SC Victoria Hamburg

Football club infobox
clubname = SC Victoria Hamburg


fullname = Sport- Club Victoria Hamburg von 1895 e. V.
nickname =
founded = 1895
ground = Victoria-Stadion Hoheluft
capacity = 8,000
chairman = Helmuth Korte
manager = Bert Ehm
league = Hamburg-Liga (V)
season = 2007-08
position = 1st
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SC Victoria Hamburg is a German football club from the city of Hamburg. The football team is part of a larger sports club that has departments for badminton, handball, ice hockey, athletics, tennis, table tennis (playing as "SG Victoria Eppendorf"), gymnastics, American football (the "Hamburg Eagles"), baseball (the "Wildcats"), and softball (the "Oysters").

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History

The club was founded May 5 1895 as "FC Victoria Hamburg" out of the youth clubs "Cito" and "Exclesior" and was briefly affiliated with SV Hamburg before finally becoming a fully independent football club in the fall of 1897. "Victoria" joined the HAFV (Hamburg-Altonaer Fussball Verband or Hamburg-Altona Football Federation) a year later, capturing the league title in 1905. The team won two consecutive north German championships in 1907 and 1908 and advanced as far as the quarterfinals in national championship play in both seasons.

The club was re-named "SC Victoria Hamburg" on June 10 1908. In 1933 German football was reorganized under the Third Reich into sixteen first division Gauligen. "Victoria" earned promotion to the Gauliga Nordmark in 1934 and in 1943 won a divisional championship in what had become the Gauliga Hamburg before going out in the first round of the national championship. The team remained in the top flight until the end of World War II.

After the war occupying Allied authorities banned all organizations in Germany, including sports and football clubs. "Victoria" was soon re-established and played the 1945 and 1946 seasons in the Stadtliga Hamburg. They were one of four Hamburg sides that joined the newly formed Oberliga Nord (I) for the 1947-48 season where they earned a last place result and were relegated to second tier play. They made brief re-appearances in the top flight Oberliga in 1951-52 and 1953-54 while spending most of the 50s and 60s in the Amateurliga Hamburg (II).

After the formation in 1963 of the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional league, "Victoria" spent three seasons in the Regionalliga Nord (II) before being relegated to the Amateurliga Hamburg (III) and then slipping to the Landesliga Hamburg-Germania (IV) for a single season in 1968-69. They quickly returned to third division play and would compete at that level for the next eight seasons.

In 1977 the club was sent down to the Landesliga Hamburg (IV) and settled into what would become the Verbandsliga Hamburg (IV) for the next 17 seasons. League re-organization led to the Verbandeliga becoming a fifth division circuit in 1994. "Victoria" won promotion to the Oberliga Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (IV) for a single season but immediately slipped back. They have since played in the fifth division Verbandsliga Hamburg, now commonly known as the Hamburgliga, with the exception of a two-year stint in the Oberliga Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein / Oberliga Nord (IV) in 2003-05. In 2007, the club won the Hamburg city cup final by defeating "VfL 93 Hamburg" 1:0. This earned "Victoria" a place in the DFB Cup 2007-08 (German Cup) competition, where they put out in the opening round by first division Bundesliga side "1. FC Nuremberg" (0:6).

Trivia

* "FC Victoria Hamburg" was a founding member of the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association] at Leipzig in 1901.

* In 1987 several club members left to form "Hamburger Club Deportivo Espanol"

Honours

*North German champions: 1906, 1907
*Gauliga Hamburg champions: 1943
*German Amateur vice-champions: 1975
*Verbandsliga Hamburg-Germania (IV) champions: 1969

*German handball champions (women): 1930

External links

* [http://www.sc-victoria.de/ Official team site]
* [http://www.abseits-soccer.com/clubs/vichamburg.html Abseits Guide to German Soccer]
* [http://www.f-archiv.de/ Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv] historical German football league tables (in German)