Nahum Stelmach

Nahum Stelmach was born in 1936 in Petah Tikva

Stelmach was born in 1936 in Petah Tikva to a Jewish family. As a primary school pupil he joined the youth teams of Hapoel Petah Tikva. He first played for the senior team in early 1952.

With Hapoel Petah Tikva he won 6 championships, 5 of them in a row, and 1 State Cup. He scored 152 league goals for the club and declined offers from Arsenal and Fenerbahçe. For a time he also worked as an information clerk at Beilinson Hospital.

For Israel he played 61 games, often as captain, and scored 22 goals, most of them headers, which earned him the nickname "the golden head". In 1956 he scored against the USSR at Ramat Gan Stadium in an Olympic qualifier that Israel lost 2:1. Israel won the Asian Cup in 1964.

He began coaching at Bnei Yehuda in 1969 and later coached clubs including Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel Haifa and Hapoel Be'er Sheva. In 1984 he was charged in a bribery and match fixing case from 1977. He was convicted of conspiracy and acquitted of bribery, and on appeal his sentence became a suspended one.

In the 1990s he coached an Israeli youth team and headed the sports unit at Tel Aviv University. As assistant coach of the national team, he died of a heart attack in Spain in 1999 before a qualifier. The VIP box at Ramat Gan Stadium was later named after him.