F.C. Hansa Rostock

Hansa Rostock
Full name Fußballclub Hansa Rostock e. V.
Nickname(s) Hansa, Hanseaten, Kogge,
Hansa-Kogge, Ostseestädter
Founded 28 December 1965
Ground Ostseestadion, Rostock
Ground Capacity 29,000
Chairman Robert Marien
Manager Christian Brand
League 3. Liga
2015–16 10th

F.C. 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 and have made several appearances in the Bundesliga.

After being in the Bundesliga for ten years, from 1995 to 2005, Rostock faces a steady decline. In 2012, the club was relegated to the 3. Liga for the second time and is now playing there for the fourth season consecutively.

History

The club was established on 1 November 1954 as the multi-sport Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, couldn't 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 politician Karl Mewis ordered the re-assignment of the footballers of Empor Lauter, over the futile protests of the team's local supporters, to Rostock. This was not an uncommon occurrence in East German football, as clubs were regularly renamed, re-structured, dismantled, or shuffled from city to city at the direction of well-placed communist officials.

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.

Play in Rostock

Newly formed SC Empor Rostock took the place of the former Lauter-based club in first division play in November 1954. They finished second the next season, but in 1956 plunged to 14th place and were relegated. They quickly bounced back, rejoining the DDR-Oberliga in 1958, before going on to become a very competitive side with a series of three vice-championships to their credit from 1962–1964, as well as several appearances in the final of the FDGB Pokal. The re-organization of East German sports in 1965 led to the association's football department becoming independent as Fußball Club Hansa Rostock, which was designated as one of the country's 11 focus clubs intended to groom talent for the development of a strong East German national side. The new club's name acknowledged Rostock's history as one of the major trading centres of northern Europe's Hanseatic League.

By the 1970s the club was consistently finishing in the lower half of the league table and was relegated to the second division DDR-Liga for a single season on three different occasions late in the decade. They returned to form in the 1980s and as the football leagues of West Germany and East Germany were merged in 1990 after the re-unification of the country, Rostock won its first national championship in the final season of East German football, played out in the transitional NOFV-Oberliga. This is their only top flight title to date in play in East Germany or the unified Germany.

They also captured the last ever East German Cup with a 1–0 win over FC Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt.[1]

United Germany and the Bundesliga

The squad of January 1990

The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the league was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991–92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of SG Wattenscheid 09. Three seasons of tempering in the 2. Bundesliga would return the club to the top flight for the 1995–96 season. In ten years spent in the Bundesliga the team's best results were a pair of sixth-place finishes. In spite of frequent placings in the bottom half of the league table, they would persist as the only former East German side able to consistently challenge the well-heeled clubs of the west. On 1 December 2002 Rostock became the first club to field six foreigners from the same country in a Bundesliga match (Prica, Lantz, Wibran, Jakobsson, Arvidsson and Persson – all Swedes).

Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004–05 season, earning only a single win and five draws in 17 matches. They were unable to recover despite the late arrival of Finnish striker Jari Litmanen and at season's end were relegated, leaving the former GDR without a club in the top flight for the first time since re-unification. Like other East German teams they were the victims of a harsh economic reality as the wealthier, well-established western sides bought up the most talented eastern footballers as their clubs struggled to survive financially: Rostock's Stefan Beinlich, Oliver Neuville and Victor Agali were just three players sent west for cash. After two years in the 2. Bundesliga the club returned to the top flight for the 2007–08 season, but was again relegated.

The club's poor form continued in 2009–10 and they finished third last. With this season, a new promotion/relegation format accompanied the introduction of the 3. Liga and Rostock found itself in a playoff versus the third place third division club FC Ingolstadt. Hansa lost both legs of the contest and was sent down to the 3. Liga, while Ingolstadt won promotion to the 2. Bundesliga alongside the top two third tier teams which advanced automatically by virtue of their finishes. Their stay was a short one as they were sent back down after finishing bottom table in 2011–12.

Honours

The club's honours:

Managers

Fans

A study published in 2007 by Sportfive reported Hansa's fanbase to be the seventh largest in Germany, involving up to two million supporters.[2] According to another study published in 2008 by Allensbach Institute, Hansa is the most popular German football club in the New Länder and the most popular club of the former GDR in reunited Germany.[3] Hansa Rostock's official anthem is "FC Hansa, wir lieben Dich total" (Hansa FC, We Totally Love You), recorded in 1995 by the East German band the Puhdys. Hansa struggles with hooliganism, estimating up to 500 supporters to be leaning towards violence.[4] The club itself as well some fans' associations are anxious to curtail these in several ways.[5] In 2005, the club successfully sued three streakers who disrupted their 2003 match against Hertha Berlin, to recoup the €20,000 they were fined by the DFB for failing to maintain adequate security at their ground.

Stadium

The original Ostseestadion was built in 1954, with the participation of several hundred citizens of Rostock who helped for free. The first international match in the Ostseestadion of East Germany was on 26 September 1956. In 2001, the stadium was refurbished and modified to accommodate 30,000 spectators.

Players

Current squad

As of 29 November 2016[6]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player
1 Germany GK Marcel Schuhen
3 Germany DF Marcus Hoffmann
4 Germany MF Tommy Grupe
5 Germany DF Matthias Henn
6 Germany MF Michael Gardawski
7 Germany DF Christian Dorda
8 Germany MF Ronny Garbuschewski
9 Germany MF Timo Gebhart
10 Germany MF Aleksandar Stevanović
11 Germany MF Jeff-Denis Fehr
13 Germany DF Dennis Erdmann
14 Netherlands FW Melvin Platje
15 Austria MF Marco Kofler
18 Germany DF Florian Esdorf
No. Position Player
19 Turkey MF Hasan Ülker
23 Algeria FW Soufian Benyamina
24 Germany MF Stefan Wannenwetsch
25 Germany MF Kerem Bülbül
27 Germany DF Fabian Holthaus
29 Germany MF Tobias Jänicke
31 Germany GK Samuel Aubele
33 Germany DF Maximilian Ahlschwede
36 Germany GK Eric Behrens
37 Switzerland MF Stephan Andrist
38 Germany FW Marcel Ziemer

Staff

Management

Chairman

Supervisory Board

Sports

Head Coach

Assistant Coach

Goalkeeper Coach

Reserve team

The club's reserve team, F.C. Hansa Rostock II, has played as high as Regionalliga level, last playing in the Regionalliga Nord in 2009–10. The team currently plays in the tier five NOFV-Oberliga Nord. It first reached Oberliga level in 1992 and has won three league championships at this level, in 2000, 2005 and 2012.[7][8]

In 1998, 2005 and 2006 it also won the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Cup, the local cup competition in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and qualified for the first round of the DFB-Pokal through this but never advanced past the first round.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hesse, Uli (3 June 2016). "The last days of football in East Germany". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  2. ↑ 11Freunde.com. "Marktstudie: Köln mischt die Bundesliga auf".
  3. ↑ FC-Hansa.de. "Hansa bleibt beliebtester Fußballverein in Ostdeutschland".
  4. ↑ Tagesspiegel.de. "Kampf um die Nummer eins".
  5. ↑ Spiegel.de. "Rostock, wir haben ein Problem".
  6. ↑ "F.C. Hansa Rostock – Profi Mannschaft Spieler Übersicht" (in German). F.C. Hansa Rostock. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv (German) Historical German domestic league tables
  8. ↑ F.C. Hansa Rostock II at Fussball.de (German) Tables and results of all German football leagues
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