1.
German Football Association
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The German Football Association is the governing body of football in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of the mens and womens national teams, the DFB headquarters are based in Frankfurt am Main. Sole members of the DFB are the German Football League, organising the professional Bundesliga, Bundesliga, along with five regional and 21 state associations, organising the semi-professional and amateur levels. The 21 state associations of the DFB have a number of more than 25,000 clubs with more than 6.8 million members. From 1875 to the mid-1880s, the first kind of football played in Germany was according to rugby rules, later, association-style football teams formed separate clubs, and since 1890, they began to organise on regional and national levels. The DFB was founded on 28 January 1900 in Leipzig by representatives of 86 clubs, the vote held to establish the association was 62,22 in favour. Some delegates present represented more than one club, but may have voted only once, other delegates present did not carry their clubs authority to cast a ballot. The DFB consolidated the number of state-based German regional competitions in play for a single recognized national title for the season 1902/03. The German national team played its first game in 1908, before 1914, the German Empire was much larger than todays Germany, comprising Alsace-Lorraine and the eastern provinces. The borders of the associations were drawn according to suitable railway connections. Also, teams based in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary, were eligible, as they were German Football clubs, thus, a German team from Prague was runner-up in the German championship. On the other hand, clubs of the Danish minority in Northern Schleswig refused to join the DFB and this area after World War I voted to join Denmark. Due to border changes imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, the DFB had to adopt its structure, the Saarland, Danzig, and the Memelland were detached from Germany and East Prussia was cut off from the main part by the Polish Corridor. The role of DFB and its representatives like Felix Linnemann under Nazi Germany was documented in 100 Jahre DFB, on a short general meeting on 9 July 1933 in Berlin, the DFB did so, at least formally. Later, the Hitler salute was made compulsory, Marxists and Jews were expelled, on the pitch, Germany had done well in 1934, but after a 0–2 loss in the 1936 Summer Olympics, with Adolf Hitler attending, the DFB and football fell from grace. Germany had made a bid to host the 1938 World Cup, following the Anschluss in March 1938 that made Austria part of Germany, the Austrian Football Association became part of the German federation. Four Germans represented West Europe in a FIFA friendly on 20 June 1937 in Amsterdam, during the war, Germany played international games until 1942. In the aftermath of World War II, German organisations were disbanded by the allies, FIFA decided in November 1945 to ban the no longer existing DFB from international competition, while the Austrian association was re-founded
2.
Karlsruher FV
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Karlsruher FV is a German association football club that plays in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg. Established on 17 November 1891, KFV was a member of the German Football Association in 1900. The team went on to capture the championship in 1910 with a 1–0 victory over Holstein Kiel. Folding in 2004, the club reformed in 2007, KFV co-founder Walther Bensemann established Internationalen FC Karlsruhe, the first football team in south Germany, in 1889. This club became part of KFV in 1894 and he also had a hand in founding the Frankfurter Kickers a predecessor side to Eintracht Frankfurt. As well, Bensemann established kicker, Germanys first football magazine, KFV was one of Germanys most successful sides in the years before the First World War. The club captured the South German title eight times from 1901 to 1912, leading to national final appearances in 1905,1910, KFVs championship was earned under the direction of English coach William Townley, a prominent figure in the early history of the game in Germany. KFV figures in the story of Germanys first national championship in 1903 which was won by VfB Leipzig in a 7,2 victory over DFC Prague. Prag was awarded a win by forfeit when their opponents failed to show and it has never been discovered who sent the telegram and people from Karlsruhe still search to this day to find who was responsible. Denied a place in the final, Karlsruhe did manage to arrange to challenge Leipzig the following year in a match representing the contest that might have been. KFV also played a key role in the national final of 1904. Beaten 1,6 by Britannia Berlin in a match played in Berlin. Ultimately, the DFB cancelled the final and the Viktoria trophy was not awarded that year, from 1908, the club played in the new Südkreis-Liga, which it won in 1910,1911 and 1912. In 1909, Phönix Karlsruhe, known today as Karlsruher SC, KFVs win the following year makes Karlsruhe one of only three cities in Germany that have been home to two or more national football champions. The others are Munich and Berlin, while playing for the national team in 1912, KFVs Gottfried Fuchs scored 10 goals in a contest against Russia to set a German international match record that still stands. KFV made its re-appearance after the First World War, first in the Kreisliga Südwest and then in the Bezirksliga Württemberg-Baden, Gruppe Baden with the capture of the league championship in 1926. While they went on to dominate their division, the team was not able to make its way out of the South German league playoffs and back onto the national stage. From 1925 to 1931 Jimmy Lawrence, the record holding former Newcastle United goal keeper, in 1933, Karlsruher FV took up play in the Gauliga Baden, one of the sixteen first division leagues established in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich
3.
Berliner SV 1892
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Berliner SV1892 is a German association football club from the district of Wilmersdorf, Berlin. BSV1892 is one of the countrys oldest clubs and was a member of the DFB in 1900. The club was managed in 1914 by the Hall of Famer Steve Bloomer, the club also operates a rugby union department, Berliner SV92 Rugby, which, in 1948, reached the German rugby union championship final. The team first appeared in the top flight competition in 1899. In July 1914, after retiring as a player, England national football team, however within three weeks of arriving the First World War broke out and Bloomer found himself interned at Ruhleben, a civilian detention camp in the Spandau district of Berlin. BTuFC Britannia was scheduled to appear in the 1904 national final against VfB Leipzig, however, the match was never played. Britannia had earlier defeated Karlsruher FV6,1 in a game played in Berlin, KFV protested the result because the match had not been played at a neutral venue as required under league rules. The DFB cancelled the match which was to be held in Kassel. After World War I the club merged with BFC Fortuna and dropped its name association with wartime foe Britain to become Berliner Sport Verein 92, the team played as a mid-table side in the Verbandsliga Berlin-Brandenburg/Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg throughout the 20s and into the early 30s. After the re-organization of German football into sixteen top flight divisions under the Third Reich in 1933, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, their field, BSV92 Field, hosted some of the handball games while the stadium itself hosted the track cycling events. They won divisional titles in 1936 and 1938, and won the Danzig Pokal in 1939, in each case the club was unable to advance beyond the preliminary round of the national playoffs. BSV was re-formed as SG Wilmersdorf and resumed playing in the Berlin league in 1945 and they won Gruppe A and then took the league title in a four-team playoff. The Berlin league became the Oberliga Berlin the next season and Wilmersdorf earned two consecutive second-place finishes. The club took on its old name for the 1948–49 season, the team did not seriously challenge again through the late 1950s and early 1960s. When the Bundesliga, Germanys new professional league, was formed in 1963. 1974 brought the beginning of a slide that would see the team descend through the Amateurliga Berlin to the Landesliga Berlin by the end of the decade, by the turn of the millennium BSV was playing seventh division football in the Bezirksliga Berlin. Today the team plays in the Kreisliga Berlin A, Staffel 2, thorball or torball was a German word in use in the 1890s and early 1900s for the sport of cricket. Several early clubs playing the new English games of football, rugby, the term never caught on and did not enter into common usage, soon being abandoned by sports clubs
4.
Brandenburg football championship
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The Brandenburg football championship was the highest association football competition in the Prussian Province of Brandenburg, including Berlin, established in 1898. The competition was disbanded in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis to power, German football was, from its beginnings, divided into regional associations, which carried out their own championship, which often pre-dated the national German championship. With the interception of the later in 1903, the former became qualifying tournaments for it, at the end of the Second World War, some resumed, now in league format. Others completely disappeared, like the Baltic championship, as the territories they were held in were not part of Germany any more, with the South West German football championship, a new regional competition also appeared in 1945. Ultimately, with the formation of the Fußball-Bundesliga, all this regional championships ceased altogether, the Prussian province of Brandenburg was largely identical to what is now the federal state of Brandenburg, except for the areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, which are now part of Poland. Berlin was separated politically from the province in 1881 and significantly enlarged in size through the Greater Berlin Act of 1920, clubs from city of Berlin were part of, and indeed, dominated the Brandenburg football championship. The outcome of the First World War and change of Prussia to a Free State had little influence on the competition as, unlike other regions of Germany, Brandenburg did not lose any territory. In the late 1890s, a number of football associations were formed in the Berlin and Brandenburg region. Separate workers and faith-based competitions active in Berlin were also absorbed into the new leagues, the Verband Deutscher Ballspielvereine, a Berlin-based association of German football clubs was formed on 11 September 1897. In May 1902, it was renamed as the Verband Berliner Ballspielvereine to reflect its geographical alignment, in April 1911, the two associations merged to form the Verband Brandenburgischer Ballspielvereine. In 1933, after the rise of the Nazis to power, the Brandenburg football championship was first played in 1898, when eight clubs competed in a league format for it. The number of games played by each team varied greatly but the top four clubs each played nine games with the top three ending up on equal points. To determine the champion, a two leg decider was played between Britannia Berlin and BFC Preussen with the former winning both games and earning its first league title. In its second edition, only six clubs participated, all from the city of Berlin, because of the top two teams finishing on equal points, a final had to be played once more, this time BFC Preussen coming out the winner. Expanded to nine clubs for 1900, the champion won the Brandenburg title outright at this edition. The finals were held in a two leg format but because each team won one game, a match had to be held to decide the winner. For 1903, the returned to a single division format. Additionally, the league received some competition with the March football championship being introduced, organised by the rival Märkischer Fußball-Bund
5.
1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig
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The team won the 2015-16 NOFV-Oberliga Süd and qualified for the 2016–17 Regionalliga Nordost, where it will face former East German champions FC Carl Zeiss Jena and BFC Dynamo. The club was formed on 26 May 1896 out of the department of gymnastics club Allgemeine Turnverein 1845 Leipzig. The union lasted until 2 May 1900 when the two went their separate ways again. VfB Leipzig was one of the original eighty-six teams that came together in the city in 1900 to form the German Football Association and they were immediately successful at their chosen sport and made their way to the first German national championship final held in 1903. Their opponents were DFC Prag, an ethnically German side from Prague, the DFB had invited German clubs of this sort from other countries in order to boost numbers in their new national association. DFC Prag had made their way to the final under circumstances that had allowed them to playing a single playoff game. Arriving in Hamburg for the match, the heavily favoured Pragers took themselves off on a pub crawl the night before the contest. The contest against was delayed half an hour as officials scrambled to find a football that was in good condition, the host, FC93 Altona Hamburg, provided a new ball and eleven minutes in, DFC Prag scored the first goal. Leipzig played themselves into another final appearance in 1904, but the match was never contested, a protest by FV Karlsruhe over their disputed semi-final with Britannia Berlin was never resolved and the DFB called off the final only hours before its scheduled start. There would be no champion that year, the following season Leipzig found themselves unable to cover the expense of travelling to participate in their scheduled first round playoff match and so were eliminated from that years competition. They did, however, go on to raise the Viktoria again in 1906 and 1913, in the period leading up to World War II, VfB was unable to repeat their early success. After the re-organization of German football leagues under the Third Reich in 1933, while they earned good results within their own division, they were unable to advance in the playoff rounds. In 1937, they captured the Tschammerpokal, known today as the German Cup, in a match against FC Schalke 04, the dominant side of the era. The club, like most other organizations in Germany, including sports, club members reconstituted the team in 1946 as SG Probstheida under the auspices of the occupying Soviets. In 1963 Leipzigs two most important clubs – SC Rotation and SC Lokomotive Leipzig – were put together resulting in two new sides being founded – SC Leipzig and BSG Chemie Leipzig. East German football went through a general re-organization in 1965, creating football clubs as centres of high-level football, FC Lokomotive Leipzig, while rivals Chemie Leipzig continued as a Betriebssportgemeinschaft, or a company team. Lok earned a clutch of East German Cups with victories in 1976,1981,1986 and 1987 against failed appearances in the Cup final in 1970,1973 and 1977. They also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1966 and made an appearance in the 1987 final of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup falling 0,1 to Johan Cruijffs Ajax Amsterdam after a Marco van Basten goal
6.
Central German football championship
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The competition was disbanded in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis to power. German football was, from its beginnings, divided into regional associations, which carried out their own championship, with the interception of the later in 1903, the former became qualifying tournaments for it but these regional championships still held a high value for the local clubs. At the end of the Second World War, some resumed, others completely disappeared, like the Baltic championship, as the territories they were held in were not part of Germany any more. With the South West German football championship, a new regional competition also appeared in 1945, ultimately, with the formation of the Fußball-Bundesliga, all this regional championships ceased altogether. The number of states in the Thuringia region formed the new state of that name, with the exception of Coburg. In late 1900, the Verband Mitteldeutscher Ballspiel Vereine followed, three month later, the Verband Dresdner Ballspiel-Vereine was formed in Dresden, in August 1903, the Verband Chemnitzer Ballspielvereine was formed in Chemnitz and, last, the Verband Plauener Ballspielvereine came into existence in Plauen. In 1933, all of those were disbanded by the Nazis, the Central German football championship was first played in 1902, but little is known about the first year other than the final. The championship was staged as a competition with a one-leg final at the end. Regional champions were determined to establish who the clubs for the Central German championship were. In 1903, in the year of the competition, a German football championship was established. The team, VfB Leipzig achieved distinction by becoming the first German champions, defeating DFC Prag 7-2 in the final and establishing Central Germany as an early power house of German football. VfB became the dominant side in the pre-First World War era of the competition, also winning another German title in 1906 and 1913 and making a losing appearance in the 1911 and 1914 final. No other club from Central Germany enjoyed a form of success. From 1903, three teams took part in the championship, the champions of the Leipzig, Dresden and Magdeburg region and this was expanded to four teams when the champion of the Chemnitz area joined the Central German championship. From 1908, seven teams competed in the finals, making it necessary to establish a quarter-final round. In 1910, the competition was expanded to nine teams, the year after to twelve, in its last pre-war season,1914,21 clubs participated, making a qualifying round necessary. In 1913, a different system was used, splitting the region in two according to their playing strength. The winners of the two met in a final, which was predictably won by the team from the stronger group
7.
SV Victoria 96 Magdeburg
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Viktoria 96 Magdeburg was a German football club playing in the Cracau district of Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt. The club was founded under the name Victoria on 26 June 1896 by twelve ninth-graders of Magdeburgs Guericke-Realschule, soon renamed Magdeburger Fußball-Club Viktoria von 1896, the club played association football exclusively by September 1897. This makes it the citys first football club, on 12 September 1897, Schüler-Victoria, as the club was also called, played their first competitive association football match against the reserve team of Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg. The match ended in a clear 6–3 win for Victoria 96, Victoria 1896 became well known among the countrys football pioneers and soon began to receive payments to make appearances against other clubs. Victoria was a member of the Ring Magdeburger Ballspielvereine, but this was replaced by the Verband Magdeburger Ballspielvereine that was founded in 1900. On 26 December 1900, MFC Victoria 1896 became a member of the Verband Mitteldeutscher Ballspielvereine. Alongside local rival Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg, the club was a member of the German Football Association at Leipzig in 1900. In 1905 the local Magdeburg league merged with the Verband Mitteldeutscher Ballspielvereine, the club played in the Gau Mittelelbe and continued their winning ways with six league titles between 1906 and 1917. Despite this record they were unable to make a return to the national stage, the club grew rapidly at this time and by 1920 had 728 members. Several new sports were adopted with track-and-field and watersports being especially popular, in 1912 the name was changed from Magdeburger FC Victoria 1896 to Sportverein Viktoria 96 Magdeburg and a new logo was introduced. Over the next years the club produced a number of outstanding athletes who became known as they won several national and international titles. The football team, however, became simply a regional side. In 1933 German football was re-organized under the Third Reich into sixteen new top-flight divisions known as Gauligas, Viktoria 96 qualified for play in the Gauliga Mitte where they played until a last place finish and bankruptcy in 1937 drove them out of first division football. The team merged with Männer-Turnverein 1860 Neustadt the following year to form VfL1860 Viktoria Neustadt which was disbanded at the end of World War II in 1945. However, the club had a revival in 2008, but was expelled from league play for failing to pay their fees during the 2008–09 season. The home ground of the club was the Sportplatz am Gübser Damm and it was opened in 1912 in front of 1,500 spectators with a friendly match against Hertha BSC. The stadium hosted the German championship final on 31 May 1914 in a contest that saw SpVgg Fürth beat VfB Leipzig 3,2 in extra time. After the bankruptcy of Viktoria 96 in 1937 the Allianz insurance company became the new owner of the stadium, the stadium was totally destroyed in heavy bombardments by Allied air forces in 1944
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