Sportfreunde Siegen

Sportfreunde Siegen is a German association football club based in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia. After going through insolvency in 2008, the first team was forcibly relegated to the fifth-tier NRW-Liga. Promotion to fourth division Regionalliga West was accomplished in 2012, but the club continued to struggle while going back and forth between fourth and fifth league play. In 2017, the club had to file for insolvency for a second time.

The club’s home ground is the Leimbachstadion, an arena that can host up to 18,500 people.

History

The early years

The club was founded in 1899 as the football department of a gymnastics club called Turnverein Jahn von 1879 Siegen, being one of the first clubs in Western Germany to offer organized football to its members. In 1923, it merged with Sportverein 07 Siegen to become an independent football club called Sportfreunde Siegen von 1899.

The 1920s also marked the club's first ascension to the national level, competing in the Western German championship after claiming the crown in the district league four times in a row. Despite these results, the team did not qualify for the first division when German football was re-organized in the Third Reich. After World War II, the club initially could not match its pre-war successes until it won the German amateur championship in 1955 with a stunning 5–0 win over 05 Bad Homburg.

Two years later, Sportfreunde captain Herbert Schafer was called up by national coach Sepp Herberger to play for the German national team. In 1954, Schafer had been the last player being cut from the team which went on to win the World Cup. To this day, Herbert Schafer still ranks as one of the best players to ever wear a Sportfreunde jersey.

Six years after winning the German amateur championship, Sportfreunde Siegen made the jump to professional football in 1961. When the Bundesliga was introduced in 1963, the club settled in the Regionalliga, which was the second highest

This page also has a version in other languages :  Шпортфройнде (Зиген) (russian)