F.C. Hansa Rostock

Hansa Rostock
logo
Full name F.C. Hansa Rostock e.V.
Nickname(s) Hansa, Hanseaten, Kogge,
Hansa-Kogge, Ostseestädter
Founded 28 December 1965
Ground DKB-Arena, Rostock
(Capacity: 29,000)
Chairman Germany Bernd Hofmann
Manager Germany Peter Vollmann
League 3rd Liga
2009–10 2. Bundesliga, 16th
Home colours
Away colours
Third colours

F.C. Hansa Rostock is a German 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 1. Bundesliga. A poor 2009-10 campaign has seen the club descend to the 3. Liga.

Contents

History

The club was established on 1 November 1954 as the multi-sport Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, couldn't 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 re-assignment 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 re-named, 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 1962–1964, 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 football clubs, "focus clubs" intended to groom talent for the development of a strong East German national side. 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 different occasions late in the decade. They returned to form in the 80s and as the football leagues of the two Germanys were merged in 1991 after the re-unification of the country, Rostock won its first national championship in the last ever season of East German football, played out in the transitional NOFV Oberliga Nordost. They would also capture the last ever East German Cup with a 1:0 win over FC Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt.

United Germany and the Bundesliga

The squad of January 1990

The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the league was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991–92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of the club ahead of them. 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 December 1, 2002 Rostock became the first club to field six foreigners from the same country in a Bundesliga match (Prica, Lantz, Wibran, Jakobsson, Arvidsson and Persson – all Swedes).

Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004–05 season, earning only a single win and five 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 DDR 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 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.

Managers

Honours

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.[1] 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.[2] Hansa Rostock's official anthem is "FC Hansa, wir lieben Dich total" (Hansa FC, We Totally Love You), recorded in 1995 by the East German band the Puhdys. Hansa struggles with hooliganism, estimating up to 500 supporters to be leaning towards violence.[3] The club itself as well some fans' associations are anxious to curtail these in several ways.[4] In 2005, the club successfully sued three streakers who disrupted their 2003 match against Hertha Berlin, to recoup the €20,000 they were fined by the 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 September 26, 1956. In 2001, the stadium was refurbished and modified to accommodate 30,000 spectators. On July 2, 2007 the naming rights were sold to Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), hence the new official name is "DKB-Arena".

Squad

As of 21 July 2010 (2010 -07-21)

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

No. Position Player
1 Germany GK Jörg Hahnel
2 Germany MF Dexter Langen
3 Germany DF Matthias Holst
4 Germany DF Robert Müller
5 Germany MF Sergej Evljuskin
6 Germany DF Michael Wiemann
7 Germany MF Mohammed Lartey
8 Germany MF Kevin Pannewitz
9 Germany MF Daniel Becker
10 Austria FW Radovan Vujanović
11 Germany FW Enrico Neitzel
No. Position Player
13 Germany DF Stephan Gusche
14 France FW Malick Bolivard
15 Germany FW Lucas Albrecht
17 Germany DF René Lange
20 Germany DF Peter Schyrba
21 Germany GK Andreas Kerner
25 Germany DF Sebastian Pelzer
26 Germany GK Kevin Müller
28 Germany FW Marcel Schied
29 Germany MF Tobias Jänicke

Staff

Management

Chairman

Director of Sports

Supervisory Board

Sports

Head Coach

Assistant Coach

Goalkeeper Coach

Hansa Rostock II squad

Manager: Germany Axel Rietentiet

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

No. Position Player
Germany GK Oliver Radseck
Germany GK Maik Sadler
Germany DF Felix Freitag
Germany DF Hannes Grundmann
Germany DF Maximilian Rausch
Germany DF Georg Schumski
Germany DF Sascha Steinfeldt
Germany DF Mathias Wenger
Germany MF Michael Borchert
No. Position Player
Germany MF Rico Gladrow
Germany MF Danny Koop
Germany MF Max Kremer
Namibia MF Manfred Starke
Greece MF Vasilios Tsiatouchas
Bosnia and Herzegovina FW Moris Fikić
Germany FW Patrik Kühn
Germany FW Marcel Kunstmann

Notable players

See also List of FC Hansa Rostock players

References

  1. 11Freunde.com. "Marktstudie: Köln mischt die Bundesliga auf". http://www.11freunde.com/newsticker/102907/_marktstudie_koeln_mischt_die_bundesliga_auf. 
  2. FC-Hansa.de. "Hansa bleibt beliebtester Fußballverein in Ostdeutschland". http://www.fc-hansa.de/index.php?id=154&oid=6435. 
  3. Tagesspiegel.de. "Kampf um die Nummer eins". http://www.tagesspiegel.de/sport/Rostock-Cottbus-Bundesliga;art272,2417260. 
  4. Spiegel.de. "Rostock, wir haben ein Problem". http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,488802,00.html. 

External links