VfB Liegnitz
| VfB Liegnitz | |||
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| Full name | Association for movement games in Liegnitz | ||
| place | Liegnitz | ||
| Founded | November 22, 1919 | ||
| Dissolved | 1945 | ||
| Club colors | White-red-black | ||
| Stadion | |||
| Top league | Gauliga Silesia | ||
| successes | Lower Silesian Master : 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933 | ||
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The Association for Movement Games (VfB) Liegnitz was a German football club from Liegnitz in Lower Silesia that existed until 1945. Today Liegnitz belongs to Poland and is called Legnica .
history
About 20 young people are said to have founded VfB Liegnitz on November 22, 1919. The new club was accepted into the Southeast German Football Association without difficulty and was soon able to take part in the game. However, VfB did not have its own space in the initial phase, so that it had to rely on makeshift arrangements and the hospitality of local rivals. The lack of its own venue did not prevent the VfB board from including other sports in addition to football, namely hockey , handball , tennis and athletics . In addition, there were internally held fistball games, table tennis matches and various other team and individual games that were more intended as compensatory sports.
Despite space problems, the VfB footballers appeared among the top clubs in the district as early as 1921/22. And already in the 1926/27 season, the VfB-Elf won the Lower Silesian championship for the first time and then - albeit without great success - took part in the south-east German finals. The VfB chronicle says: "With this breakthrough to the top class, the sporting level was also reached at the same time, which guaranteed the club financial security from the game income with a now secure visitor base."
“Financial security” was also urgently needed, because from 1927 VfB had to tackle a project that was fraught with many risks anyway and could easily have led to the downfall of the entire club if the sources of money dried up. It was about acquiring our own venue - and everything should go well. In 1927 the city of Liegnitz ceded an area prepared for sports purposes on Immelmannstrasse to VfB. By 1934, the club created the long-awaited “VfB Stadium” there with great commitment from its members. Hardly any member decided to make this great task possible through voluntary hours of work and financial donations. A sports facility was also built on Immelmannstrasse
- a playing field measuring 105 × 70 m
- an oval ash track based on the latest findings from the Berlin University of Physical Education, 400 m long, and six sprinter tracks 130 m long
- two tennis courts
- a club restaurant
- appropriate changing rooms.
In addition, in the last construction phase, standing areas were created in the form of terraces to complete the work. The VfB stadium held the number of 1941 - 10,000 visitors.
The success story of the VfB footballers, who usually appear in red shirts and white trousers for the games, continued while the pitch was still being built. The club chronist attributes the track record mainly to the good mass and youth work as well as the type of education in the club: “This rapid advancement was possible because the conditions for good offspring from the lower teams were given. VfB laid the foundations for its successes in a broad-based work that, in addition to the league eleven, was carried out in up to four senior teams at times. But the members were especially formed in a large youth department, in which they could do sports in ten teams in the boys' and youth classes. In these groups, the club had a great influence on the sporting model of young people, and so many performance successes arose from the acquired character and will-formation, which the individual was repeatedly brought closer to the individual through instruction and example from the elderly. "
The VfB managed the Lower Silesia Championship seven times by 1933 and thus participated in the Southeast German finals . The absolute highlight was the 1930/31 season, when the Liegnitz team was allowed to take part in the final round of the German championship as the Southeast German runner-up. On May 10, 1931, they were defeated in the round of 16 in front of 15,000 spectators on Berlin's Hertha-Platz at Gesundbrunnen against the Berlin tennis club Borussia with 1: 6. Despite the high defeat, the first appearance at national level had positive consequences for VfB: it was possible to conclude matches with well-known foreign clubs, and the club became so popular in Katzbachstadt itself that it enjoyed a steadily growing number of members. When it comes to the offspring, it was mainly high school students who pushed towards the red and whites.
Two years later, the disappointment was all the greater that the club was not considered for the new Gauliga Silesia during the football reorganization by the Nazis , but was classified in the second-rate district league Lower Silesia . Until the beginning of the Second World War , it was not possible to become first class again. It was not until the 1940/41 season that VfB made it into the Gauliga Schlesien for a year. At the end of the war in 1945, the association expired.
successes
- Southeast German runner-up and participant in the final round of the German championship : 1930/31
- 7 × Lower Silesian champions and participants in the southeast finals : 1926/27 , 1927/28 , 1928/29 , 1929/30 , 1930/31 , 1931/32 , 1932/33 .
literature
- Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 7: Club Lexicon . AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-89784-147-9 .
- German sports club for football statistics "Football in Silesia 1900 / 01–1932 / 33", DSFS 2007.