Grazer SC tram
The Grazer Sportclub Straßenbahn (GSC Straßenbahn) is an Austrian football club from Graz . He currently plays in 1st class middle A , the eighth highest Austrian level. In its most successful period, from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the tram played a total of three times in the highest Austrian league .
history
In the period after the First World War , the ranks of the younger employees of the Graz tram showed again and again the endeavor to found a sporting association as part of their colleagues. In January 1923, the Graz Tram Sports Club was founded. In addition to the founder chairman Viktor Friedrich, the first association board included Mr. Ludwig Juchart, Franz Ulrich, Josef Birnstingl, Hans Losch, Karl Strozer, Franz Polheim, Matthias Gabauer and the two captains of the team, Hans Piron and Josef Polschak. The Augarten was designated as the training ground.
The team played their first game in March 1923 against the reserves of the Grazer AK , they lost 1: 6. The press at the time commented on this result as follows: “Six weeks ago, the tram drivers set up a professional team with which they appeared in public for the first time yesterday. It remains to be seen whether the team will last; The tram's employee body would be big enough. " These words were both a judgment and a guide. It seems that those in charge of the young club knew how to correctly interpret the clue, because they continued to work with real enthusiasm. But already in 1924 tram was master of the 3rd class of Styria, one year later they won the 2nd class with a goal difference of 57: 1 and without a single loss of points. The club was represented in the Styrian regional league for the first time in 1925. In 1928 the construction of a stadium in Liebenau began , which was completed in the same year. The then Austrian master SK Admira Wien could be invited to the opening , who also won 6-1. Due to the success and the new stadium, the club became one of the largest football clubs in Styria . In the spring of 1934 they defeated their arch-rivals SK Sturm Graz for the first time in the winter cup final 5-0, after which Alexander Niederl organized a trip to the Dutch East Indies , which was actually carried out.
In 1937, the Green-Whites were building a new stadium in Jakomini in the Conrad-von-Hötzendorfstraße which should serve to host the home games until of 2006. Just a year later, Tram won the playoff for promotion to the top Austrian league against Sturm 1-0. Under the prominent coach and former wonder team player Pepi Blum , they reached eighth place in the table in the following season 1938/39 at the time of the Second World War and reached the quarter-finals of the German Cup with a 3-2 win over Vienna Austria . After relegation in 1941, the Grazer Sportclub Straßenbahn was able to make it into the highest Austrian league again after the end of the war: for the 1951/52 season they qualified for professional football and entered the B-League , from which the club was second in the table in its debut year rose to the A-League with VfB Mödling .
In the A-League 1952/53 later football greats like Helmut Senekowitsch and Erich Frisch were regular players in the tram, but you still had to accept relegation as the penultimate. The immediate resurgence was almost a success: As a third division in the B league, the club was relegated in 1954, but the tramway was narrowly defeated by SC Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz 3-2 and 0-2. In the following years, the green and white were able to establish themselves in the B-League, after relegation in the fifth year 1957/58 , the return to the second level followed in 1961, which now formed the Regional League Middle . After relegation in 1964, however, the club crashed completely. Sixteen years later, the Grazer SC tram arrived in what was then Graz's 2nd class, the lowest possible level. The club was never able to recover from this, today he plays in the second lowest level and plays his matches after his pitch was demolished in 2006 in the Gruabn . In the 2007/08 season he was promoted from the "regional league center" to the "lower league Graz center". In the 2011/12 season, however, the relegation to the "regional league middle" followed.
successes
- 3 first division seasons : 1938/39, 1940/41, 1952/53 (8th place 1939)
- 5 × Styrian national champion : 1935, 1938, 1940, 1951, 1961