Feridun Buğeker

Feridun Buğeker — Biography

Feridun Buğeker was one of the few national-team players to pursue football and architecture side by side; he was a forward in the squad of Turkey's first World Cup, in 1954. He is counted among Fenerbahçe's former players and is known as one of the first Turkish footballers to play in German football. He died in Istanbul in 2014 and was buried at Feriköy Cemetery.

He played for neighbourhood sides as a boy and moved to Beyoğluspor in 1949. In 1952 he transferred to Fenerbahçe, scoring against Beykozspor in his first match; in the club's 1952-53 Istanbul championship side, known as the "Küçük Şeytanlar", he scored 6 goals in 18 matches. He wore Fenerbahçe's shirt until 1955 and also played for Göztepe. His national-team displays caught the eye of Stuttgarter Kickers, and he began playing in the Oberliga; in his first season he scored 4 goals in 17 games, the club's third-highest scorer, but in later seasons he got very few chances. After completing his architecture studies he returned to Turkey in 1963, trained with Fenerbahçe but signed no official contract, and gave up football.

His link with architecture began at Istanbul Technical University. The German architect Paul Bonatz, whose classes he attended there, took him along when he moved to the University of Stuttgart, and so he learned the Stuttgart School on the spot. He made his national-team debut on 25 May 1953 in the win over Switzerland in Bern, was in the squad that eliminated Spain to reach the World Cup, and earned five senior caps in all.