FC Hansa Rostock - last updated on 3 March 2008
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Club name: Fußballclub Hansa Rostock e.V.
Foundation: December 28th 1965
City: Rostock
Colours: Blue and white
Website: www.fc-hansa.de
Honours:
2. Bundesliga - 1 (1995)
A bit of history:
The club was established on 1 November 1954 as Sport-Club Empor Rostock through the transfer of the club BSG Empor Lauter from Lauter to Rostock. The area around Lauter, near the Czech border, was well-represented in East German football by competitive sides including Wismut Aue, Fortschritt Meerane, and Motor Zwickau. Rostock, the second largest city in East Germany after Berlin, did not have a decent football side and so politician Karl Mewis ordered the re-assignment of the footballers of Empor Lauter, over the futile protests of the team's local supporters, to Rostock to create SC Empor Rostock. This was not an uncommon occurrence in East German football, as clubs were regularly re-named, re-structured, dismantled, or shuffled from city to city at the direction of well-placed communist officials.
The origins of the Lauter team go back to the founding on 10 May 1913 of Fussball Club Viktoria Lauter. They enjoyed success as both the state champion and cup winner of Saxony in 1925, 1926, 1928, and 1929, and cup winner in 1930, but fared poorly in regional play in central Germany. In 1938, Viktoria merged with Sport-Club Waldhaus 1930 Lauter to form Sportgemeinde Lauter which remained an unremarked local side.
Following World War II occupying Allied authorities ordered the dissolution of most organizations in the country, including sports and football clubs. SG Lauter was re-established 23 July 1948 and went on to capture a division title in the Landesliga Sachsen-West, one of several top regional leagues in the Soviet-occupied eastern part of the country. The team was re-named BSG Freiheit-Wismut in May 1950 and the following year was joined to BSG Empor Lauter. Following their Landesliga title the club became part of the second tier DDR-Liga and won promotion to the DDR-Oberliga in 1952. They took part in play for the FDGB Pokal (en: East German Cup) in 1954, advancing as far as the quarterfinals.
The wholesale transfer of the Lauterers to Rostock part way through the 1954-55 season led to the disappearance of that association from play. A new club was formed in 1956 as BSG Motor Lauter and on 1 August 1990 it took up the tradition of the original side to play as Lauterer Sportverein Viktoria 1913.
Newly formed SC Empor Rostock took the place of the former Lauter-based club in first division play in November 1954. They finished second the next season, but in 1956 plunged to 14th place and were relegated. They quickly bounced back, rejoining the DDR-Oberliga in 1958, before going on to become a very competitive side with a series of three vice-championships to their credit from 1962-1964, as well as several appearances in the final of the FDGB Pokal. The re-organization of East German sports in 1965 led to the association's football department becoming independent as Fußball Club Hansa Rostock, which was designated as one of the country's 11 "focus clubs" intended to groom talent for the development of a strong East German national side. The new club's name acknowledged Rostock's history as one of the major trading centres of northern Europe's Hanseatic League.
By the 70s the club was consistently finishing in the lower half of the league table and was relegated to the second division DDR-Liga for a single season on three different occasions late in the decade. They returned to form in the 80s and as the football leagues of the two Germanys were merged in 1991 after the re-unification of the country, Rostock won its first national championship in the last ever season of East German football, played out in the transitional NOFV Oberliga Nordost. They would also capture the last ever East German Cup with a 1:0 win over FC Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt.
The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the league was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991-92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of the club ahead of them. Three seasons of tempering in the 2. Bundesliga would return the club to the top flight for the 1995-96 season. In ten years spent in the Bundesliga the team's best results were a pair of sixth place finishes. In spite of frequent placings in the bottom half of the league table, they would persist as the only former East German side able to consistently challenge the well-heeled clubs of the west.
Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004-05 season, earning only a single win and five draws in 17 matches. They were unable to recover and at season's end were relegated, leaving the former DDR without a club in the top flight for the first time since re-unification. Like other East German teams they were the victims of a harsh economic reality as the wealthier, well-established western sides bought up the most talented eastern footballers as their clubs struggled to survive financially: Rostock's Stefan Beinlich, Oliver Neuville and Victor Agali were just three players sent west for cash. After two years in the 2. Bundesliga the club returned to the top flight for the 2007-08 season.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
FC Hansa Rostock
