Kremser

Foundation and early years

Organised football in Krems predates the club. A student team was formed in 1909, and a side of students and soldiers calling itself Kremser Rapid followed in 1912. The club itself was founded on 24 August 1919 as 1. Kremser Sport-Club and adopted black and white as its colours. It joined the Lower Austrian football association on 1 October of the same year, and the crest designed in the founding year remains in use. The club briefly carried the name Krems-Steiner SC in the early 1920s, a reference to the neighbouring district of Stein.

The Steiner Sportplatz soon proved too small for the crowds. In 1921 the city of Krems made available a plot beside the railway embankment, and military barracks left over from World War I were cleared. Volunteers built a small ground with a training pitch and running track. The Austrian federation refused to sanction matches without proper changing rooms, so a wooden hut washed up by the Danube flood of February 1923 was salvaged and pressed into service. The first competitive match at the new ground was played on 15 April 1923 and ended in a 4–4 draw with Sturm 19 St. Pölten. The club had overreached itself financially and sold the ground to the city in 1927 to clear its debts.

Krems won three consecutive Lower Austrian championships between 1930 and 1933. In 1930 it also took the Austrian amateur championship, beating FA Turnerbund Lustenau, the forerunner of SC Austria Lustenau, in the deciding matches. As 1. Kremser SC it won the Lower Austrian Cup in 1936, beating ESV Wacker Wiener Neustadt over two legs.

Public money became available for repairs to the ground after the Anschluss in 1938, and the site was renovated in 1940. Football in Krems stopped in 1944 and resumed in the spring of 1946. Fundraising paid for a new ticket office, changing rooms and a main entrance, and the Soviet occupation authorities financed a wooden stand beside the embankment. In 1949 the master builder Sepp Doll was commissioned to draw up plans for a full redevelopment. His scheme was never realised for lack of money, but he later served as the club's long-standing chairman.

Rise to the top flight

Promotion to the second-tier Staatsliga B followed the 1953–54 season and began a sustained rise. Krems finished as runners-up in 1955–56 and won a promotion play-off against Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz to reach the top division. The first home match in the Staatsliga A was played on 26 August 1956 against Admira Wien and drew 6,000 spectators to a 1–1 draw. On 23 September the club won 2–0 at Austria Wien in front of 32,000. A month later more than 10,000 packed the Kremser Stadion for the visit of Rapid Wien, who won 2–0. The club finished ninth in 1956–57 with an average home attendance of 4,500. It survived four seasons in the top flight before losing a relegation play-off to FC Dornbirn on 10 July 1960.

The city funded a new clubhouse, a groundsman's flat and a new changing block in 1958. Terracing was extended behind both goals and along the embankment side, and the seated area was roofed, so that the ground took on broadly the shape it has today.

Two decades of anonymity followed, with the club moving between the Regionalliga East and the Lower Austrian Landesliga. Krems won the Landesliga at the first attempt after relegation in 1974. It took the Regionalliga East title in 1976 and spent three seasons in the second-tier 2. Division from 1977 to 1980 before dropping back.

Revival under Dienst

In the summer of 1981 the chairman Erich Hartmann approached the former Rapid Wien striker Robert Dienst, who had been working successfully in the lower divisions. Dienst took charge and in 1982–83 won the Lower Austrian Landesliga by a record margin of eleven points under two points for a win. A qualifying tie against the Burgenland champions SV Neuberg was settled 3–0 at home before 4,000 spectators and 7–1 away. The defence was the team's strength, as the goalkeeper Franz Gartner kept a clean sheet for 810 consecutive minutes and the side conceded only twenty goals all season.

Krems finished eighth of sixteen in the 2. Division as a promoted club in 1983–84. Average attendances of around 1,800 in a town of 22,000 people left the club with a small surplus. It settled into the second tier and developed into one of the division's stronger sides.

Cup triumph and European football

Floodlights were installed in 1988 and the ground was renamed the Sepp-Doll-Stadion after further improvements. The same year brought the club's greatest success. Under Ernst Weber, Krems reached the Austrian Cup final by beating St. Margarethen 4–0, SC Zwettl 4–1, FC Puch 2–0, Wiener Sport-Club 2–0 and VfB Mödling 3–1. The final was played over two legs against FC Swarovski Tirol, then in their first season under Ernst Happel and widely regarded as the most expensive squad in the country.

The first leg was played at the Sepp-Doll-Stadion on the evening of 24 May 1988 before 9,000 spectators, and Roland Otto and Thomas Janeschitz scored in a 2–0 win. At the Tivoli in Innsbruck on 1 June, Erwin Wolf put Krems ahead in the thirteenth minute in front of nearly 10,000. Robert Wazinger, Andreas Spielmann and Rupert Marko replied for Tirol, but the tie finished 3–3 on aggregate and Krems took the trophy on the away goals rule. It was the first second-division side to win the cup since the competition was reintroduced.

As cup holders Krems met the champions Rapid Wien in the 1988 Austrian Supercup at the Sepp-Doll-Stadion on 16 July 1988. Under the newly appointed Karl Daxbacher the match finished 1–1 after extra time before 6,000 spectators, and Rapid won 3–1 on penalties.