Nurnberg

Rise of "Der Club"

1. FC Nürnberg was founded on 4 May 1900 by a group of 18 young men who had gathered at local pub Burenhütte to assemble a side committed to playing football rather than rugby, one of the other new "English" games becoming popular at the time. By 1909, the team was playing well enough to win the South German championship. After World War I, Nürnberg would gradually turn their success into the dominance of the country's football. In the period from July 1918 to February 1922, the team would go unbeaten in 104 official matches. As early as 1919, they came to be referred to simply as "Der Club" in recognition of their skill and of their style on and off the field and would go on to become one of the nation's most widely recognized and popular teams.

Nürnberg faced SpVgg Fürth in the first national championship held after the end of World War I, beating the defending champions 2–0. That would be the first of five titles Der Club would win over the course of eight years. In each of those victories, they would shutout their opponents.

The 1922 final was contested by Nürnberg and Hamburger SV but never reached a conclusion on the pitch. The match was called on account of darkness after three hours and ten minutes of play, drawn at 2–2. The re-match also went into extra time, and in an era that did not allow for substitutions, that game was called at 1–1 when Nürnberg was reduced to just seven players and the referee ruled incorrectly the club could not continue. The German Football Association (DFB) awarded the win to Hamburger SV under the condition that they renounce the title in the name of "good sportsmanship", and ultimately the Viktoria trophy was not officially awarded that year.

After the glory years

1. FCN's dominance was already beginning to fade when they captured their final trophy of the era in 1927 as the game began to evolve into a more quickly paced contest which did not suit their slower, more deliberate approach. In 1934, they lost in the final to Schalke 04, a club that would go on to become the strongest side in the era of football in Nazi Germany. Nürnberg won national titles just before and after World War II in 1936 and 1948 – in the first post-war national final – and would also take the Tschammerpokal, the forerunner of today's DFB-Pokal, in 1935 and 1939.

Into the modern era

The post-war period began with the club being integrated into the Oberliga Süd, one of the five top divisions in West-Germany at the time. Nürnberg won this league six times until 1963, winning the national championship in 1948. In 1961, 1. FCN captured their eighth national title and appeared in a losing effort in the following year's final. Some consolation was to be had in the team capturing its second DFB-Pokal in 1962. The club's strong play made it an obvious choice to be amongst the 16 teams selected to participate in the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league formed in 1963. Der Club played as a mid-table side through the league's early years until putting on a dominating performance in 1968, in which it sat atop the league table from the fifth week of play on to the end of the season en route to its first Bundesliga title. It went on to become the first reigning champions to be relegated from the Bundesliga. This was a result of Max Merkel's decision to remove his championship-winning team of veterans – believing that they were too old – in favour of a dozen newcomers.

It would take the club nine years to recover and return from the second tier (first the Regionalliga Süd, then the 2. Bundesliga Süd), that included several failed efforts in the promotion rounds. 1. FCN returned to the Bundesliga for a year in 1978, but finish 17th and were relegated again. The club immediately played its way back to the top flight, but since then its Bundesliga performances have typically ended in the lower positions in the league table with occasional relegations. The side's best result in recent decades was a fifth-place finish in 1988.

The early 1980s saw the development of a supporter friendship between fans of Nürnberg and those of former rivals Schalke 04. Supporters have travelled to each other's away matches, and meetings between the two clubs are typically described as amicable.

In the mid-1990s, Nürnberg had financial problems, including the conviction of their club treasurer Ingo Böbel for fraud and misallocating club finances. This led to their being penalized six points in the 1995–96 season while playing in the 2. Bundesliga. The club was relegated to the third division as a consequence. Gradual improvements were made in the subsequent seasons.

In 1999, however, 1. FCN suffered what was arguably the worst end-of-season collapse in Bundesliga history. Going into the last game of the campaign, the club sat in 12th place, three points and five goals ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt in 16th place. Nürnberg's last home game against SC Freiburg, which was also facing relegation while Frankfurt was up against 1. FC Kaiserslautern, the previous season's champions who in a fight for a UEFA Champions League spot. FCN had already begun sending renewal letters to current season ticket holders which included statements about successfully avoiding relegation. Every other team in the equation won their matches, including Frankfurt who routed Kaiserslautern 5–1 with three late goals, whereas Nürnberg lost 2–1, with Frank Baumann missing a chance to score in the last minute, and suffered a shock relegation. 1. FCN was not relegated because they had fewer points than Frankfurt, nor because of a lower goal differential, but on the third tie-breaker – fewer goals scored.