VfB 1900 Offenbach
The VfB 1900 Offenbach is a football club from Offenbach am Main , which came into being under this name in 1938, but has its roots in several of the first football clubs that emerged in Offenbach around the turn of the century. The team played in the top division, the Gauliga Hessen-Nassau , in 1943/44 , but after the end of the war could not hold out in the top leagues for long. The association, located in the shadow of the Bieberer Berg on Bierbrauerweg, has been moving between the district and district levels since the 1950s.
history
Predecessor clubs
The VfR 1900 Offenbach emerged from the two Offenbach pioneer clubs FC Germania and FC Melitia . Both were founded in 1900 and had their roots in the east of the city. In the period before the First World War, they were only considered to be mediocre footballers and merged in 1917 to form VfR 1900 . In the first season after the war, the new club was one of the founding members of the new top division, the district league Südmain, and fought for the local leadership role with the Offenbacher Kickers . On October 27, 1921 there was even a merger with the Kickers to form the large club VfR Kickers Offenbach , with the aim of catching up with the national elite of German football. However, this alliance did not last long, the agreed mutual use of the two spaces proved to be impractical and the former VfR members finally split off again in 1925 and took on the old club name again.
The SV 02 Offenbach also had traditional predecessors: the ball Sport Club 1899 Offenbach , just BSC 99 , was founded on July 31, 1899, becoming the first football club Offenbach's all. With Franz Schütz , this club even produced a later national player. The second forerunner was the FV 02 Offenbach , which was created in 1917 during the war through the merger of Viktoria Offenbach (founded in 1902) and Arminia Offenbach (founded in 1904). The FV 02 created a new venue on Bieberer Berg in 1921. The FV 02 merged with the BSC 99 on August 31, 1922 to form a new club called SV 99 Offenbach , but they separated again five years later, on April 9, 1927, and split up into the BSC 99 and SV 02 clubs . The sports field on Bieberer Berg was expropriated from SV 02 by the National Socialist administration in 1937 and assigned to the police. They were therefore forced to look for a merger partner and finally found a suitable partner in the VfR 1900 .
Merger and career as VfB 1900
The VfR 1900 and SV 02 finally merged on May 21, 1938 to form VfB 1900 and agreed on the club colors blue-red. As early as 1939/40, the newly formed club knocked on the door to the top German league for the first time and reached the promotion round to the Gauliga Südwest . There you just failed to finish second. In the second attempt in 1942/43, VfB 1900 was more successful and rose to the Gauliga Hessen-Nassau . In the 1943/44 round they only finished 9th out of 10 teams, but were able to wrest one point each from two championship candidates with a 2: 2 at home against Eintracht Frankfurt and a 1: 1 at FSV Frankfurt. The games against local rivals OFC, who finally won the championship with ease, were both lost 2: 4.
After the Second World War, VfB 1900 was initially classified in the second highest division. In 1946/47, however, he missed qualifying for the single-track national league and subsequently quickly slipped into the A-class. In 1952, the club led negotiations about a renewed connection to the Offenbacher Kickers, but they remained fruitless. The lowest point in the club's history was reached when, at the end of the 1950s, not only was the company relegated to the B-Class, but the lease for the club's premises at the secondary station was also canceled by the city.
The club finally found a new home on Bierbrauerweg in the 1960s and was able to put an end to the downward slide thanks to consistent youth work. Since then, people have been commuting between district and district level.
literature
- Hardy Greens : Legendary football clubs. Hesse. Between FC Alsbach, Eintracht Frankfurt and Tuspo Ziegenhain. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-89784-244-0 , p. 295.
- Hardy Grüne, Christian Karn: The big book of the German football clubs . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-89784-362-2 , pp. 365-366.