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| Full name | Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth e. V. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname | Kleeblätter (Shamrocks)[citation needed] | ||
| Founded | 23 September 1903; 122 years ago (1903-09-23) asSpVgg Fürth | ||
| Ground | Sportpark Ronhof | ||
| Capacity | 16,626[1] | ||
| President | Fred Höfler[citation needed] | ||
| Head coach | Thomas Kleine | ||
| League | 2. Bundesliga | ||
| 2024–25 | 2. Bundesliga, 13th of 18 | ||
| Website | sgf1903.de | ||
 Current season | |||
Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth (German pronunciation:[ˈʃpiːlfɛɐ̯ˌʔaɪnɪɡʊŋˌɡʁɔɪ̯tɐˈfʏʁt]), commonly known asGreuther Fürth (German pronunciation:[ˌɡʁɔɪ̯tɐˈfʏʁt]ⓘ) or by their historical name,SpVgg Fürth, is aGerman football club based inFürth,Bavaria. They play in the2. Bundesliga, the second tier of theGerman football league system, following relegation from theBundesliga in the2021–22 season.
Founded in 1903, the most successful era for Greuther Fürth came in the pre-Bundesliga era in the 1910s and 1920s, when the club won threeGerman championships, in1914,1926, and1929 respectively, and finished as runners-up in1920. In the2012–13 season, the club played in the Bundesliga for the first time, having won promotion from the 2. Bundesliga;[2] they were relegated back to the 2. Bundesliga at the end of the season. On 23 May 2021, they[vague] were promoted back to the Bundesliga for the second time.[3] Upon placing 18th in the Bundesliga table in the 2021–22 season, they were relegated back to 2. Bundesliga.
The origins ofSpVgg Fürth are in the establishment on 23 September 1903 of a football department within the gymnastics clubTurnverein 1860 Fürth. The footballers went their own way as an independent club in November 1906, after they did not get enough support fromTV Fürth. The team played in the Ostkreisliga and took divisional titles there in 1912, 1913 and 1914 before moving on to participate in the Süddeutsche (South German) regional playoffs for the national championship round.[4] Right from the beginning, there was a great rivalry between the SpVgg Fürth and the1. FC Nürnberg, predicated on the historical rivalry between the two neighbouring cities.[5] The club grew rapidly, and by 1914, it had 3,000 members and was the largest sports club in Germany.[citation needed] When the club built their own stadium,Sportpark Ronhof, in 1910, it was the biggest stadium in Germany at the time.
Fürth won their first national title, the1914 German football championship, under English coachWilliam Townley withleft wingerJulius Hirsch, who had joined the team the prior season.[6][7] They facedVfB Leipzig – the defending champions with three titles to their credit – in the final held on 31 May inMagdeburg. A 154-minute-long thriller,[tone] the longest completed game in German football history (the 1922 Final was abandoned after 189 minutes due to darkness), ended with Fürth scoring agolden goal to secure the title.[8]
The team had a solid[vague] run of successes through the 1920s and into the early 1930s, beginning with an appearance in the national final in 1920 against 1. FC Nürnberg, which was the dominant side of the decade.[according to whom?] The rivalry between the two clubs was such that a star[tone] player with SpVgg was forced to leave after he married a woman from the city ofNuremberg.[citation needed] In 1924, for the first and only time, the Germany national side was made up exclusively of players from just two sides – Fürth and 1. FC Nürnberg – and players of the two teams slept in separate rail coaches.
SpVgg showed regularly on the national stage,[tone] advancing to the semi-finals in 1923 and 1931. They claimed two more championships – in 1926 and 1929 – with both of those victories coming at the expense ofHertha BSC. Through this period, the club played five finals in the Süddeutscher Pokal (en:South German Cup), coming away as cup winners on four occasions. On 27 August 1929, the association was joined byFC Schneidig Fürth.
German football was re-organized in 1933 under theThird Reich into 16 top flightGauligen. Fürth became part of theGauliga Bayern, but their success over the next dozen[quantify] seasons was limited to a division title there in 1935, alongside regular appearances in competition for the Tschammerpokal, predecessor to today'sDFB-Pokal (German Cup).
After the war, the team struggled through three seasons in theOberliga Süd (I) before slipping to theLandesliga Bayern (II).[citation needed]SpVgg quickly recovered itself and returned to Oberliga play the next season. They[vague] won the title there in 1950 and went on to the national playoffs, advancing as far as the semi-finals before being eliminated 1–4 byVfB Stuttgart.[citation needed] In 1954, two players from theSpVgg,Karl Mai andHerbert Erhardt, were members of the "Miracle of Bern" team that won Germany's firstWorld Cup.
Fürth remained a first division side until the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963. The club did not qualify as one of the sixteen teams that made up the new unified national first division and they found themselves playing second division football in theRegionalliga Süd, where they were generally a mid-table side whose best finish was third-place result in 1967.[citation needed] The club played in the2. Bundesliga from its inception in 1974 until 1983 with their best performance a fourth-place result in 1978–79.[citation needed] They slipped to playing in the tier IIIBayernliga, with a short three-year spell in the fourth divisionLandesliga Bayern-Mitte in the late 1980s.[citation needed] At this time, the club started to have large financial problems.[why?][vague] In 1990, Fürth celebrated a 3–1 victory in the opening round of the DFB-Pokal playover first division sideBorussia Dortmund before going out 0–1 to1. FC Saarbrücken in the second round.[citation needed] They returned to the Bayernliga (III) in 1991 and the Regionalliga Süd (III) in 1994.[citation needed] But still, the club's financial issues became bigger,[vague] and they were forced to sell their ground to the local businessmanConny Brandstätter.[citation needed] As the financial problems continued to grow,[vague] the president ofSpVgg, Edgar Burkhart, arranged a deal with Helmut Hack, president ofTSV Vestenbergsgreuth, to letTSV join theSpVgg and changing the name of theSpielvereinigung to the nameSpVgg Greuther Fürth, which is still in use.[vague][citation needed] TheSpVgg so had the chance to get back in both financial and on-pitch success,[vague] whileTSV could grow bigger in the city of Fürth than it would have been possible in the village ofVestenbergsgreuth.
Meanwhile, the small village team ofTSV Vestenbergsgreuth was established 1 February 1974 and debuted as a fourth division side.[4] They advanced into the Amateur Oberliga Bayern (III) in 1987, just as SpVgg Fürth was descending to play in the division the more junior club had just escaped.TSV took part in the national amateur playoff round in 1988 and 1995. Their best performance came in the 1995 DFB-Pokal when they upsetBayern Munich 1–0, and then beatFC 08 Homburg 5–1, before being eliminated in the third round of the competition byVfL Wolfsburg on penalty kicks.
At the time when Vestenbergsgreuth's football branch was incorporated in 1996, in which TSV's football players came over to Fürth, both clubs were playing at about the same level in Regionalliga Süd (III). The SpVgg was runner-up behind long-term rival 1. FC Nürnberg in the division the next year, and so earned promotion back to the 2. Bundesliga after 18 years, and played in the second tier at the first time since 1979. At this time, theSportpark Ronhof, now calledPlaymobil Arena, faced the first major redevelopment since the post-war years and the construction of the old main stand in 1950. They built new stands on three of the four sides of the pitch, a roofed seating stand on the opposite side of the main stand, an uncovered terrace in the north end, and an uncovered mixed standing and seating area in the south of the stadium, as well as installingfloodlights in theRonhof the first time ever.[vague] With the modernized stadium and a clever[according to whom?] transfer strategy, they have consistently finished in the top half of the 18-team table in the 2000s,[vague] despite having one of the lowest budgets most of the time.[according to whom?] On 1 July 2003, the club added former workers' clubTuspo Fürth to its tradition through a merger. In 2008, the stadium faced another redevelopment, as the standing terrace in the north got a roof, and a VIP building was installed near to the old main stand. With this work, the main stand became the last piece of the stadium that has not been redeveloped.[vague] In that time, Fürth has come close[vague] to renewing its ancient rivalry with Nürnberg at the Bundesliga level, narrowly missing promotion in each of the first two seasons of the 2010s. On 23 April 2012, Fürth finally gained promotion to the Bundesliga in the2011–12 season, eventually winning the2. Bundesliga under managerMike Büskens. With promotion, the 1998-built south stand was demolished, and a new one was installed, gaining a capacity increase from 14,500 to 18,000, as well as providing a roof on the south for the first time.
However, Fürth had a difficult first season in the Bundesliga as the club amassed only four victories in the 34-game campaign, one of them at the ground of their rivals 1. FC Nürnberg, when the de facto relegated side won 1–0, giving the fans of theKleeblatt a peaceful feeling about the relegation.[vague] The club also set an infamous[according to whom?] record by becoming the first club in Bundesliga history to not win a single home game during the regular season.[9] The club finished last in the league with 21 points and was relegated back to the 2. Bundesliga.
The following season, despite not aiming for promotion, the club was a strong contender for a direct return to the Bundesliga.[according to whom?] A third place in the final standings qualified the team for the promotion play-offs, where it facedHamburger SV. After a 0–0 draw inHamburg, the club missed out on promotion on the away goal rule when the return leg ended 1–1. In the following seasons, they struggled to be as strong as they were before the Bundesliga promotion. They nearly got relegated to the3. Liga in the2014–15 season, when only a narrow win against later promoted clubSV Darmstadt 98 on matchday 33, and other teams not winning on matchday 34, kept them in the league. In the same season, on early matchday 2, they gained a historic[tone] 5–1 home victory in theFrankenderby, their highest-ever home win in a derby. In the following two years, theSpielvereinigung finished mid-table, with not having either fear of getting relegated or gaining promotion. This period of their newer history is characterized by the relegation ofFCN in2014, and both rivals playing each year since then. In the2016–17 season, theKleeblatt won both derbies of the regular season for the first time since the 1970s, and finished above Nuremberg for the first time since the 1950s. In early 2016, the 1950-built main stand was demolished, and the construction of a new main stand started. Before the2017–18 season, the construction of the new main stand was finished. With a 3–1 victory overFortuna Düsseldorf on 17 September 2017, the club became leader of the all-time league table of the 2. Bundesliga.[10]
By finishing second in the2020–21 season, Greuther Fürth gained promotion to the Bundesliga for the second time in the club's history. Under managerStefan Leitl, the team secured promotion on the last matchday of the season with a 3–2 victory over Fortuna Düsseldorf.[11]
Fürth also fields a reserve side which has played in the Oberliga Bayern (IV) since the 2001–02 season and finished second there in 2006–07. which lead to promotion toRegionalliga Süd.
1. FC Nürnberg is by far Furth’s biggest rival, going back to the early days of German football when, at times, those two clubs dominated the national championship.[12] Matches between both teams also called as "Frankenderby". Minor rivals includeBayern Munich. Both competed against each other again in the2012–13 Bundesliga season and the2014–15 2. Bundesliga season.
List of club's coach since 1974:[14]
 | This list has noprecise inclusion criteria as described in theManual of Style for standalone lists. Pleaseimprove this article by adding inclusion criteria, or discuss this issue on thetalk page.(January 2024) |
| Name | From | Until |
|---|---|---|
 Alfred Hoffmann | 1 July 1974 | 30 June 1975 |
| Hans Cieslarczyk | 1 July 1975 | 30 June 1977 |
| Hannes Baldauf | 1 July 1977 | 30 June 1980 |
| Dieter Schulte | 1 July 1980 | 28 February 1981 |
| Heinz Lucas | 1 March 1981 | 30 June 1981 |
| Hans-Dieter Roos | 1 July 1981 | 15 November 1981 |
| Lothar Kleim | 23 November 1981 | 30 June 1982 |
| Franz Brungs | 1 July 1982 | 30 June 1983 |
| Günter Gerling | 1 July 1983 | 30 June 1986 |
| Lothar Kleim | 1 July 1986 | 28 February 1987 |
| Paul Hesselbach | 1 March 1987 | 30 June 1989 |
| Günter Gerling | 1 July 1989 | 9 April 1995 |
| Bertram Beierlorzer | 10 April 1995 | 30 June 1996 |
| Armin Veh | 1 July 1996 | 30 June 1997 |
| Benno Möhlmann | 15 October 1997 | 21 October 2000 |
| Paul Hesselbach | 22 October 2000 | 19 November 2000 |
| Uwe Erkenbrecher | 20 November 2000 | 30 August 2001 |
| Name | From | Until | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Hesselbach(interim) | 1 September 2001 | 29 October 2001 | |
| Eugen Hach | 30 October 2001 | 5 November 2003 | |
| Werner Dreßel(interim) | 6 November 2003 | 29 December 2003 | |
| Thomas Kost | 30 December 2003 | 16 February 2004 | |
| Benno Möhlmann | 18 February 2004 | 30 June 2007 | |
| Bruno Labbadia | 1 July 2007 | 30 June 2008 | |
| Benno Möhlmann | 1 July 2008 | 20 December 2009 | |
| Mike Büskens | 27 December 2009 | 20 February 2013 | |
| Ludwig Preis(interim) | 21 February 2013 | 11 March 2013 | |
| Frank Kramer | 12 March 2013 | 23 February 2015 | |
| Mike Büskens | 23 February 2015 | 28 May 2015 | |
| Stefan Ruthenbeck | 12 June 2015 | 21 November 2016 | |
 Janos Radoki | 21 November 2016 | 28 August 2017 | |
| Mirko Dickhaut(interim) | 28 August 2017 | 9 September 2017 | |
 Damir Burić | 9 September 2017 | 4 February 2019 | |
| Stefan Leitl | 5 February 2019 | 30 June 2022 | |
 Marc Schneider | 1 July 2022 | 15 October 2022 | |
| Alexander Zorniger | 23 October 2022 | 22 October 2024 | |
| Leonhard Haas | 22 October 2024 | 12 November 2024 | |
| Jan Siewert | 12 November 2024 | 5 May 2025 | |
Thomas Kleine/ Milorad Peković | 5 May 2025 | 30 June 2025 | 5 May 2025 |
| Thomas Kleine | 1 July 2025 |
The recent season-by-season performance of the club:[15][16]
| This list has noprecise inclusion criteria as described in theManual of Style for standalone lists. Pleaseimprove this article by adding inclusion criteria, or discuss this issue on thetalk page.(January 2024) |
SpVgg Greuther Fürth[edit]
| SpVgg Greuther Fürth II[edit]
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| ↑Promoted | ↓Relegated |
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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William Townley, had three turns as coach of SpVgg Fürth in 1911–1913, 1926–1927, and 1930–1932 and led the club to two championships.[citation needed]
In September 2012, formerUnited States Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger, whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1938, attended a SpVgg match againstSchalke 04. He had promised to attend a game at the Ronhof stadium if the team were promoted to the top-flight Bundesliga. As a child, Kissinger had tried to watch games there, despite it being against his parents' wishes.[18] Kissinger was an honorary member of SpVgg, and for decades he kept himself informed about match results and held contact to the club.[citation needed] During his time serving in theWhite House in the 1970s, he reportedly asked his staff to have the team's weekend result ready for him on Monday mornings.[citation needed] He visited his hometown and the club several times and attended a Bundesliga match in 2012 during the team's first season in the Bundesliga.[citation needed]
(in German)
