BFC Preussen

Football club infobox
clubname = BFC Preussen


fullname = Berliner Fussball Club Preussen 1894 e.V.
nickname = The Prussians
founded = 1894
ground = Preussen-Stadion Malteserstraße
capacity = 5,000
chairman =
manager =
league = NOFV-Oberliga Nord (V)
season = 2007-08
position = 13th
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pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=|pattern_ra2=
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BFC Preussen is a German football club from Berlin. The team is part of a sports club which also has departments for handball, volleyball, athletics, gymnastics, and ice hockey. Preussen was one of the founding clubs of the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) at Leipzig in 1900.

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History

The club was formed as "BFC Friedrich Wilhelm" on May 1, 1894 by a number of players who had left "Berliner Thor- und Fussball Club 1894 Helvetia". [Thorball or torball was a German word in use in the 1890s and early 1900s for the sport of cricket. Several early clubs playing the new "English" games of football, rugby, and cricket incorporated it into their name. The term never caught on and did not enter into common usage, soon being abandoned by sports clubs. Today torball may be used to refer to a form of football played by the blind or vision-impaired.] By 1895 they were called "Preussen", named after the Kingdom of Prussia, and were on their way to success playing in the VDBV ("Verband Deutscher Ballspiel Vereine" or Federation of German Ballplay Teams). The team lost the league final in 1898 before going on to win three consecutive titles in 1899, 1900, and 1901, and then repeating as champions in 1910 and 1912. While Preussen remained a prominent side playing in the Verbandsliga Berlin-Brandenburg and Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg through to the early 1930s, they earned just mid-table results.

In 1933 German football was re-organized under the Third Reich into sixteen first division Gauligen. However, an uncharacteristically poor finish to the 1932-33 season that saw Preussen finish in last place put the club out of top-flight football. In the aftermath of World War II occupying Allied authorities banned organizations throughout Germany, including sports and football clubs. The club was dissolved, then re-established in 1949.

By the 1970s Preussen had settled into third-tier competition in the Amateurliga Berlin (III). A short-lived breakthrough to the Regionalliga Berlin (II) lasted two seasons from 1972-74 before the team briefly crashed to the Landesliga Berlin (IV) in 1974-75. The team's quick return to the third tier Amateur Oberliga Berlin was marked by five exceptional seasons in which they earned three first and two second place finishes. They narrowly missed promotion to the 2. Bundesliga in 1980 when they lost the playoff to SC Göttingen 05 (0:1 and 1:1). Preussen played out the balance of the 1970s and into the early 1990s in the third division.

The team soon found itself in the fifth tier Verbandsliga Berlin and slipped as low as the Landesliga Berlin-1 (VI) in 1999-2000. Preussen's play has picked up to the point that they now play in the Oberliga Nordost-Nord (IV).

International players

*flagicon|ENG flagicon|GER Edwin Dutton, former German international [ [http://www.iffhs.de/?29da14a95814689b5528db14a85fdcdc3bfcdc0aec70aeeda0ae01 Stats for the Hungary -Germany international 4 April 1909] www.iffhs.de, accessed: 18 August 2008]

Honours

* Verband Deutscher Ballspiel Vereine (Berlin) (I) champions: 1899, 1900, 1901, 1910, 1912
* Oberliga Berlin (III) champions: 1972, 1977, 1980, 1981
* Verbandsliga Berlin (V) champions: 2005

Recent seasons

External links

* [http://www.bfc-preussen.de Official team site (general)]
* [http://www.bfc-preussen-fussball.de Official team site (football)]
* [http://www.abseits-soccer.com/clubs/preuberlin.html Abseits Guide to German Soccer]
* [http://www.f-archiv.de/ Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv] historical German football league tables (in German)

References