Sachs-Stadion (formerly known as Willy-Sachs-Stadion) is a multi-functional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a town#Germany, city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding Schweinfurt (district), district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultur ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Since 1936, it has been home stadium to the German football club 1. FC Schweinfurt 05.

History

The stadium, built by German architect

Paul Bonatz Paul Bonatz (6 December 1877 – 20 December 1956) was a German architect, member of the Stuttgart School and professor at the technical university in that city during part of World War II, and from 1954 until his death. He worked in many styl ...

, was a donation from local industrialist

Willy Sachs Wilhelm Josef Sachs known as Willy Sachs (23 July 1896 – 19 November 1958) was a German industrialist and Nazi party member. He served in the SS as an ''Obersturmbannführer'' and was appointed as a ''Wehrwirtschaftsführer'', recognizing his ...

to the City of Schweinfurt. As the club's patron, Willy Sachs designated a privileged right of use of all facilities for 1. FC Schweinfurt 05. Leading politicians of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

attended the opening ceremony on 23 July 1936. Three days later, the new ''Willy-Sachs-Stadion'' saw its first game, a 2–2 draw between 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 and

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

German champion

FC Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as Schalke 04 (), and abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional sports club from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its football team, ...

. The stadium has been top-tier venue all the time between

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

and

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...

, and was home stadium to second-tier football for many of the following years, most recently during the 2001–02 season. In addition, from

1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...

on Schweinfurt 05 played a larger number of German Cup matches at the stadium. Attendance record of the stadium was 22,500 at a friendly between Schweinfurt 05 and

1. FC Kaiserslautern 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern (), K'lautern or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to Association football, football ...

in 1954. The sports venue hosted the 2nd

Fistball World Championships Fistball World Championships (FWC) are an international association fistball competition contested by the senior national teams of the members of the International Fistball Association (IFA) since 1968 for men and 1992 for women. In additional, und ...

in 1972 as well as the

Fistball European Championships Fistball European Championships are a competition which has been organized by the International Fistball Association (IFA) since 1965 for men and since 1993 for women. Events * European Fistball Association (EFA) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ ...

in 2012. During the

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...

in Germany, the stadium served as training ground for the

Tunisia national football team The Tunisia national football team, controlled by the Tunisian Football Federation (TFF), represents Tunisia in men's international association football competitions. On a continental level, the team competes under the Confederation of African ...

. In the 2008–09 season, nearby football club

TSV Großbardorf TSV Großbardorf is a German association football club from the city of Großbardorf, Bavaria. The footballers are part of a 602 member sports club that also has departments for bowling and table tennis. History The club made its first appea ...

had to move to Schweinfurt due to

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 ...

legislations on stadium capacity. The sports complex regularly is venue for

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

competitions and championships on national level. Occasionally, the neighbouring U.S. Army Garrison, located in Schweinfurt until 2014, had used the stadium for

military parade A military parade is a formation of military personnels whose movement is restricted by close-order manoeuvering known as Drill team, drilling or marching. Large military parades are today held on major holidays and military events around the ...

s. Today the stadium is listed as historic

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

and is thus subject to preservation orders. As part of the Schweinfurt ''Lest we forget'' initiative, in 2001 the local press including

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

and author Werner Skrentny initiated a campaign to rename the ''Willy-Sachs-Stadion'' due to Sachs'

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 ...

affiliation. The campaign met with low approval among the general public. In June 2021, however, the Schweinfurt city council finally decided to change the name of the stadium into ''Sachs-Stadion'', in recognition of the value of the former

Fichtel & Sachs ZF Sachs AG, also known as Fichtel & Sachs, was founded in Schweinfurt in 1895 and was a well-known German family business. At its last point as an independent company, the company name was Fichtel & Sachs AG. In 1997, the automotive supplier w ...

company (now part of

ZF Friedrichshafen ZF Friedrichshafen AG, also known as ZF Group, originally ''Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen'' (), and commonly abbreviated to ZF, is a Germany, German technology manufacturing company that supplies systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles ...

) for the development of Schweinfurt.

Facilities

The stadium complex consists of the main field with a capacity of 15,060 (the actual ''Sachs-Stadion'') and several additional courts for training and youth matches, including an

artificial turf Artificial turf is a surface of synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass, used in sports arenas, residential lawns and commercial applications that traditionally use grass. It is much more durable than grass and easily maintained wi ...

pitch. The main stadium offers a covered

grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators, typically at sports stadiums and including both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium i ...

, hosting 860 seats, and standing rooms around the residual circumference, which is planted with two rows of linden trees. The football field is flanked by various

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

facilities and a classical

Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

gate. Premises at the stadium include changing rooms for players, coaches, and referees. Speaker cabins and a press area are available in the grandstand. To meet 2nd Bundesliga regulations, in 2001 terracing has been renovated, and the stadium was equipped with

floodlight A floodlight is a broad-beamed, high-intensity artificial light. It can provide functional area lighting for travel-ways, parking, entrances, work areas, and sporting venues to enable visibility adequate for safe task performance, ornament ...

masts. In addition, Schweinfurt's

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...

industry contributed an electronic

scoreboard A scoreboard is a large board for publicly displaying the score (sport), score in a game. Most levels of sport from high school and above use at least one scoreboard for keeping score, measuring time, and displaying statistics. Scoreboards i ...

, that was replaced in 2022 by a 30 sqm

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

screen. Due to increased security standards, wavebreakers had to be installed on the standing rooms in 2014 to safeguard the full capacity. In 2019, the grandstand was outfitted with new green and white seats that represent the colours of 1. FC Schweinfurt 05.

References

External links

Visitor guide with pictures
at stadionwelt.de
Sachs-Stadion
at europlan-online.de {{Authority control Football venues in Germany 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 Sports venues in Bavaria Sports venues completed in 1936 Buildings and structures in Schweinfurt 1936 establishments in Germany