Dresdner SC

Dresdner SC

Full name	Dresdner Sportclub 1898 e. V.
Nickname(s)	The Friedrichstädter (The Friedrichtowners)
Founded	30 April 1898; 113 years ago (1898-04-30)
Ground	Heinz-Steyer-Stadion (Capacity: 5.000 washed out seats)
League	Bezirksklasse Dresden, Staffel 4 (VIII)
2009–10	4th
Home colours Away colours

Dresdner SC is a German multisport club playing in Dresden, Saxony. Founded on 30 April 1898, the club was a founding member of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) in 1900. The origins of the club go back still further to the predecessor side The English FC Dresden formed in 1874 by expatriate Englishmen as Germany's first football club and possibly the earliest in continental Europe: Dresdener SC was organized by one-time German members of the EFC^[1].

Early on, DSC made regular appearances in regional finals and captured several titles. They were a dominant side in the Mitteldeutschen Verbandsliga: from 1925 to 1930 they lost only two of the ninety games they played.

History

The 30's and 40's

Dresdner's performance slipped for a time, but the club re-emerged as a strong side in the Gauliga Sachsen, one of sixteen top flight divisions established in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. They captured the Tschammerpokal – the predecessor of today's German Cup in 1940 and 1941, and followed up with national titles in 1943 and 1944. Their 4:0 win over Luftwaffen SV Hamburg in Berlin's Olympiastadion made them the last holders of the Viktoria trophy, symbolic of German football supremacy since it was first awarded to VfB Leipzig in 1903. That trophy was secreted by a Dresden supporter to a bank safe deposit box in what would become East Germany and remained hidden away for decades before finally being returned to the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association).

Post World War II

After World War II, all existing sports clubs and other organizations were banned by the Allied occupation authorities in an attempt to create a disconnect from the recent Nazi past. In early 1946, the club was re-constituted as SG Friedrichstadt and then slipped into oblivion after a fateful appearance in the 1950 East German final. That match, against Soviet-sponsored Horch Zwickau, would be the end of the side which was regarded as being too bourgeoisie by the communist authorities. Zwickau played a viciously physical game and, abetted by the referee who refused the homeside substitutions and eventually reduced Friedrichstadt to an 8-man squad, "won" the match 5:1. Unhappy Dresdner/Friedrichstadt fans invaded the field several times, and at game's end, badly beat a Zwickau player. Mounted police were called in to restore order. Within weeks, orders came to dismantle the club and send the players to BSG Tabak Dresden. Most of the players instead fled to the west to play for Hertha BSC Berlin. What happened to Dresdner/Friedrichstadt would become commonplace in East Germany as highly placed politicians or bureaucrats manipulated clubs for their own purposes.

Dissolution

At this point the history of the club becomes quite convoluted, with a number of sides laying claim to some part of the heritage of Dresdner SC:

• Local side Volkspolizei Dresden, founded in 1948, was groomed as an ideologically safe "replacement" for the city's loss of their favoured team. The team was assembled using seventeen players plucked from eleven other clubs, the bulk of that number coming from SG Mickten. By the 1952–53 season the club was known as Dynamo Dresden and would go on to become one of East Germany's best teams. Unfortunately, they ran-afoul of Stasi-sponsored Berliner FC Dynamo. While they had only limited opportunity to challenge on fair terms for the national championship, they did become the country's most successful side internationally. The club struggled after German re-unification in 1990, but recovered themselves sufficiently to earn a place in 2.Bundesliga where they temporalily played as SG Dynamo Dresden.

• What was left of SG Mickten, formed in 1947, was merged with BSG Sachsenverlag Dresden in 1950 and then went through a number of other mergers and name changes: BSG Rotation Dresden (1951–1954); SC Einheit Dresden (1954–1965); FSV Lokomotive Dresden (1966–1990); and finally, in 1990, became today's Dresdner SC 1898.

• BSG Tabak Dresden was a descendant of Dresdner SV 1910 which had taken in the players of the local sides of Striesen, Blasewitz, Tolkewitz und Laubegast at the behest of the Nazi sport authorities in 1933. The side was re-formed as SG Striesen after the war in 1945 and played as ZSG Nagema Dresden in 1948 and 1949. The side then became Tabak, where the players of Dresdner/Friedrichstadt were officially directed after the farce of the 1950 final against Zwickau. The club SG Dresden Striesen emerged out of it all in June 1991.

• Another thread of the current incarnation of Dresdner SC can be traced back to the Gauliga side Dresdner Sportfreunde, itself built out of the forced pre-war merger of a number of local sides. After World War II, that club was re-formed as SG Pieschen and then went through its own confusing series of unions with other clubs during the 50s. In 1966, the football side of the club emerged as FSV Lokomotiv Dresden.

The "new" Dresden SC was formed at the time of German re-unification, beginning play in the 1991–92 season. Since then, the club has played primarily as a tier III or IV side, but has slipped to Landesliga Sachsen (V) in the current season.

Honours

• German Championship: 2
  • Winners 1943, 1944
• German Cup: 2
  • Winners 1940, 1941
• FDGB-Pokal: 1
  • Winners 1958
• Mitteldeutsche Meisterschaft: 6
  • Winners 1905, 1926, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1933
• Mitteldeutscher Pokal: 2
  • 1928, 1933
• East German U17 Cup: 1^[2]
  • Winners 1961
• East German U15 Championship: 1
  • Winners 1961
• Gauliga Sachsen: 6
  • Winners 1934, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1943, 1944

Famous players

Helmut Schön played for Dresdner/Friedrichstadt and would go on to become one of West Germany's most exceptional managers and, in an historical aside, also coached Saarland's World Cup side in 1954.

Richard Hofmann, nicknamed "King Richard", scored 24 goals in 25 games for the German national team from 1927 to 1933 He also was one of the integral players in the DSC's cup and championship wins, but was never considered for the national team after 1933 for political reasons.

DSC-Players who played for the German national team[3] Name Games Goals Years Richard Hofmann 25 24 1927–33 Helmut Schön 16 19 1937–41 Willibald Kreß 16 0 1929–34 Georg Köhler 5 0 1925–28 Hugo Mantel 5 0 1927–33 Walter Dzur 3 0 1940–41 Helmut Schubert 3 0 1941 Richard Gedlich 2 0 1926–27 Friedrich Müller 2 0 1931 Herbert Pohl 2 0 1941 Martin Haftmann 1 0 1927 Arno Neumann 1 0 1908 Karl Schlösser 1 1 1931 Kurt Stössel 1 0 1931

DDR-era Harry Arlt Eduard Geyer Klaus Sammer

Modern era Sven Benken René Beuchel Steffen Binke Steffen Büttner Andreas Diebitz Ronny Ernst Thomas Hoßmang Nikica Maglica Rocco Milde Sven Ratke Heiko Scholz Andreas Trautmann Jens-Uwe Zöphel

External links

• Official club website
• The Abseits Guide to German Soccer
• DSC none soccer

References

1. ^ http://www.andreasmtschorn.com/media/presse/imgespraech/2006/060710saechsischezeitung/index.htm Dresdner SC predecessor founded in 1874. (in German)
2. ^ Paulo Martins. "East Germany – Youth Championships". rsssf.com. http://www.rsssf.com/tablesd/ddr-youthchamp.html. Retrieved 6 August 2008. 
3. ^ Kicker-Almanach 2003. Copress Verlag München 2002.