F.C. Hansa Rostock

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 top-flight Bundesliga.

Hansa Rostock
Full nameFußballclub Hansa Rostock e. V.
Nickname(s)Hansa, Hanseaten, Kogge,
Hansa-Kogge, Ostseestädter
Founded28 December 1965 (1965-12-28)
GroundOstseestadion, Rostock
Capacity29,000
ChairmanRobert Marien
ManagerJens Härtel
League3. Liga
2019–203. Liga, 6th of 20
WebsiteClub website

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

History
Historical chart of Hansa league performance after WWII

The club was established on 1 November 1954 as the multi-sport Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, could not 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 reassignment 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 to 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 Germany national team. 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 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 January 1990 squad

The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the top-flight Bundesliga was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991–92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa, however, 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 (Rade Prica, Marcus Lantz, Peter Wibrån, Andreas Jakobsson, Magnus Arvidsson and Joakim Persson – all Swedes).

Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004–05 season, earning only 1 win and 5 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 in exchange 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.

Hansa Rostock drew an average home attendance of 11,433[2] in the 2016–17 3. Liga, the third-highest in the league.

Honours

After German reunification, the last regular DDR-Oberliga season was played in NOFV-Oberliga. During 1990–91 NOFV-Oberliga season, Hansa Rostock became the last East Germany champion.

Domestic

Regional

Youth

Other
  • German Indoor championship
    • Winners: 1998

Double

DDR-Oberliga and FDGB-Pokal:

  • 1991

Players

Current squad
As of 14 August 2020[3]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
1 GK  GER Markus Kolke
3 DF  GER Julian Riedel
4 MF  GER Kai Bülow
5 MF  DEN Nikolas Nartey (on loan from VfB Stuttgart)
7 DF  GER Nico Neidhart
9 FW  GER Erik Engelhardt
10 MF  GER Korbinian Vollmann
13 DF  GER Paul Wiese
14 DF  ITA Max Reinthaler
15 DF  CAN Adam Straith
16 DF  GER Nils Butzen
17 MF  DEN Rasmus Thellufsen (on loan from AaB)
18 FW  NED John Verhoek
No. Pos. Nation Player
19 FW  GER Aaron Opoku (on loan from Hamburger SV)
20 MF  GER Lukas Scherff
22 GK  GER Alexander Sebald
23 DF  GER Sven Sonnenberg
26 MF  GER Tanju Öztürk
27 DF  GER Nico Rieble
30 GK  GER Ben Voll
31 DF  GER Nico Granatowski (on loan from VfL Osnabrück)
33 DF  GER Maximilian Ahlschwede
37 FW  GER Daniel Hanslik (on loan from Holstein Kiel)
39 FW  GER Pascal Breier
40 MF  SVN Nik Omladič

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
— FW  GER Elsamed Ramaj (at VfB Lübeck until 30 June 2020)

Staff
Management
  • Chairman: Robert Marien
  • Supervisory Board: Günter Fett
Sports

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.[4] 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.[5] Hansa Rostock's official anthem is "FC Hansa, wir lieben Dich total" ("Hansa FC, We Totally Love You"), recorded in 1995 by East German band Puhdys. Hansa struggles with hooliganism, estimating up to 500 supporters to be leaning towards violence.[6] The club itself as well some fans' associations are anxious to curtail these in several ways.[7] In 2005, the club successfully sued three streakers who disrupted their 2003 match against Hertha BSC to recoup the €20,000 they were fined by the German Football Association (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.

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.[8][9]

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.

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See also

References
  1. Hesse, Uli (3 June 2016). "The last days of football in East Germany". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  2. http://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/3-liga-2016-2017/1/
  3. "F.C. Hansa Rostock – Profi Mannschaft Spieler Übersicht" (in German). F.C. Hansa Rostock. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  4. 11Freunde.com. "Marktstudie: Köln mischt die Bundesliga auf".
  5. FC-Hansa.de. "Hansa bleibt beliebtester Fußballverein in Ostdeutschland".
  6. "Kampf um die Nummer eins". Der Tagesspiegel.
  7. "Rostock, wir haben ein Problem". Der Spiegel.
  8. Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv (in German) Historical German domestic league tables
  9. F.C. Hansa Rostock II at Fussball.de (in German) Tables and results of all German football leagues
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