Lupeni is one of the most important towns in the Jiu Valley. It is a municipality with around 23,000 inhabitants. It is located 18 km from Petroșani, at the foot of the Vâlcan Mountains, is crossed by the river Jiul de Vest and takes its name from the inhabitants who founded the settlement in 1770, who came from the village of Valea Lupului (in the Hațeg area), the so-called “lupeni”.

In 1929 and 1977, the town was the scene of major miners’ revolts, the first against the inter-war capitalist regime and the second against the communist system.

Lupeni is the starting point for winter sports enthusiasts who want to get to Straja, the area’s famous ski resort.

Minerul Lupeni, the second most valuable and successful football team in the Jiului Valley, was founded just after the First World War, in 1920, a year after Jiul Petrosani. At their foundation, the names of the two clubs were Jiul Lupeni and CAMP respectively.

In 1928, Jiul Lupeni (which the previous year had absorbed CAMP Petroșani and Minerul Vulcan) reached the final of the national championship, losing to Colțea Brașov (2-3). The team from the Jiului Valley: Ioan Kiss – Szabados, Rupp – Al. Berkessy, Szüle, Gentl – Kertesz, Guga, Bognar, Killianovitz, Meszner. The coach was Adalbert Szabo, former player at Chinezul Timisoara!

Guga was the legendary Aurel Guga (Romania’s captain in the first match in the national team’s history, in 1922), who played for the Romanian national team while he was also a member of Jiul Lupeni, as did Ioan Kiss and Killianovitz.

In 1929 the “merger” was dissolved and the club adopted the name Minerul. During the inter-war period, the Lupeni team played in the C and B divisions. After the Second World War it continued in B, under various names in the 1950s (Partizanul, Flacăra, Minerul, Energia). From 1958 it reverted to the name Minerul, which it bore until it was abolished in 2011.

Between 1959-63, Minerul Lupeni even played in the first division! With Vasile Lazăr as head coach and Adalbert Pall (former ITA Arad international) as assistant coach, it was promoted in 1959, with young Creiniceanu (20 years old), the future left winger of Stelei and the Romanian national team at the 1964 Olympic Games, who was even born in Lupeni, and veteran Paraschiva, former right winger of the Romanian national team at the 1952 Olympic Games, when he was also playing in the Jiului Valley, for Flacăra Petrosani (now Jiul). The latter would also play for Lupeneni in his first season in the elite, 1959/60, playing his last match in Divizia A on November 15, 1959, Progresul București – Minerul Lupeni 7-0, when he was 40 years old, one month and 12 days!

In the first division, they occupied 11th (1960, 1961, 1962) and 14th (second last) places, being relegated in 1963. During this period it was also quarter-finalist in the Romanian Cup in 1960.

After a long period (no less than 19 years!) in Division C, it was relegated to the second division in 2005.

It disbanded in 2010, when it was in Liga II, season 2010/11.

A year later, in 2011, Hercules Lupeni was founded, and there was no connection between the two clubs. Hercules only made it to the promotion play-off for Liga III and disbanded in 2018.

In 2021 Minerul Lupeni was re-established, under the full name Viitorul Minerul Lupeni.

Other important players who played at Minerul Lupeni were Onisie (later with the great CCA Bucharest team and international in the 50s), Peretz (international in the 50s), Stocker (player at Jiul Petrosani in the 70s), Tonca (formerly at Jiul Petrosani in the 70s), Moise (later the goalkeeper with which Politehnica Timișoara knocked Celtic out of the 1980 Cup Cup Winners’ Cup), Lasconi, Mircea Popa, Burchel (all later internationals in the 1980s), Csik I (former Politehnica Timișoara and Steaua player in the 1990s), Tâlvan (former international in the 1990s) and Bălgrădean (until the summer goalkeeper at CFR Cluj, former international).

Among the coaches, let’s also mention former internationals Carol Creiniceanu and Ionel Augustin.

***

An extremely interesting character with a fabulous history who played for Minerul Lupeni was Berkessy III.

Elemer Berkessy III, born on June 20, 1905 in Oradea (a city under Austro-Hungarian rule at the time), was an ethnic Hungarian who began playing football in Romania after the Great Union: he played for CAO Oradea, CAMP Petrosani and Fulgerul CFR Chișinău between 1921-1927.

Between 1927-1928 he played for Jiul Lupeni, later called Minerul. It was the very season in which Lupeni reached the final of the national championship! He had two football-playing brothers, both also from the Ji Valley, one of whom, Alexandru Berkessy, was his team-mate at Lupeni and later became head of the club’s football section.

In 1928 he moved abroad, to Ferencvaros, then to RC Paris. He never played for the “tricolor” national team, but instead played for Hungary as a midfielder (7 caps) between 1928-1930, when he was with Ferencvaros.

He became the first Romanian to play for Barcelona between 1934-1936, the second after the war being the ripensist Simatoc. In 1936, Berkessy won the Catalan championship (a regional championship in Spain) with Barcelona, and he also played one match for the Catalan regional team in 1936.

He ended his playing career in 1938 at Le Havre.

He then became a coach. He started in Hungary, then went to Italy, and in 1951 he took charge of Zaragoza in the Spanish elite, becoming the first Romanian coach in the history of the First Division. He stayed until the following year, then in 1954 he achieved another first, becoming the first non-British foreign coach in the English Championship, at Grimsby Town in the Third Division. He returned to Spain’s top flight, taking charge of Espanol Barcelona (Espanol was the spelling of the club’s name at the time) from 1957-1958. He also coached Barcelona’s youth center.

So several firsts to his credit: the first Romanian player in Barcelona’s history, the first Romanian coach in the history of the First Division, the first non-British coach in the history of the English championship!

Berkessy III was, however, considered Hungarian both as a player and as a coach. But he was Romanian, of Hungarian nationality, because he was born in Romania and started football in Romania. He was also known as Emilio or Emil.

He died in 1993 in Barcelona.

Photo: Guga (source: Wikipedia)