Greuther Fürth

Greuther Fürth is a football (soccer) club from Germany.

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SpVgg Greuther Fürth is a Germany football (soccer) :Category:German football clubs based in Fürth, Bavaria. The current club was formed only very recently out of the 1 July 1996 merger of traditional side Spielvereinigung Fürth and the senior football side of newcomer Turn- und Sportverein Vestenbergsgreuth.

History

Spielvereinigung Fürth

The origins of SpVgg Fürth are in the establishment on 23 September 1903 of a football department within the gymnastics club Turnverein 1860 Fürth. The footballers went their own way as an independent club in November 1906. The team played in the Ostkreisliga and took divisional titles there in 1912, 1913, and 1914 before moving on to participate in the Süddeutsche (en:South German) regional playoffs for the national championship round. Right from the beginning there was a great rivalry between the SpVgg Fürth and the 1. FC Nuremberg, predicated on the historical rivalry between the adjacent cities. Greuther Fürth grew rapidly and as of 1914, it had 3000 members and was the largest sports club in Germany.

National champions

Fürth won their first national title in 1914 under English coach William Townley. They faced VfB Leipzig – the defending champions with three titles to their credit – in the final held on May 31 in Magdeburg. A 154-minute-long thriller ended with Fürth scoring a golden goal to secure the title. The team had a solid run of successes through the 20s and into the early 30s, beginning with an appearance in the national final against 1. FC Nuremberg in 1920. Nuremberg was the dominant side of the decade. A star player with SpVgg was forced to leave after he married a Nuremberg girl. In 1924, for the first and only time, the German national side was made up exclusively of players from just two sides – Fürth and Nuremberg - and players of the two teams slept in separate rail coaches.

SpVgg showed regularly on the national stage, advancing to the semi-finals in 1923 and 1931. They claimed two more championships – in 1926 and 1929 – with both of those victories coming at the expense of Hertha BSC Berlin. Through this period Greuther Fürth played five finals in the Süddeutscher Pokal (en:South German Cup), coming away as cupwinners on four occasions. On 27 August 1929 the association was joined by FC Schneidig Fürth.

German football was re-organized in 1933 under the Third Reich into sixteen top flight Gauliga. Fürth became part of the Gauliga Bayern, but their success over the next dozen seasons was limited to a division title there in 1935, alongside regular appearances in competition for the Tschammerpokal, predecessor to today's DFB Pokal (en:German Cup).

Postwar play

After the war Greuther Fürth struggled through three seasons in the Oberliga Süd (1945-63) (I) before slipping to the Landesliga Bayern (II). SpVgg quickly recovered itself and returned to Oberliga play the next season. They won the title there in 1950 and went on to the national playoffs, advancing as far as the semifinals before being eliminated 1:4 by VfB Stuttgart. Fürth remained a first division side until the formation of the Bundesliga (football) in 1963. In 1954 two players from the SpVgg, Karl Mai and Herbert Erhardt, were members of Greuther Fürth that won the 1954 FIFA World Cup.

Greuther Fürth did not qualify as one of the sixteen teams that made up the new unified national first division and found themselves playing second division football in the Regionalliga Süd (1963-74), where the were generally a mid-table side whose best finish was third place result in 1967. Greuther Fürth played in the Bundesliga (football) from its inception in 1974 until 1983 with their best performance a fourth place finish in 1978–79. They slipped to playing in the tier III Oberliga Bayern, with a short three-year spell in the fourth division Landesliga Bayern-Mitte in the late 80s. In 1990, Fürth celebrated a 3:1 victory in the opening round of German Cup play over first division side Borussia Dortmund before going out 0:1 to 1. FC Saarbrücken in the second round. They returned to the Amateur Oberliga Bayern (IV) in 1991 and the Regionalliga Süd (III) in 1994.

TSV Vestenbergsgreuth

Meanwhile, the small village team of TSV Vestenbergsgreuth was established 1 February 1974 and made its appearance as a fourth division side.

Recent seasons

SpVgg Greuther Fürth

SpVgg Greuther Fürth II

For recent transfers, see List of German football transfers summer 2008 and List of German football transfers winter 2008-09.

SpVgg Greuther Fürth II squad

Manager: Reiner Geyer

Famous players

Fürth has sent 21 players to the German national team.
- Jörg Albertz, Hamburger SV captain and three-times Scottish Premier League winner with Rangers F.C..
- Herbert Erhardt, Fürths most capped player at 49 and a member of West Germany's 1954 FIFA World Cup winning Miracle of Bern side.
- Julius Hirsch, famous German footballer killed during the The Holocaust.
- Karl Mai, also a member of the 1954 World Cup team.

Famous coaches
William Townley, had three turns as coach of SpVgg Fürth in 1911–1913, 1926–1927, and 1930–1932 and led Greuther Fürth to two championships.

Team trivia
- Henry Kissinger was a member of the sports club before Immigration to the United States and serving as United States Secretary of State in the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. Today he is an honorary member and fan and according to Greuther Fürth's website

- SpVgg is an abbreviation of the German term "Spielvereinigung" – or "playing association" – a traditional used term for a team (German: Verein) or club engaged in sports other than gymnastics.

1.FC Kaiserslautern, 1.FC Nürnberg, Alemannia Aachen, FC Augsburg, FSV Mainz 05, Greuther Fürth, Hansa Rostock, LR Ahlen, MSV Duisburg, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, SC Freiburg, St. Pauli, SV Wehen, TSV 1860 München, TuS Koblenz, VfL Osnabrück