Cologne (football club)

From Creation to 1963

In the 30s - 40s of the XX century. Several football teams of approximately equal strength were based in Cologne: VfL Köln 1899, VfR Köln 04, SV Mülheim, SpVgg Sülz 07 and Kölner BC 01. However, all these unions were district level teams that successfully performed in their city and the surrounding villages. No team could seriously show themselves in the framework of the Rhineland championship, especially - in the championship of Germany. From 1934 to 1944, VfR Köln was able to get into the big leagues, but the competition from the teams from Trier , Aachen and Duren turned out to be insurmountable.

By the decision of the residents of the city, who realized the need to have a strong football team and were able to influence the owners of the unions, one club was created, which absorbed all the best football players in Cologne. That is how the 1.FC Köln football team was created on February 13, 1948, based on the unions of Kölner BC and Sülz 07.

The main driving force behind the merger of the teams were Franz Kremer and Franz Bolg, who set about building a competitive team in the national arena. Under their banners, they immediately tried to call strong players, saying the sacramental phrase: “Would you like to become German champions with us?”

Franz Kremer became the first president of the new team and remained with him until his death in 1967 . He turned out to be a very skilled leader and organizer. For several seasons, Kremer has seriously improved the infrastructure of the team, transferred it to a professional level. Already in 1949, the club was able to rise to the West Division of the German Premier League.

In 1957 , at the party of the football team at the end of the season, which coincided with carnival festivities, one of the guests presented the boss of the club with a live goat. They named him in jest in honor of the head coach Hennes Weisweiler . The goat was so fond of the coach himself and all the players that over time he turned into a club mascot , began to appear on the team logo, and then on all fan products. As a result, the team got the nickname "goats". For 2008, the Hennes Seventh is already entering the football arena in Cologne.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, football players from the banks of the Rhine generally became the best in West Germany 5 times. This was a success for a club that most recently did not exist. Success in the West allowed the team to regularly play in the final matches for the championship, but the main trophy of the country was submitted to Cologne only in 1962 , when Nuremberg was defeated in the final with a score of 4: 0.

From 1963 to the present day

In 1963, the football Bundesliga was founded. The enthusiasm of Kremer and his team allowed Cologne to become its first ever triumph, ahead of Frankfurt's Eintracht by as much as 6 points. In the final game of the season, the club in the home arena celebrated Victoria over Stuttgart thanks to balls from Hans Schäfert and Heinz Hornig. The coach of the champions was Georg Knöpfle.

In the early 60s, the team was the base club of the national team of the country. An excellent goalkeeper coach, Rolf Herings, worked in the coaching staff of Cologne. This circumstance made it possible to consider the goalkeeper school on the banks of the Rhine the best in the country ( Harald Schumacher and Bodo Illgner became graduates at different times. Many representatives of other large teams of the country attended the “goats” training camp and tried to understand how such successes are achieved. 1967 Franz Kremer passed away, and a year later the club won the German Cup in his memory for the first time.

In the 70s, Bayern and Borussia from Monchengladbach became leaders in German football. “Cologne” lost its position a little, but was among the leaders of the championship and regularly played in European competitions. In 1976, the club was once again headed by their legendary coach Hennes Weisswaller, and a year later the psychology of the winners again returned to the “goats” along with the conquest of the country's Cup.

In 1978, the team for the third (and - for 2014 - the last) time became the champion of Germany. A few weeks before this success, there was also a victory in the Cup over “Fortune” from Düsseldorf , so the club made a gold double. Then the legendary matches of the semi-finals of the Champions Cup against the Nottingham Forest took place. An away draw in England with a 3-3 score was an excellent basis for the first ever finale of such a prestigious tournament in the club’s history. But the home defeat 0: 1 did not allow the dream of German fans to come true.

After the 1977/78 season, several eminent players immediately completed their professional careers. However, they were replaced by Pierre Littbarski and Bernd Schuster (graduates of the football school "Cologne"). But the 1978/1979 season was disappointing. Cologne finished it in 6th place, largely due to the terrible number of injuries that hit key players. After this championship, Hennes Weisswaller leaves to work as a coach in Cosmos from New York, and Rinus Michels becomes his successor in the post.

In 1980, Cologne lost in the final to the Fortune Cup from Düsseldorf and ended the next season without trophies. A year later, the team completely becomes the 8th in the championship, but simultaneously gets to the semifinals of the UEFA Cup, which again fails - this time Ipswich Town gets in the way of the “goats”.

In 1983, Pierre Littbarski's exact hit again brings the German Cup to the club. Then no one knew that this would be the last success of the team from the banks of the Rhine in this tournament - in 1985 due to a conflict with Union President Peter Wyand, the best football player Pierre Littbarski left the team.

In 1986, the team gets to the UEFA Cup final, where it suffers a humiliating defeat from Real Madrid 1: 5, 2: 0. A year later, a new scandal hit the club - goalkeeper Harald Schumacher is expelled from the team for the book “Starting Whistle”.

In the late 1980s, Christoph Daum was appointed the new head coach. The team began to show good football and became a vice champion a couple of times. However, in the early 90s, Christoph Daum completely unexpectedly fired. A few years later, then-President Dietmar Arzinger-Bolten admits that this was due to drugs that the specialist began to get involved in. In addition, that summer, for a record 14 million, the brilliant Thomas Hessler left the team, going to play for the Italian Juventus . In 1992, Cologne qualified for the last time in the UEFA Cup .

Since the mid-1990s, the team has been firmly established in the second half of the standings. In part, this can be explained by an unsuccessful investment of financial resources - many purchased players did not justify the money paid for them. In 1997, Albert Caspers, former top manager of the German branch of Ford , became the new president of Cologne. He began by strengthening finance, and invited experienced managers and talented economists. The large-scale reconstruction of the Mürgensdorfer stadium starts. In addition, Kaspers is able to obtain financial support from the city, which is now more interested, to have a strong football team than it was ten years ago.

Nevertheless, it was not possible to realize the sporting goals and in the 1997/1998 season Cologne left the main German football league for the first time in its history. However, a year later, under coach Bernd Schuster, the club managed to return to the elite league.

In 2002, the team again sank into the Second Bundesliga. Since then, almost every season the team has either risen or lowered in the classroom. Specialists like Friedhelm Funkel and Marcel Koller managed to work at the Rhine-Energy Arena . It is precisely with the name of the latter that the appearance in the basic composition of two promising players of the second team of Lukasz Sinkiewicz and Lukasz Podolski is connected.

In 2004, a new scandal in the manual was added to all gaming problems. Presidents, managers and coaches began to demand the resignation of each other, accusing each other of all the club's failures. As a result, in June 2004, Wolfgang Overath became the new president. He immediately fired Marcel Koller, and appointed Dutchman Hub Stevens as the new coach. In the 2005/2006 season, the "goats" played again in the First Bundesliga. Only a few months passed, when Stevens was forced to leave the team for family reasons. Uwe Rapolder took his place, but he could not finish even before the New Year. Nevertheless, the coaching leapfrog did not save the team from another demotion.

November 27, 2006 Christoph Daum returned to Cologne. However, six months later, he was almost dismissed due to a terrible 0: 5 loss from Roth-Weiss from Essen . Nevertheless, the situation was stabilized, and the 2007/2008 season brought Cologne another increase in class. At the end of the 2009 season, Daum quite unexpectedly accepted the invitation of the Turkish “ Fenerbahce ”, and the club had to search for a new coach in a fire order. The choice fell on the former captain of the “ Stuttgart ” Zvonimir Soldo . Then Frank Schaefer was appointed acting head coach of the club, after the dismissal of Zvonimir Soldo ^[2] .

Stole Solbakken became the new coach of the team ^[3] , which even had to pay monetary compensation to the Norwegian Football Federation, which had previously agreed with the specialist on cooperation ^[4] . However, four rounds before the end of the German Bundesliga championship 2011/12, he was dismissed, and Frank Schaefer again led the team. Then, the president changed at the club ^[5] , and on May 5, 2012 Cologne lost 1–4 to Bayern in their field and flew out of the Bundesliga to the Second Bundesliga ^[6] . In this regard, the club was forced to part with Lukasz Podolski (transferred to Arsenal ) ^[7] , captain Pedro Geromel (rented by the Spanish Mallorca ) ^[8] , goalkeeper Michael Rensing ^[9] and several other players. The head coach also changed - he became Holger Stanislavsky ^[10] . And due to the difficult financial situation, the fans of the team extended a helping hand to their favorite football club and bought bonds with a 5% annual interest rate totaling € 10 million. For the first time, this practice was applied in 2005, and in the summer of 2011 bonds were bought back by the club ^{[11 ]} . The team was unable to quickly return to the Bundesliga and did not go beyond the 1/8 final of the German Cup, and in the summer of 2013 the Austrian Peter Stoeger stood at the helm of the “ goats ” ^[12] . Following the results of the 2013/2014 season, Cologne returned to the Bundesliga after a two-year absence.

Success and Recession

After the successful season 2016/2017, when the team took the final 5th place and got into the Europa League, that is, in the European Cup, there was a frank failure. The team set a league record, gaining only 3 points for the first half of the championship, which has never happened in the history of the Bundesliga championship (since the reunification of Germany, that is, since 1991). The head coach of the team, Austrian Peter Stögen, who worked at the helm of the club for almost 5 years, eventually left him, moving to Dortmund, heading the local Borussia. Despite these results, the club reached 1/8 of the German Cup, beating FC Hertha 3-1. At the same time, the player of the team, the Russian, Konstantin Raush, is summoned to his team, regardless of the result in the championship.

National

•   Champion of Germany
  •   Champion (3): 1961/62 , 1963/64 , 1977/78
  •   Vice Champion (7): 1959/60 , 1962/63 , 1964/65 , 1972/73 , 1981/82 , 1988/89 , 1989/90
• German Cup
  •   Owner (4): 1968, 1977, 1978, 1983
  •   Finalist (6): 1954, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1991

International

•   UEFA Cup
  •   Finalist: 1985/86
• Joan Hamper Cup
  •   Owner (2): 1978, 1981
• Watch Cup
  •   Owner: 1991

Basic composition

As of August 21, 2019

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