Preussen Munster

The club was founded as FC Preußen on 30 April 1906 and has its roots in a group formed at the Johann-Conrad-Schlaun Grammar School. Historians consider patriotic reasons for naming the club after Prussia. At first the club did not have its own ground and was playing at a parade ground of the army at Loddenheide. General Baron von Bissing gave permission only if the goals would be taken down again after training. On 24 June 1907, the Eagles won their first game against FC Osnabrück with 5–0. After successfully applying for the Western German League system, the team initially competed in the second tier. In 1908 the Eagles were promoted to the first league and in 1914 they won the Westphalian Championship. Between 1916 and 1926 the club played on Münstermannplatz, which was close to the current ground, the Preußenstadion. In 1921, they won the Championship a second time and also took on their current name.

In 1933, Preußen advanced to the Gauliga Westfalen, one of sixteen top-flight leagues established through the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. They earned only mediocre results there and were relegated twice. Their second demotion in 1941 left them out of first division football until after World War II.

The team played three seasons in the Landesliga Westfalen Gr. 2 (II) before returning to the top-flight in the Oberliga West in the 1948–49 season. That arrival was accompanied by some notoriety, as Preußen Münster became the first German football club to build a team by buying players, something previously unheard of in a country committed to the ideal of amateurism. Siegfried Rachuba, Adolf Preissler, Rudolf Schulz, Felix Gerritzen, and Josef Lammers formed a front five dubbed by the press as the "Hundred-Thousand-Mark Line", even though that much money never did change hands. Rachuba is still Münsters most successful first tier striker of all times with 97 goals in 238 games.

The investment paid dividends as the club appeared in the 1951 national final in front of 107,000 spectators at Berlin's Olympic Stadium against 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Preußen striker Gerritzen scored first but the team lost after two goals from Ottmar Walter.

Founding member of the Bundesliga

Their results as a mid-table side in the tough Oberliga West in the ten years prior to the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963 were good enough to earn Preußen Münster the admission as one of the five teams from that league to earn a place in Germany's new sixteen-team professional circuit. The club made only a cameo appearance in the Bundesliga, being relegated after a next-to-last 15th-place finish.

1964–2006: Second and Third Division

Preußen Münster played out in the 1960s and 1970s as a second division side in the Regionalliga West and 2. Bundesliga Nord. In the 1970s the Preußen made several attempts to return to Bundesliga. Under club president Günter Wellerdieck (from 1970 to 1978) the club took a considerable financial risk to achieve the promotion to first tier. Preußen failed to do so by finishing on 5th place in the 1973–74 season and on 3rd place in the 1977–78 and 1978–79 seasons. After Wellerdieck and other staff of the club's management resigned due to financial difficulties and accusations of tax fraud in 1978, the decline of Preußen Münster continued. They slipped to the Amateur Oberliga Westfalen (III) in the 1981–82 season, and except for a short adventure in the 2. Bundesliga in the 1990 and 1991 seasons, played third-tier football in the Regionalliga West/Sudwest (1993–2000) and Regionalliga Nord until 2006. During this period, they captured the German Amateur Championship in 1994 with a 1–0 win over Kickers Offenbach.

2006–2011: Fourth Division

In 2006, the club was relegated to the Oberliga Westfalen, now a fourth-tier circuit. Management subsequently invested significant financial resources into a high-profile team of experienced second- and third-tier players in pursuit of immediate re-promotion. The attempt ended in failure and the club re-built itself with young players in place of expensive veterans and also put in place a young and relatively unknown coach, Roger Schmidt. The re-worked side finished in first place in the 2007–08 season, and so qualified for the new Regionalliga West which replaced the Oberliga in the league system. They ended the season in fourth place in the Regionalliga in 2008–09, and in sixth in 2009–10. For season 2008–09 the club qualified for the DFB-Pokal the first time since season 1997–98 (where they were defeated by 1.FSV Mainz 05). The opponent was VfL Bochum which competed in Bundesliga at that time. After a penalty shootout Preußen lost 5–6. In the following year the Eagles were defeated in the extra time against another first tier team, Hertha BSC. The match ended 1–3.

2011–present: 3. Liga and 2. Bundesliga

They were finally promoted to 3. Liga after finishing as champions of the West Group of the Regionalliga in the 2010–11 season. The manager of that time was Marc Fascher. Preußen were defeated by another Bundesliga team in the German cup, VfL Wolfsburg (1–2). The first season 2011–12 in the third tier of German football after five years ended with a 12th place. In the following seasons the team finished significantly better and even had chances to get promoted again to 2. Bundesliga. In season 2012–13 they almost succeeded and ended in fourth place. In that season the team was also able to defeat the Bundesliga team Werder Bremen in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, 4–2 after extra time. In the second round, the club lost against Augsburg. In season 2013–14 they ended in sixth place. Again the club managed to win against a team from a higher league in the DFB-Pokal, St. Pauli from 2. Bundesliga. In the next round Preußen was defeated again by FC Augsburg.