VfL Germania 1894 is a
German association football club from the city of
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
. The club is notable as one of the
Founding Clubs of the DFB The DFB (''Deutscher Fußball-Bund'' or German Football Association) was formed 28 January 1900 in Leipzig, German Empire. The commonly accepted number of founding clubs represented at the inaugural meeting is 86, but this number is uncertain. The v ...
(Deutscher Fussball Bund or
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 ...
) in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
in 1900.
[Grüne, Hardy (2001). Vereinslexikon. Kassel: AGON Sportverlag ]
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History
Germania was established 26 August 1894 as the first football club in the city and early on (1904) also formed an ice hockey department. In October 1897 the club helped found the Verbandes Süddeutscher Fußballvereine (Federation of South German Football Teams) and board member Fritz Seidenfaden served a term as head of the organization. Germania was also part of a local city circuit known as the Frankfurter Association Bund which existed at about the same time and included four other sides: Frankfurter Kicker and Viktoria 1899 – who would later go on to form
Eintracht Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a German professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The club currently plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German footb ...
–
Bockenheimer FC Germania 1899, and
FC Nordend. They captured that league's first championship and enjoyed other successes including the 1904 Main Gau championship and a second-place finish in an international tournament staged at the
World's Fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...
at
Liège
Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
the following year.
Germania established its own ground in 1906 where they played until the site was developed for housing. From 1910 to 1913, the club played in the
Nordkreis-Liga (I), with limited success. In 1913 they joined gymnastics club ''Frankfurter Turnverein 1860'' as that association's football department in an arrangement that helped the footballers develop and maintain a new home ground where the nation final would be contested in 1920 between
1. FC Nürnberg and
Spvgg Fürth before 30,000 spectators. In the early 1920s, the club played in the
Kreisliga Nordmain
The Kreisliga Nordmain (English: ''District league North Main'') was the highest association football league in parts of the German state of Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau from 1919 to 1923. The league was disbanded with the introd ...
, winning the title there in 1921–22.
A group of local clubs including 1.FC Sachsenhausen 03, Hellas 07, and Amicitia 1911 merged in 1922 to become VfL Sachsenhausen 03 which would in turn become part of Germania in 1933. In the period following World War I the team was very active in international friendlies playing notable sides such as perennial Hungarian title holders
MTK Budapest
Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre (Hungarian for "Hungarian Circle of Physical Practitioners") is a multi-sports club from Budapest, founded in 1888. It has sections for football, handball, basketball, volleyball, futsal, ice hockey, water polo, cycl ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
's
BSC Young Boys
Berner Sport Club Young Boys (YB by short abbreviation, ) is a Swiss professional sports club based in Bern, Switzerland. Its first team has won 17 Swiss league championships and eight Swiss Cups. YB is one of the most successful Swiss footbal ...
,
Wiener AC
Wiener Athletiksport Club, also known as Wiener AC or WAC, is an Austrian sports club in Vienna. It is particularly noted for its hockey team, which was established in 1900.
Its football team won the Austrian Championships and was Runner-up in ...
out of
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
,
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, and Turkish champions
Galatasaray
Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club''), more commonly referred to as simply Galatasaray and familiarly as Cimbom, is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul including basketball, wheelchair ...
. They also hosted important German clubs such as