1. FC Heidenheim 1846 is a German professional association football club from the town of Heidenheim,

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

. The club currently plays in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

, the top tier of the

German football league system The German football league system, or league pyramid, refers to the hierarchically interconnected league system for Football in Germany, association football in Germany that in the 2016–17 Season (sports), season consisted of 2,235 Sports_leagu ...

History

The club was formed in 2007 through the separation of the football section from parent association Heidenheimer Sportbund, a larger multi sports club that has 5,800 members in 25 departments. The independence of the football side allows it to operate under the stricter economic standards set for professional clubs which are members of the

German Football Association The German Football Association ( ; DFB ) is the governing body of Association football, football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and ...

(Deutscher Fußball-Bund or DFB). Heidenheimer SB itself was founded through the 1972 merger of TSB Heidenheim and VfL Heidenheim. The club's origins go back to 14 August 1846, with the establishment of the gymnastics club Turngemeinde Heidenheim, which folded in 1852, but was re-constituted under the same name in 1861. The club was renamed Turnverein Heidenheim in 1872. A football department was created within the association on 8 July 1890 and became an independent side known as VfR Heidenheim on 21 August 1922. The swimming club Schwimmverein 04 Heidenheim joined VfR in 1936 to form VfL Heidenheim 04. In 1949, following World War II, these two clubs went their separate ways, the swimmers under their original name, and the footballers as VfL Heidenheim 1890. In the meantime, parent club TV 1846 Heidenheim was joined on 13 July 1935 by SpVgg Heidenheim and then on 3 April 1937 merged with 1. Sportverein 1900 Heidenheim – which was known as Athletenklub Hellenstein until 1920 – to become TSV 1846 Heidenheim. After the war TSV was united with Turnerbund Heidenheim 1902 whose history was as a worker's club. TB was established on 21 December 1902 and was renamed Turnerbund Heidenheim on 6 August 1904. This club merged with Arbeiterturnverein 1904 Heidenheim on 8 March 1919. Like other worker's clubs, TB was considered as politically unacceptable by the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

regime and was forcibly dissolved in 1933. It was re-established after the war and on 3 February 1946 joined TSV 1846 Heidenheim to form TSB 1846 Heidenheim. The 27 May 1972 merger of TSB and VfL brought all these threads together, returning the footballers to the fold of the original gymnastics club. Heidenheimer SB and predecessor VfL Heidenheim played in the

Amateurliga Württemberg The Amateurliga Württemberg was the highest football league in the region of the Württemberg Football Association and the third tier of the German football league system from its inception in 1945 until the formation of the Oberliga Baden-Württ ...

(III) from 1963 to 1975 and again from 1976 to 1979. Regional cup wins led to the team's participation in the opening round of the

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...

(German Cup) in 1975, 1978, and 1980, before the side slipped into lower-level competition. The club has since recovered and in 2004 advanced to the

Oberliga Baden-Württemberg The Oberliga Baden-Württemberg is the highest association football league in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg and the Baden-Württemberg football league system. It is one of fourteen Oberliga (football), Oberligas in German footb ...

. In 2007, the football department decided to split off from Heidenheimer SB as a legally independent club with retrospective effect from 1 January 2007. A successful season finish in 2008 saw the club being promoted to the Regionalliga Süd. Having simultaneously won the

Württemberg Cup The Bitburger-wfv-Pokal is one of the 21 regional cup competitions of German football. The winner of the competition gains entry to the first round of the German Cup. It was introduced in 1945. In 2011 the cup was renamed from WFV-Pokal into Bitbu ...

, Heidenheim was allowed to participate in the first round of the

in the following season, where the team lost 0–3 to

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg (), is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of Wolfsburg. I ...

. In 2009, Heidenheim finished first in the Regionalliga Süd and got promoted to the

3. Liga The 3. Liga is a professional association football league and the third division in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2. Bundesliga and the fourth-tier Regionalliga. The modern 3. Liga was formed for t ...

. After five seasons in the 3. Liga with the club always finishing in the upper half of the table, 1. FC Heidenheim won the league in 2013–14, and earned promotion to the 2. Bundesliga for the first time. At the same time the club, however, withdrew its reserve team, playing in the Oberliga Baden-Württemberg, from competition after such teams ceased to be compulsory for professional clubs. In the 2019–20 season, 1. FC Heidenheim finished third to play against the 16th-placed Bundesliga club,

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen, Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, Werder are best known for their professional association foo ...

, in the promotion-relegation play-offs. The tie ended in a 2–2 draw on aggregate, as 1. FC Heidenheim lost on the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

to stay in 2. Bundesliga. On the final matchday of the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

season, 1. FC Heidenheim managed to score two goals in the stoppage time to win 3–2 against Jahn Regensburg, in which they finished top of the table ahead of

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

on goal difference and promoted to the

for the first time in their history. On 17 September 2023, the club won their first ever

match, in a 4–2 home victory against Werder Bremen, on the same day that head coach, Frank Schmidt, set the record as the longest serving manager in the history of German football. An impressive Bundesliga campaign saw the club finish 8th in the 2023–24 season, comfortably securing safety, and with German champions

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen, officially known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH () and commonly known as Bayer Leverkusen or simply Leverkusen, is a German professional football club based in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It competes in the B ...

's victory over

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; ) is a town in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, 666 kilometers (414 m ...

in the DFB-Pokal final meant that Heidenheim qualified for their first European appearance, the

UEFA Conference League The UEFA Conference League (UECL), usually known simply as the Conference League, is an annual football competition organised since 2021 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It is the thir ...

play-offs in their debut Bundesliga season. On 29 August 2024, Heidenheim advanced to the Conference League League Phase for the first time in history after defeating Swedish club

BK Häcken Bollklubben Häcken, more commonly known as BK Häcken or simply Häcken (), is a Swedish professional association football, football club based in Gothenburg (Hisingen). It currently plays in Allsvenskan, the top tier of Swedish football. Forme ...

3–2 at home and 5–3 on aggregate in the play-off round.

Honours

The club's honours:

League

* 2. Bundesliga ** Champions:

** Champions: 2013–14 * Regionalliga Süd (IV) ** Champions: 2008-09 *

** Runners-up: 2006^‡ ** Fourth place, promoted: 2008 *

Verbandsliga Württemberg The Verbandsliga Württemberg is a German amateur football division administered by the Württemberg Football Association, one of the 21 German state football associations. Being the top flight of the Württemberg state association, the Verbandslig ...

** Champions: 2013^#

Cup

** Winners: 1965^†, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013,

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

** Runners-up: 1977^‡, 2005^‡ * ^‡ Won by SB Heidenheim. * ^† Won by VfL Heidenheim. * ^# Won by reserve team.

Players

Current squad

Out on loan

Non-playing staff

Recent managers

Recent managers of the club:

Recent seasons

The recent season-by-season performance of the club:

1. FC Heidenheim

1. FC Heidenheim II

* With the introduction of the

Regionalliga A (, plural ) is a regional league in numerous Sports governing body, sports governing bodies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, usually located in the upper or middle tiers of the sports leagues. The term is often associated with the Germa ...

s in 1994 and the

in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2. Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier. ;Key

European record

UEFA club competition record

''Accurate as of 20 February 2025''

Matches

''All results (home and away) list 1. FC Heidenheim's goal tally first.''

UEFA Club Ranking

UEFA coefficient In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments (country rankings only), ...

Stadium

Since June 1973, the team has played in the Albstadion which has a capacity of 8,000. Since the extension in 2009, the stadium is now called

Voith-Arena Voith-Arena (formerly ''GAGFAH-Arena, Albstadion'') is a multi-use stadium in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Heidenheim, Germany. It is currently used for football (soccer), football matches and is the home stadium of the Bundesliga side 1. FC Heidenh ...

and accommodates 10,000 visitors. Following another extension in 2013 the stadium holds 13,000 visitors. At the beginning of 2015, another extension was added increasing capacity to 15,000.

References

Sources

*Grüne, Hardy (2001). Vereinslexikon. Kassel: AGON Sportverlag

External links

*
1. FC Heidenheim 1846
at Weltfussball.de
Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv
– historical German domestic league tables

– European football club profiles and current rosters {{DEFAULTSORT:Heidenheim, Sb 1846 establishments in the German Confederation Association football clubs established in 1846 Bundesliga clubs Football clubs in Baden-Württemberg Football clubs in Germany Heidenheim (district) Sport in Stuttgart (region)