ATSV 1860 Bremen

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Logo of predecessor side Bremer Sportfreunde 85/91

ATSV 1860 Bremen was a German football club playing in Bremen. Today the sports club no longer fields a football side and has departments for badminton, basketball, cheerleading, dancing, fencing, handball, Judo, Karate, pool-billards, rhythmic gymnastics, rugby, skating, Taekwon-do, and volleyball.

The club was formed as ABTS Bremen in 1920 out of the union of football club Bremer SC 1891, gymnastics club ATV 1860 Bremen, and aquatics club Bremer Schwimm-Club. This combined association fielded competitive sides in the Westkreisliga / Bezirksliga Weser-Jade through the 20s, capturing a league title in 1922. ABTS was bankrupted in 1929 and re-formed as Sportfreund 85/91 Bremen.

Spfr Bremen briefly played top flight football from 1942 to the end of World War II in the Gauliga Weser-Ems. The Gauliga Weser-Ems had emerged out of the split of the Gauliga Niedersachen, one of the top flight divisions formed in the earlier re-organization of German football under the Third Reich in 1933. After World War II most organizations in Germany, including sport and football clubs, were disbanded by the order of occupying Allied authorities.

Historical and current logos of ATSV 1860 Bremen

Sportfreunde would later be re-formed as ATSV 1860 Bremen in 1945, and while other Bremen-based teams would go on to play in the first division Oberliga Nord, ATSV re-appeared in the lower division Amateurliga Bremen in 1949. The club immediately impressed with a strong second place finish and went on to earn a number of top three finishes through the early 50s, including championships in 1953, 1954, and 1955. Their performance faded and they become just a mid-table side in the years leading up to the formation of Germany's first professional football league – the Bundesliga – in 1963 and in 1968 ATSV was relegated. The team recovered to some degree and returned to Amateurliga play in 1970 until again being relegated in 1974. ATSV made a single season appearance in the Verbandsliga Bremen in 1986-87.

[edit] Team triva

Predecessor side Bremer SC was represented by Hamburg's Walter Sommermeier at the founder's meeting of the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) held in Leipzig in 1900.