Alberts Tarulis

Alberts Tarulis (1906 - September 24, 1927) was a Latvian football midfielder who had very promising prospects with the Latvia national football team but committed suicide aged just 21.

Biography

Tarulis became a regular player with Amatieris - the oldest Latvian football club (all older football clubs in Latvia were mostly either German of British) in 1925 as the club finished fourth in the Riga football league. By that time Amatieris wasn't an especially strong sports club as most of better Riga footballers were playing with RFK or JKS Riga and Amatieris had only two stars left - Augusts Skiltriters and Pēteris Lauks. Despite his young age Tarulis soon became the leader of the club which finished third in the Riga league in 1926.

For the first time Tarulis was called up to the national football team before the July 20, 1926 international friendly against Sweden [ [http://www.periodika.lv/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_LATVIAARCHL&Type=text/html&Locale=latvian-skin-custom&Path=LAK/1926/07/03&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00404&PageLabel=4 Latvia - Sweden national match] ] . He participated in a training match against LNJS Riga and scored one goal in it [ [http://www.periodika.lv/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_LATVIAARCHL&Type=text/html&Locale=latvian-skin-custom&Path=LAK/1926/07/09&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00403&PageLabel=4 National football team - LNJS 5:0] ] . However Tarulis wasn't selected to play against Sweden and had to await his international début for one more year.

In 1927 Tarulis participated in a friendly match where a combined Amatieris, LSB Riga and RFK squad played against the Czech club SK Židenice [ [http://www.periodika.lv/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_LATVIAARCHL&Type=text/html&Locale=latvian-skin-custom&Path=LAK/1927/07/07&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00407&PageLabel=4 Combined side - Židenice 2:2] ] .

Tarulis played his first and only official international match for Latvia on September 11, 1927 as it lost 1-3 in a friendly against Finland in Helsinki.

Just three weeks later after a fight with his mother committed suicide by hanging himself [ [http://www.periodika.lv/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_LATVIAARCHL&Type=text/html&Locale=latvian-skin-custom&Path=LAK/1927/09/27&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00306&PageLabel=3 Footballer Tarulis gone in a tragic death] ] .

References