SV Meppen is a German association football club playing in

Meppen Meppen (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Möppen'') is a town in and the seat of the Emsland district of Lower Saxony, Germany, at the confluence of the Ems (river), Ems, Hase, and Nordradde rivers and the Dortmund–Ems Canal (DEK). The name stems from t ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

. The club was founded on 29 November 1912 as ''Amisia Meppen'' and joined ''Männer-Turnverein Meppen'' on 8 February 1920 to form ''TuS Meppen 1912''. The football branch left ''TuS Meppen'' in 1921 to create a separate club called ''Sport Verein Meppen 1912 e.V.''. SV Meppen spent a total of 11 years in the 2. Bundesliga.

History

Meppen have had a relatively quiet history playing in III and IV level circles, winning their first title of any sort when they claimed the Amateurliga Lower Saxony (IV) championship in 1961. They claimed a second title there in 1968 and then qualified for the Regionalliga Nord (II) in 1972. After league re-structuring in 1974 the team played in the

Oberliga Nord The Oberliga Nord was the fourth tier of the German football league system in the north of Germany. It covered the states of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. With the introduction of the 3. Liga, the league ceased to exist fr ...

(III) where they won the championship in 1987 and then emerged out the promotion playoffs to join the 2. Bundesliga. Generally, the side ended up in mid-table with their best finishes being 7th in 1994 and 6th in 1995. Meppen played their way into the final eight of the 1997

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 ...

competition on the strength of a memorable 6–1 victory over

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 ...

. The club's eleven-year run on the professional circuit ended in 1998 and they began a slide that landed them in the Oberliga Nord (V), where played half a dozen seasons burdened by ongoing financial problems. During the new century Meppen dropped to the

Niedersachsenliga The Oberliga Niedersachsen (), sometimes referred to as ''Niedersachsenliga'' (Lower Saxony league), is the fifth tier of the German football league system and the highest league in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Lower Saxony (). ...

(5th division). They won the championship in 2011 and advanced to the

Regionalliga Nord The Regionalliga Nord () is the fourth tier of the German football league system in the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg. It is one of five leagues at this level, together with the Regionalliga Bayern, Regionalliga N ...

, which they won in 2017 to return 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 ...

Honours

* Amateurliga Niedersachsen (III) ** Champions: 1968 *

(III) ** Champions: 1987 *

(IV) ** Champions:

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

(V) ** Champions: 2011 * Lower Saxony Cup ** Winners: 1999,

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

** Runners-up: 2015,

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

Players

Current squad

Stadium

The Hänsch-Arena is located in northern

on Lathener Straße. Construction on the site was finished in 1924 and the stadium was named after

Paul von Hindenburg Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German military and political leader who led the Imperial German Army during the First World War and later became President of Germany (1919� ...

two years later. In 1992 the stadium was renamed "Emslandstadion". A sponsorship deal in 2014 currently has the stadium branded as "Hänsch-Arena". The stadium's largest ever crowd of 18,000 spectators watched SV Meppen play a 1982 friendly against a

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

team that included

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona Franco (30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional association football, football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two ...

. Today the stadium has a capacity of 13,241.

Literature

* Hans Vinke: ''Die Meppen-Story, Geschichte eines Fußball-Phänomens'', 1997,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meppen, Sv Football clubs in Germany 1912 establishments in Germany Association football clubs established in 1912 Football clubs in Lower Saxony Emsland (region) 2. Bundesliga clubs 3. Liga clubs