SK Amateurs Steyr

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The SK Amateure Steyr is a football club from the Upper Austrian district town Steyr in Austria and one of the most traditional clubs of his province. In its long club history, the SK Amateure played two seasons in the Gauliga-17-Ostmark , was seven times Upper Austrian regional champion and produced two national players with Wilhelm Harreither and Helmut Köglberger .

history

Founding history

The club was founded on February 17, 1920 under the name Sportklub Freiheit Steyr . At the founding meeting in the waiting room of the local train station, the club colors blue and white, which are still valid today, were determined.

The beginning of the soccer game was a bit chaotic for the young club. The team's uniforms, back then with long trousers, were all sewn by the footballers' mothers. On the soccer field next to the industrial plant (today's Vorwärts-Platz), spruce poles had to be set up as goal boundaries. The Steyrer Kicker played their first game away against Germania Linz in the spring of 1921 . The footballers travel to the match with their bicycles to St. Florian and from there with the electric train to Urfahr . This historical club game ended with a 2-2 draw and thus represented a successful start.

In the 1922/23 season, SK Freiheit Steyr played for the first time in the Upper Austrian 1st class for the championship and, with four victories, finished sixth and penultimate place ahead of ASK Sparta from Linz . The Upper Austrian regional champion was SK Vorwärts Steyr this season . The first encounter and thus the first derby against the city rivals founded in 1919 took place in 1923. The blue-whites won the game 3: 1 and received five double liters of must and 30 pretzel sticks from the losers as a prize . In May 1923, the football club was renamed SK Amateure Steyr . In the following two years, they only finished last in the table and had to relegate from 1st class.

First successes

After returning to the top division of Upper Austria in 1930, from which no promotion to the nationwide top tier was possible until 1938, the amateurs soon established themselves in the top ranks. In 1935 they reached the final of the Upper Austrian State Cup for the first time, but lost to Linz ASK 2-0. In the 1937/38 season they lost 3-2 in the Upper Austrian regional cup final against Vorwärts Steyr, but celebrated winning the regional championship title for the first time in the Upper Danube regional league in front of the sports club Hertha Wels tied on points and thus rose to the Gauliga alongside the champions Niederdonau and Styria , the highest level of the Ostmark at that time.

Between Gauliga and national class

In the first championship round in 1938/39 , the SK Amateure played away against the Austrian record champions Rapid Vienna and suffered a painful 8-2 defeat. Due to heavy rain, the match had to be canceled in the second half and was then rescheduled by the association. In the replay on November 1, 1938, the Steyrers lost to the Hütteldorfern extremely unhappy with 3: 4. In addition to some very heavy defeats (2: 9 against amateurs Fiat , 0: 7 against Wacker Vienna , 0: 5 against Vienna ), SK Amateure Steyr only achieved two wins against fellow promoted Grazer SC (2: 0) and Wiener Neustadt (4: 2). With four points from 18 games, the club finished ninth in the table and immediately relegated to the Upper Danube 1st class.

In the regional class they celebrated the title win again in 1940/41 , but gambled away their promotion to the Gauliga in the qualification for the promotion round with 2: 4 and 2: 1 against Austria Salzburg . In the following season, the NSTG Budweis ( České Budějovice ) only came second, but in 1942/43 the championship was won again just before the LSV Adlerhorst Wels . In the promotion round, they clearly prevailed against the competitors 1. FFC Vorwärts 06 Vienna and the newly formed Salzburg football community due to a lack of players . In the championship round of the Gauliga 1943/44 , the Steyrers achieved a 3-1 win against FC Vienna and a 1-1 draw in the away game at Floridsdorfer AC . However, the defeats against the established Viennese clubs were no longer as high as on the club's first excursion into the top division. Due to the course of the war , however, more and more players were drafted into military service and the Steyr team had to withdraw from the Gauliga on April 20, 1944, two rounds before the end of the championship, as they could no longer muster a team. After the withdrawal , in April 1944 they merged with SK Vorwärts, which was in a similar situation, to form the "Steyr Football Association" FG Steyr .

Post-war successes

After the dissolution of the "FG Steyr" merger club, the Amateure sports club played again as an independent club in the Upper Austrian 1st class, the later regional league, in the 1945/46 season . In 1946 and 1947 they reached the final in the Upper Austrian regional cup. While they lost just 3: 4 to Linz ASK in 1946, in 1947 they won the cup with a 3-0 victory in the final against ESV Westbahn Linz for the first time and still today.

Pendulum years between State League B and State League

In season 1949/50 the SK enough amateurs fourth place in the national league for promotion to the newly created Austria-wide State League . Only because of the poorer goal difference one had to leave the second level when the points were equal with SV Wimpassing and ASK Sparta Linz , but returned to the State League B with the title win of the regional league in the following season. However, Steyr was unable to establish himself in the second state league in the 1952/53 season and was immediately relegated.

In 1953, the club's original home complex next to the industrial area was canceled and amateurs moved to the racetrack . On this desolate facility, the players first had to lay a 100 meter long water pipe themselves in order to be able to shower after the games. In the following years, however, a sports facility was created on the so-called Lauberleite that offered contemporary comfort.

As regional champions, the Upper Austrians rose to State League B for the last time in 1953/54 , but had to go back to the state league as the penultimate of the 1954/55 season . The club remained in this division until 1959.

The last great years in the regional league

In 1959/60, with first place in the regional league, promotion to the newly introduced, second-class regional league was completed. There, the SK Amateure mostly achieved a good place in the middle of the table, but was not a promotion favorite due to lack of playing strength. The derby of April 18, 1964 against Vorwärts Steyr remained unforgettable. With 7: 1 goals the red and white competitors were literally dispatched, whereby Karl Käfer made a big contribution to this triumph with 5 goals. The jubilation of the amateur fans was accordingly great. The trainer at the time, Hans Wesp, who was the club's factotum for SK Amateure for decades, will also remain unforgettable.

The 1968/69 season was extremely unfortunate for the club. In the end, together with the red and white city rivals, they were relegated to the national league.

Relegation to the regional league

In 1970, they finished second in the regional league, one point behind Vorwärts. Then you played until 1975 mostly on a middle table rank. In 1975/76 the championship title was surprisingly won in the league, but the promotion to the national league (the then second level in Austria) was awarded in the relegation games against the Carinthian club SC Amateure St. Veit / Glan . In the same year, a stroke of fate overshadowed the Lauberleite. In a training accident, the amateur player Rudolf Lindlgruber was so badly injured in the eye that he went blind. In the summer of 1976 a sponsor was added to the club name for the first time with "Pluskauf" (an Austrian department store chain).

During the 1980s they played their way back into the middle of the table before the club was a little closer to promotion in 1989 with third place. In 1990 and 1991 the club took second place and only failed at the later Bundesliga club SV Ried im Innkreis . In the following years, more and more good players left the club and the amateurs could no longer keep up with their competitors.

The deep fall through the soccer classes

In 1996, with the last place in the regional league, he was finally relegated to the fifth-class 2nd regional league east for the first time . In this league, instead of the previously known opponents, clubs such as Königswiesen, Pichling and the amateurs of SK Vorwärts Steyr met. In 2001/02, the next negative climax in the club's long history followed with the relegation to the District League East . But even with this descent, the deep fall through the football classes was not over. Amateure Steyr only came in penultimate place here and found himself in the first class east , the seventh level, in the 2003/04 season .

The current situation

After Vorwärts Steyr left the Bundesliga , there have been more merger talks with the city rivals since the late 1990s. Ultimately, however, all attempts to reunite to form FC Steyr failed. The new president Michael Petermair roused the blue and white spirit again, hired prominent coaches and insists on the independence of the club. For the 85th anniversary of the club in June 2005, the two upper house teams SV Ried im Innkreis and LASK Linz paid their respects to SK Amateure Steyr with an Upper Austrian derby. LASK won the game 1-0 with a goal from its new star Ivica Vastić , who of course was the focus of the Steyr autograph hunters. Currently (as of the 2019/20 season) the SK Amateure fighting team competes in the sixth-class District League East of the Upper Austrian Football Association.

successes

  • 1 × Master 2nd class east: 2007/08
  • 2 first division participations : 1939, 1944 (Gauliga)
  • 7 × Upper Austrian regional champion: 1938, 1941, 1943, 1952, 1954, 1960, 1976
  • 1 × Upper Austrian regional cup winner: 1947
  • 3 × Upper Austrian regional cup finalists: 1935, 1938, 1946

Known players

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ article about it in the newspaper "Oberösterreichisches Tagblatt" on Saturday, July 24, 1976