FSV Frankfurt

Dear friends of FSV Frankfurt, click through and explore 125 years of vibrant and exciting club history. Travel through a timeline of titles, relegations, insolvency filings, and great teams that always contended for promotion. On August 20, 1899, following the usual Sunday kickabout on Glauburgplatz, the Fußball-Sportverein Frankfurt was founded by 16 boys from Frankfurt. Already a year earlier, in the summer of 1898, they had begun playing football together under the name FC Nordend. Most of them were still schoolboys or had just passed school age. But together, they were all idealists. The names of all the founders are no longer known. Among them were the Strauß brothers, Eberhard Kuchler, Friedel Gerbig, Philipp Stamm, Karl Spießhofer, Karl Münich, Joseph Fleckenstein, Jaques Kropf, Ludwig Meier, L. Japke, Herrmann Decher, and Karl Heiderich. The founders mostly came from the lower middle class and did not possess great financial means. Football was still in its infancy in Germany, but the enthusiasm for this new “combat sport” had spilled over from England to the continent and was increasingly popular, especially among the youth. However, the rough game with the ball was frowned upon in society. Playing football was considered improper, and older people often scolded the players as “ball hooligans,” suggesting they should play a respectable sport with their hands instead. But the 16 Frankfurt boys were undeterred. The fascination football held for them was simply too great. The club had been officially founded, but the newcomer now wanted to enter official competition play. The “pioneers of the first hour” still had to wait a few more months before gaining police recognition in 1900. How the group managed to obtain the necessary permits is no longer clear. It’s possible that a few older members helped navigate the formalities. FSV’s first playing field was the city-owned sports meadow at Prüfling. A match was arranged against the three-month older club “Frankofurtia,” which the Bornheim team clearly won 5–1. This made their first public appearance a complete success. Slowly but surely, the Bornheimers began to break into the ranks of Frankfurt’s top clubs. As early as the 1902/03 season, “die Bernemer” took part for the first time in the South German Championship. After defeating Wiesbadener FC in the preliminary round, they faced the venerable FC Hanau 93 in the intermediate round. After a hard-fought battle, FSV lost to the heavy favorite by “only” 6–3. At that time, the team wore all-black kits, which earned them the nickname “Black Devils.” However, many other Frankfurt teams also played in black, so the club eventually settled on its own colors: from then on, FSV played in black and blue horizontal stripes, with white shorts and green socks. But football wasn’t the only activity on FSV’s schedule. During the summer months, when the ball rested, the focus shifted to track and field athletics. On June 25, 1905, FSV celebrated the first title in its history in Hanau. In the final round of the Frankfurt Association League, the Bornheim team defeated Victoria Frankfurt 4–2 after extra time. Drunk with joy, the players returned to Frankfurt, where the victory was celebrated extensively. In 1908, the club was informed that the playing field at Prüfling would be developed. With the help of future honorary chairman Jean Jehn, they managed to lease a continuous plot of land situated in open fields between Seckbacher Landstraße and Berger Straße. The “Sportplatz Bornheim,” as it was officially named—affectionately known within the club as “s’ Plätzi”—was officially inaugurated on September 6, 1908. The grandstand with changing rooms and a refreshment area, which would be built later, was still in the planning stages. In the opening match, the proud new ground owners were defeated 7–2 by Karlsruher FC Phönix. In 1909, FSV was entered into the club register at the Royal District Court in Frankfurt—one of the first offi