Dresden English Football Club

Dresden English Football Club

The Dresden English Football Club (also known as Dresden Football Club) was a sports club for athletics , rugby and soccer . It was founded on October 18, 1873 by the English living in Dresden and is one of the oldest rugby and soccer clubs in Germany.

The beginnings

An English newspaper from November 1873 reported that the Dresden Football Club was founded on October 18th. In April 1874 the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung reported on the Anglo-American football club in Dresden. The approximately 70 members held a competition in ten athletics disciplines on March 28, 1874. This was repeated in the following years. The high reputation that the association enjoyed is also evident from the fact that the Saxon royal couple was present at the events in 1875.

The club, which appears in many other records than Dresden English Football Club (DFC), was founded by English people who stayed in the up-and-coming industrial city of Dresden for work and did not want to do without their favorite sport, football. It is one of the first football clubs on the continent. Back then, the term soccer was not only understood to mean today's soccer game ( Association Football ), but also the version with picking up the ball by hand (rugby). "The rules of the rugby school were taken over with slight adjustments to suit the conditions such as the ground, etc." From November 1873, interclub games were carried out according to rugby rules. The chairman of the club was Reverend John Smith Gilderdale († 1891).

The members met regularly on weekends in the Güntzwiesen area in front of the entrance to the Great Garden , very close to today's Dresden Stadium, the home of Dynamo Dresden , for training and games. The newspaper report from 1874, the first in German about the club, describes the sight of “some twenty young men in a costume, using different colors to distinguish them. The clothing is made up of a kind of woolen or silk underjacket, with and without sleeves, short-fitting trousers that reveal the bare knee, long stockings, very comfortable shoes or lace-up boots. " be thrown away ". The change from rugby to association football probably didn't take place until the late 1880s.

Soccer

The first ever documented soccer game against another team can be found in a report by the later founding vice-president of the German Football Association , Philipp Heineken : “On New Years Day 1891, English FC (Berlin) tried to compete with Dresden FC and suffered a decent one from the same Slap of 7: 0. ”In the sports magazines and sports literature that have been published since 1890, regular reports were also made about the DFC, so that up to and including February 26, 1898, a total of 24 games can be recorded. The DFC had won the first seven games by March 1, 1894 (goal difference 43: 0).

These victories also include a game on April 18, 1892 against a selection of the newly founded German Football and Cricket Association (DFCB). The game, widely announced by the representatives of the new association, ended 3-0 for the DFC in front of several hundred paying spectators, including the English ambassador Sir Edward Malet and the Prussian ministerial director Kuegler. In its edition of March 10, 1894, Spiel und Sport designated the DFCB selection as the Berlin national team. The DFC only became a member of the DFCB in 1896.

A report in the Allgemeine Sportzeitung from Vienna reported: "The Dresden English Football Club, which has existed for about twenty years, has not lost a goal or a game until March 10, 1894." The reputation of the invincibility of the DFC was given on that day by the Berliner Thor - and Football Club Victoria 1889 , which lost the first leg 5-0, ended. “This fame was taken from the Berlin Victoria - within ten minutes; Victoria scored 2 goals in the first half, while the English couldn't do anything. Final result 2 goals of Victoria against 0 of the English Football Club “. It was also reported that "nobody thought of the possibility of defeat and when the dispatch arrived, initially nobody wanted to believe in it". President was the Reverend of the Presbyterian Church in Dresden, John Davis-Bowden (1839-1909), who also headed the local golf club.

Listed on March 7, 1894 in the game against Regatta Prague : Burchard; Bell (Captain), Crossley; Graham, Atkins, Spencer; Ravenscroft, Johnson, Le Maistre, Luxmore, Young. Line-up of February 26, 1898 in the game against DFC Prague : G. Tetley; G. Forschhammer, H. Vernon; Goldhard, L., Johnson, W., Willbraham, H.; D'Evans, F. Haynes, RC Maistre, E. Seligmann, G. Wallis.

Former members were involved in the founding of the clubs Neuer Dresdner FC (1893) and Dresdner SC (1898). A game against ASC Berlin planned for March 19, 1898 was canceled by telegram by DFC.

Web links

Commons : Dresden English Football Club  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• "From England via Dresden all over the world - DSC oldest club" (article on the homepage of the Dresdner SC from July 11, 2006)
• Detailed information on the history of the English Football Club Dresden

swell

• Andreas Wittner: When the English were still winning all the time , in Die Welt of July 4, 2006, page 8.
• Hans-Peter Hock: Dresden Football Archaeological - A tribute to the English Football Clubs in Germany . Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-942468-69-5 .
• Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, ISBN 978-3-942468-69-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 16.
2. ↑ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 13.
3. ↑ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 15.
4. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 6.
5. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 48.
6. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 78.
7. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 55.
8. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 55.
9. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 76.
10. ^ "Hans-Peter Hock: The Dresden Football Club and the beginnings of football in Europe . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2016, page 79.