SC Preußen 06 Münster - last updated on 1 August 2008
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Club name: Sportclub Preußen 1906 e.V. Münster
Foundation: April 30th 1906
City: Münster
Colours: Green and black
Website: www.scpreussen-muenster.de
Honours:
Amateur Oberliga Westfalen - 4 (1988, 1989, 1992, 1993)
A bit of history:
The club was founded as FC Preussen in 1906 and has its roots in a group formed at the Johann-Conrad-Schlaun High School. In 1921 the team took on its current name and progressed to second division competition in 1928.
In 1933, Preussen advanced to the Gauliga Westfalen, one of sixteen top-flight leagues established through the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. They earned only middling results there and were twice relegated. Their second demotion in 1941 left them out of first division football until after World War II.
The team played three seasons in the Landesliga Westfalen Gr. 2 (II) before returning to the top-flight in the Oberliga West in the 1948-49 season. That arrival was accompanied by some notoriety as Preussen Münster became the first German football club to build a team by buying players, something previously unheard of in a country committed to the ideal of amateurism. Siegfried Rachuba, Adolf Preissler, Rudolf Schulz, Felix Gerritzen, and Josef Lammers formed a front five dubbed by the press as the "Hundred-Thousand-Mark Line", even though that much money never did change hands.
The investment paid dividends as the club merited an appearance in the 1951 national final in front of 107,000 spectators at Berlin's Olympic Stadium against 1. FC Kaiserslautern where they went down to defeat by a score of 1:2.
Their results as a mid-table side in the tough Oberliga West in the ten years prior to the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963 were good enough to earn them admission as one of the five teams from that league to earn a place in Germany's new sixteen-team professional circuit. The club made only a cameo appearance in the Bundesliga, being relegated after a next-to-last 15th place finish.
Preussen Münster played out the 60s and 70s as a second division side in the Regionalliga West and 2. Bundesliga Nord. They slipped to the Amateur Oberliga Westfalen (III) in the 1981-82 season, and except for a short adventure in the 2. Bundesliga in the 1990 and 1991 seasons, have since played third tier football in the Regionalliga West/Sudwest (1993-2000) and Regionalliga Nord (2000-2006). During this period, they captured the German Amateur Championship in 1994 with a 1:0 win over Kickers Offenbach.
In 2006, the club once slipped to the Oberliga Westfalen, now a fourth tier circuit. Management invested significant monies into a high-profile team of experienced second- and third-tier players in pursuit of immediate re-promotion. The attempt ended in failure and the club re-built itself with young players in place of expensive veterans and also put in place young and relatively unknown coach Roger Schmidt. The re-worked side won five of its first six games to open the 2007 season.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
SC Preußen 06 Münster
