Hansa Rostock

FC Hansa Rostock [ʔɛf ˈt͡seː ˈhanza ˈʁɔstɔk] is a German association football club based in the city of Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They have emerged as one of the most successful clubs from the former East Germany after German reunification and have made several appearances in the top-flight Bundesliga.

After being in the Bundesliga for ten years, from 1995 to 2005, Rostock suffered a steady decline. In 2012, the club was relegated to the 3. Liga for the second time and only managed to regain its place in the second tier in 2021.

History

The club was originally founded on 1 November 1954 as the multi-sport Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, could not be recruited from local Betriebssportgemeinschaften like the squad of the handball section, so a transfer of BSG Empor Lauter's squad from Lauter to Rostock was considered. 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, so the footballers of Empor Lauter was delegated to Rostock, over the futile protests of the team's local supporters, to Rostock. Then SED First Secretary in Bezirk Rostock Karl Mewis and SED functionary Harry Tisch were instrumental in the relocation of BSG Empor Lauter to Rostock. Karl Lewis was allegedly the initiator of the relocation. This was not an uncommon occurrence in the 1950s of East German football, where clubs were regularly renamed, re-structured, dismantled or shuffled from city to city at the direction of well-placed communist officials. The new club would be sponsored by the fishing combine VEB Fischkombinat Rostock.

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.

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This page also has a version in other languages :  Ганза Росток (russian)