Servette FC
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| Servette FC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Association du Servette FC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | Les Grenats (The Dark Reds) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Founded | March 20, 1890 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Stade de Genève, Geneva |
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| Capacity | 30,084 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman | Francisco Viñas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manager | Jean-Michel Aeby | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League | Challenge League | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2005-2006 | 1ère Ligue, 1st | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Servette FC is a Swiss football club, based in Geneva.
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[edit] History
Founded in 1890, Servette was the leading club in French speaking Switzerland, having won 17 Swiss league championships and seven Swiss cups. In the 2003-04 season the club finished third in the Swiss Super League, the top league in Switzerland.
Led by Umberto Barberis and Claude "Didi" Andrey, in 1978-1979 the club won all the competitions it had entered - with the exception of the European Cup Winners' Cup where it was eliminated in quarter finals without losing by Fortuna Dusseldorf, that year's finalist. Barberis then became French champion in 1982 with AS Monaco. Servette was the only club to have remained in the top league since its creation in the 1930s.
[edit] Bankruptcy
After a long string of mismanagement by French president Marc Roger - who followed a hire-and-fire policy for players, made financial promises which he broke regularly, and alienated fans and environment with general erratic and increasingly paranoid behaviour, on 4 February 2005 the parent company of the club was declared bankrupt. It had run debts of over 10 million Swiss francs, having not paid the players since the previous September, and consequently the club suffered an exodus of players looking for paying clubs. As a consequence of the bankruptcy the club was demoted two divisions, a fate already experienced by local rivals Lausanne-Sports in 2003.
In the 2005-06 season, a rejuvenated Servette secured promotion to the Challenge League, the second highest division in Switzerland.
[edit] Stadium
The home ground of Servette is the recently built Stade de Genève. It was inaugurated on March 16, 2003 after three years of construction. The opening match was played between Servette and Young Boys. With an all-seater capacity of 30,084, the Stade de Genève is the third largest stadium in Switzerland, and will host three group matches in the 2008 European Football Championship.
Servette moved to the Stade de Genève from their old ground, the Stade des Charmilles, in 2003. The Charmilles was inaugurated on June 28, 1930, with the first game drawing a crowd of 14,000. The official capacity peaked at 30,000, but a record 40,000 spectators managed to squeeze in for the international game between Switzerland and France on October 14, 1951. Flood lights were installed in 1977 and the stands were entirely covered in 1983. The capacity gradually diminished from the 1980s onward, first to 20,000 in 1985 and then to 9,250 in 1998 when the stadium became an all-seater.
Plans for a new stadium were first launched in 1984, in response to the Charmilles becoming increasingly outdated and run down. A project committee was established in 1992, which proposed to either rebuild the stadium over the course of four years or construct a new stadium elsewhere in Geneva. Meanwhile, with more substantial plans failing to materialize, the poor state of the old stadium became apparent when the main stand, the Tribune A, was declared unsafe in 1995 and closed off. A renovation project began the following year, which saw the main stand re-opened and seats eventually being installed throughout the stadium. Servette would secure another Swiss Championship and a Cup trophy while playing at the Charmilles, before construction on the new Stade de Genève finally commenced in 2000. The last match was played on December 8, 2002 in front of a capacity crowd.
[edit] Current Squad
as of 27th July,2006.
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[edit] Famous players
- Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
- Michel Renquin
- Sonny Anderson
- Christian Karembeu
- Phillipe Senderos
- Alex Frei
- Hakan Mild
- Martin Petrov
- Oliver Neuville
[edit] Honours
- Swiss Championship: 17
- 1907, 1918, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1933, 1934, 1940, 1946, 1950, 1961, 1962, 1979, 1985, 1994, 1999
- Coupe de Suisse: 7
- 1928, 1949, 1971, 1978, 1979, 1984, 2001
- Coppa delle Alpi: 4
- 1973, 1975, 1976, 1979
- Coupe de la Ligue: 3
- 1977, 1979, 1980
[edit] External links
General
Fansites
| Swiss Challenge League 2006/2007 |
| FC Concordia Basel | FC Baulmes | AC Bellinzona | FC Chiasso | SR Delémont | SC Kriens | FC La Chaux-de-Fonds | FC Lausanne-Sport FC Locarno | AC Lugano | Neuchâtel Xamax | Servette FC | FC Vaduz | FC Wil | FC Winterthur | FC Wohlen | SC YF Juventus | Yverdon-Sport FC |
