Constantin Anghelache (1 May 1920 â 28 September 2015) was a Romanian football midfielder, manager and a World War II veteran.
Anghelache joined Unirea Tricolor BucureÃÂti after being seen by coach Petre Steinbach at a school competition. He played all the minutes in all 24 matches of the 1940âÂÂ41 season, in which Unirea Tricolor won the championship. According to former coach Gheorghe Constantin, during the period Anghelache was a member of the fascist Iron Guard, often donning the organization's characteristic green shirt. He was a student at the National University of Physical Education and Sport (ANEFS), graduating in 1942. During his college years at ANEFS he became one of the best alpine skiers from the university, a performance which convinced the Romanian royal family to hire him to be Prince Michael's ski instructor. In 1944 he fought for the Romanian Armed Forces in World War II as a sub-lieutenant, being the only survivor of the footballers from Unirea Tricolor who were incorporated, as his teammates Petre Sucitulescu, Gicu Cristescu, Traian Ionescu and Andrei Alecu died on different battlefields of the Eastern Front. After he returned from the war, he graduated law school in 1947 and continued to play for Unirea Tricolor, being also the team's secretary. In 1947, after the Communist regime came in Romania, the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted Unirea Tricolor to merge with Ciocanul BucureÃÂti in order to create Dinamo BucureÃÂti. Anghelache, together with the club's president Valeriu Negulescu and coach ÃÂtefan Cârjan opposed the merger. All three of them were sent to jail for their past membership in or suspected sympathy for the fascist Iron Guard. They later claimed the arrests were the result of their opposition to the merger. In 1949 Angheleache received a two years and four months sentence which was served in the Jilava and Aiud prisons.
After he was released from jail, he moved to BacÃÂu, where he worked at the Letea factory and started his coaching career at the factory's team from the third division. He later had a few spells at Metalul Câmpina, but in 1958 he was banned from coaching because of political reasons, so he worked illegally, being an unofficial coach at Dinamo BacÃÂu, Poiana Câmpina and Tractorul BraÃÂov. In 1970, Anghelache founded the High School of Football BacÃÂu, which was the first football high school with a football program in Romania, where he worked as a teacher. From 1970 until the early 1980s he coached children and juniors at the high school he founded and at the FCM BacÃÂu and Tractorul BraÃÂov clubs, teaching generations of players, 67 of them reaching the senior or junior national teams of Romania including Sorin Avram, Vasile ÃÂoiman and Costel Solomon.
In 1995 he was named Honorary member of the Romanian Football Federation. Anghelache kept all the writings of his former Unirea Tricolor coach, ÃÂtefan Cârjan who died in 1978, releasing in 1996 the volume titled ÃÂn slujba unui rege â fotbalul (In the service of a king â football), which is a romanced presentation of Unirea Tricolor's history. On 28 May 2010 he was awarded the Honorary Citizen of BacÃÂu title. Since 27 September 2012, the stadium known until then as Letea, changed its name into Stadionul Constantin Anghelache in his honor. Anghelache spent the final years of his life in a nursing home from BacÃÂu.
Unirea Tricolor BucureÃÂti