FC Augsburg - last updated on 3 March 2008
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Club name: Fußballclub Augsburg 1907GmbH & Co KGaA
Foundation: August 8th 1907
City: Augsburg
Colours: Red, green and white
Website: www.fcaugsburg.de
Honours:
Regionalliga Süd - 2 (1974, 2006)
2nd Oberliga Süd - 1 (1961)
Bayernliga (II-III-IV) - 7 (1948, 1966, 1973, 1980, 1982, 1994, 2002)
Schwaben Cup - 11 (1965, 1969, 1972, 1980, 1986, 1988, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005)
A bit of history:
The team was founded as FC Alemannia in 1907 and played as BC Augsburg from 1921 to 1969. In the face of impending financial collapse, they merged with the football side of TSV Schwaben Augsburg in July 1969 to form FC Augsburg. Schwaben was unhappy with the result and re-formed its own football team in 1970. For this reason, the FCA is generally not considered to carry on the traditions of TSV Schwaben, only those of the BC Augsburg.
Prior to World War II the club's best performance came as a second place finish in the Gauliga Bayern in 1940. After the war it played regularly in the top-flight Oberliga Süd with occasional laspes which dropped it to the second division.
Since the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, FC Augsburg has spent most of its time in tier III leagues. They managed two seasons in the 1960s in 2.Bundesliga, and enjoyed another eight seasons at that level in the mid-70s and early 80's. The clubs most successful season was undoubtetly 1973/74. Freshly promoted to Regionalliga Süd they won the league with a team led by Helmut Haller and missed out on promotion to the Bundesliga by only one point. A highlight of that season was the away game at its old rival TSV 1860 München which attracted 90.000 spectators. However, the club could not mach this success in the following seasons and was back in the Bayernliga in 1979/80. In 1981 and 1983 the club returned once more to the 2nd Bundesliga, just to be relegated straight away again. In 1983 a young FCA team missed survival by just three goals, being on equal points with the 16th placed Union Solingen. 1994 saw the team have another crack at promotion, however, in the last year of promotion play-offs to the 2nd Bundesliga, the bavarian champion wasn't grouped with the other southern German clubs like every other year, it had to play in the northern group with Eintracht Braunschweig and Fortuna Düsseldorf and missed out. It did however show, that the club still had good support in the region with 20.000 plus crowds turning up to these games.
When a potential investor backed out, the Deutscher Fußball-Bund (DFB or German Football Association) denied the debt-laden team a license, and as a result, the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons were spent in the Oberliga Bayern (IV) before a return to the Regionalliga Süd (III). The club came achingly close to advancing to 2.Bundesliga in 2005, but missed their oppourtunity after giving up two goals to Jahn Regensburg in the last four minutes of their final game of the season. In the 2005-2006 season, the club dominated the Regionalliga Süd throughout the season, winning the league and clinching a berth in the 2nd Bundesliga for the 2006-07 season. It marks their first appearance in the 2nd Bundesliga in 23 years. They finished the 2006-2007 season in seventh place, with 52 points, only 8 points from the promotion places to the Bundesliga. Again, the game at TSV 1860 was the highlight, with a 3-0 victory for Augsburg in front of 69.000 in the Allianz Arena. Ralf Loose replaced Rainer Hörgl as head coach in October 2007 when the club found itself in the relegation zone.
The long time home ground of the FCA, Rosenau Stadion, build from World War II rubble, may finally come to its well deserved rest in 2009 when a new stadion is supposed to be finished, the Impuls Arena. It is also scheduled to host games of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.
The historically indifferent performance of the senior side was offset by the success of the club's youth team, which captured a national championship in the under-18's in 1993, the last non-Bundesliga club to do so, and several Cup titles in the early 1990s. Nowadays the under-18's and under-16's youth teams play in the Bayernliga-Süd, the second tier of youth football.
FC Augsburg's reserve team currently plays in the Landesliga Bayern-Süd, having been promoted to the league in 2004. The club did not field a reserves team at all from 1989 till 1997, preferring rather to concentrate on its successful youth program.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
FC Augsburg
