denmark's 5-3 win against Italy, as Denmark won bronze medals. He drew the attention of several Italian teams, and signed a professional contract in 1948, which spelled the end of his career at the amateur-only Danish national team.

Hansen was almost sold to Italian club AC Torino, but arch rival Torino club Juventus FC eventually secured Hansen's signature. BK Frem's president got a call from a director at Nordisk FIAT Copenhagen, referred by FIAT and Juventus owner Gianni Agnelli, who desperately wanted him to sign Hansen for his club. Hansen promptly signed a three-year contract with them on 16 November 1948 and made his debut three days later against A.S. Bari. His first season didn't start well for a tall and strong man not used to work on defense, and after 12 games the Italian national team coach was called just to verify that he was the same player who had scored the four goals against them at the Olympics. Hansen ended his first season with 15 goals in 24 games.

In his second season, Jesse Carver replaced fellow Englishman William Chalmers as head coach of Juventus, and a less rigid and physically demanding training schedule paid off for Hansen. In the 1949-50 Juventus team, Hansen had an irreplaceable partner in another Danish player from the 1948 Olympics team, Karl Aage Præst. Præst was a left winger with electric dribbling skills who scattered opponents through the field and produced precise crosses to Hansen, who netted them thanks to his violent and precise header. Juventus won the 1949-50 Serie A championship with Hansen scoring 28 goals in 37 games.

In 1950, they were joined by another Dane, captain of the 1948 Olympic team Karl Aage Hansen, who came from Serie A league rivals Atalanta Bergamo. The great level of understanding of those three great Danes made John Hansen feel as if he could play with his eyes closed, showing all of his skills. Not the kind of player to be present at every moment during a game, he was a very prolific goal scorer. Though he was not fast by Serie A standard, he was smart at the moment of getting unmarked and losing his defender, and had an incredible feeling for being at the right spot on the right moment. In the 1951-52 season, Hansen scored 30 goals, earning him the "Capocannoniere" Serie A top goal-scorer title, as he won his second Serie A championship with Juventus. He spent six seasons at Juventus where he scored 124 goals in 187 games in the Serie A.

He moved to league rivals SS Lazio in 1954, where he played for one season and scored 15 goals in 27 games. He ended his Italian adventure in 1955 and moved back to play amateur football in Denmark. As a former professional, he received a two-year quarantine by the Danish Football Association, which he spent coaching BK Frem alongside Erling Sørensen. He played for BK Frem from 1957 to 1960, before ending his playing career.

Hansen was a part of the committee which selected the players for the Danish national team. While serving in the committee, he was interim manager of the national team in 1969, starting from February 1969. He managed Denmark to five victories, one draw, and three defeats in nine games. When Rudi Strittich was named national team coach in 1970, Hansen went back to only serving in the committee, which was ultimately disbanded in 1979.

Honours

Olympic medal record
Men's Football
Bronze	London 1948	Team Competition

Individual

• Danish 1st Division Top Goalscorer: 1947-48
• Italian Serie A Top Goalscorer: 1951-52

Team

• Danish football championship: 1943-44 with Frem
• Italian Serie A championships: 1949-50 and 1951-52 with Juventus