SpVgg Memel

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SpVgg Memel
Logo of the SpVgg Memel
Full name Memel game association
place Memel
Founded 1909 (as play dept. Of MTV Memel)
Dissolved 1945
Club colors Yellow black
Stadion
Top league East Prussian League (German Empire)
A Lyga (Lithuania)
successes
home
Away
Template: Infobox historical football club / maintenance / incomplete home
Template: Infobox historical football club / maintenance / incomplete outward

The Spielvereinigung (SpVgg) Memel / Spielvereinigung (SpVgg) Klaipeda was a German sports club from the East Prussian , from 1923 Lithuanian city ​​of Memel (Klaipėda).

history

MTV Memel

In 1909, with the 15-member Memeler SC Preußen , a club from Memelland appeared for the first time among the members of the Baltic Lawn Sports Association , about which nothing is known anymore and which quickly disappears from the scene. In its place is the game department of MTV Memel , founded in 1861 , which is listed in the DFB yearbook 1911/12 with twelve members, but in the DFB yearbook 1912 with 52 members of the Baltic Lawn and Winter Sports Association (BRWV). 1911/12 and 1912/13 , the game department had in the II Tilsit / Memel Bezirksklasse the Lituania Tilsit admit defeat and thus missed participating in the Baltic football finals. The league system was changed for the 1913/14 season , District II Tilsit / Memel was henceforth part of District I East Prussia, the winner of the District League thus qualified first for the East Prussian final round, in which the participants in the Baltic final round were determined. In 1913/14 the game department of MTV Tilsit became district champion, but in the East Prussian finals the club failed in the semi-finals at FC Preußen Gumbinnen with 1: 4. Due to the First World War , there was no regular game operation in the next few years.

Success in East Prussia

After the end of the war, the focus was initially on political events: after the Germans had lost the war, the Memel area was separated from the German Reich without a prior referendum and placed under French administration. On January 15, 1923, over 1,000 armed Lithuanians occupied Memelland and the city of Memel. On February 16, 1923, the annexation of the Memel area to Lithuania was internationally recognized as a fact and sovereignty over the area was transferred to Lithuania. (The events are described in detail in the Wikipedia keyword Memelland .) In Memel, which was now called Klaipėda , a number of other football clubs had been formed in addition to the MTV game department, including Freya, Verein für Lawn Sport (VfR), Sportklub Memel II as well as a football department in the "sports club". They all remained or became members of the Reich German professional associations, citing the cultural autonomy granted to the Germans. In the season 1922/23 Memel again won the district league II Tilsit / Memel , in the East Prussian football final the club failed at the series champion VfB Königsberg , although a draw could be wrested from this. The conflicts in German sport also reached Memelland: The dispute between gymnastics and sports associations, which culminated in the clean divorce , led to the dissolution of the sports department at MTV Memel. These athletes founded the Spielvereinigung (SpVgg) Memel on August 6, 1924. It didn't go quite smoothly: A number of active players, especially from the lower teams, did not join SpVgg, but founded a new football department at MTV.

Although there was now a football association in the Memel region that had joined the Lithuanian umbrella associations, the game association preferred to focus its main attention on the championship operation in the BRWV. In 1926 , the East Prussian football finals were reached again, by winning the District Cup East in the same season, SpVgg Memel qualified for the top, single-track East Prussian league, which was newly established for the coming season . In 1927/28 , the second place in the table was reached behind VfB Königsberg , which entitled to participate in the Baltic football final. Here, however, Memel could not keep up with the other clubs, with only one draw and four defeats Memel came last. In 1928/29 the success could be repeated, again the game association qualified by the runner-up title of East Prussia for the Baltic finals. Unlike in the previous season, Memel was able to keep up this time, the club finished third and missed participation in the German football championship by only two points. In 1929/30 the SpVgg Memel was even tied with the series champion VfB Königsberg at the end of the East Prussian League , so play-offs were necessary. VfB won the first leg in Koenigsberg 4: 3, the second leg in Memel was won by the game association 3: 2. Since both clubs could each win a game and an addition of the results was not planned, there was a playoff in Insterburg on December 15, 1929 . Here, however, Memel lost 3-0 and only narrowly missed the championship title of East Prussia. In the Baltic football finals, the club failed this season in the elimination tournament of the district runners-up at VfB Stettin with 1: 2. For the 1930/31 season , the top East Prussian league was dissolved and replaced by three leagues, Memel from then on played in the division league II North . Here the club was runner-up behind SV Insterburg in 1931 , in the final round of the East Prussian championship Memel failed at VfB Königsberg.

The SpVgg in conflict with the Lithuanian authorities

At the same time, SpVgg Memel also took part in the Lithuanian game operations under the name Spielvereinigung Klaipeda , but rather casually "to enrich the game operations for their own lower teams by participating in the Lithuanian football and athletics championship," as Algird Fugalewitsch said in his Work (see sources). On the other hand, like her predecessor MTV Sports Department in 1922, she showed “good will” by assigning players of Lithuanian nationality to Lithuanian international matches. 1924 won Spielvereinigung Klaipeda the group Klaipeda Lithuania's first football league and qualified for the final match. Against Kovas Kaunas the final game was lost, so that the club was Lithuanian runner-up. The simultaneous participation in the round games in East Prussia and Lithuania was a "thorn in the side" of the Lithuanian authorities in the long run, especially as more and more attempts at litigation began. When the gaming association did not respond to threats or promises, it was troubled by high passport and visa fees. Fugalewitsch: "Many a game of the SpVgg in the East Prussian League could not take place because the Lithuanians refused entry for the visiting team or the departure of the SpVgg." Finally, at the beginning of 1931, the Lithuanian Football Association demanded, referring to the FIFA statutes, "that all championships can only be played within the Lithuanian borders ”, and in the summer of the same year imposed a one-year game ban on all SpVgg teams because the club refused to voluntarily withdraw from the Baltic Lawn Sports Association. In the course of this disqualification, the club was also removed from the round games by the Baltic Sports Association, although in 1931/32 the division league II could still be won. Due to the disqualification, the club could no longer take part in the East Prussian football final.

Loss of football supremacy

Although the club reached an agreement with the Lithuanians at the end of January 1932 - the supremacy in football had suffered due to the game ban and was gradually lost. The sporting news about the formerly largest and most influential football club in Memel dried up, and when Memelland was returned to the German Reich in March 1939, it was not the game association, but Freya-VfR Memel that made it to the Gauliga East Prussia . The fate of SpVgg is uncertain. The club probably went out with the end of World War II.

successes

Known players

swell

  • Algird Fugalewitsch "A comparative presentation of the German sports clubs of the Memel area and the sports clubs of the German minority in Lithuania from 1918 to 1945", written term paper to obtain the degree of Magister Artium (MA) of the Philosophical Faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel 1995
  • DSFS : Football in the Baltic Sports Association, Part 1: 1903/04 - 1932/33 . DSFS, 2018.
  • Udo Luy: Football in East Prussia, Danzig and West Prussia 1900–1914. , 2015.
  • Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 7: Club Lexicon . AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-89784-147-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lithuania - List of Final Tables. RSSSF , accessed February 19, 2018 .