| Full name | 1. Fußballclub Lokomotive Leipzig e.V. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Loksche | ||
| Founded | 1893 | ||
| Ground | Bruno-Plache-Stadion Red Bull Arena (Capacity: 15,600 44,345) |
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| Chairman | Steffen Kubald | ||
| Coach | Mike Sadlo | ||
| League | NOFV-Oberliga Süd (V) | ||
| 2010–11 | 8th – NOFV-Oberliga Süd (V) | ||
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1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig is a German football club based in the city of Leipzig in Saxony and may be more familiar to many of the country's football fans as the historic side VfB Leipzig, the first national champions of Germany. They currently play in the 5th tier of the German football league system.
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The club was formed on 26 May 1896 out of the football department of gymnastics club Allgemeine Turnverein 1845 Leipzig. However, they lay claim to an earlier date of origin by reaching back to a club that was incorporated into VfB in 1898 – Sport Club Sportbrüder Leipzig – which was one of four football clubs formed in Leipzig in 1893. The union lasted until 2 May 1900 when the two sides went their separate ways again.
VfB Leipzig was one of the original eighty-six teams that came together in the city in 1900 to form the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball Bund). They were immediately successful at their chosen sport and made their way to the first German national championship final held in 1903. Their opponents were DFC Prag, an ethnically German side out of what is today Prague in Czech Republic, but which was then part of the Austria-Hungary. The DFB had invited "German" clubs of this sort from other countries in order to boost numbers in their new national association.
Prag had made their way to the final under circumstances that had allowed them to avoid playing a single playoff game, while Leipzig had come through some hard fought matches. Arriving in Hamburg for the match, the heavily favoured Pragers took themselves off on an ill-advised pub crawl the night before the contest and so arrived to the pitch in less than ideal game-shape. The contest against VfB Leipzig was delayed half an hour as officials scrambled to find a football that was in good enough condition to play the match. The host Altona club provided a new ball and eleven minutes in Prag scored the first goal. At the end of the first half the score stood at (1:1), but Leipzig then pulled away to emerge as the first winners of the Viktoria Meisterschaftstrophaee (Victoria Championship Trophy), representative of German football supremacy, on the strength of a decisive 7–2 victory.
Leipzig played themselves into another final appearance in 1904, but the match was never contested. A protest by FV Karlsruhe over their disputed semi-final with Britannia Berlin was never resolved and the DFB called off the final only hours before its scheduled start. There would be no champion that year. The following season Leipzig found themselves unable to cover the expense of travelling to participate in their scheduled first round playoff match and so were eliminated from that year's competition. They did, however, go on to raise the Viktoria again in 1906 and 1913 and also played in the 1911 and 1914 finals.
In the period leading up to World War II, VfB was unable to repeat their early success. After the re-organization of German football leagues under the Third Reich in 1933, the club found itself in Gauliga Sachsen, one of sixteen upper tier divisions. While they earned good results within their own division, they were unable to advance in the playoff rounds. In 1937, they captured the Tschammerpokal, known today as the German Cup, in a match against FC Schalke 04, the dominant side of the era.
In the aftermath of the war the club was dissolved by the occupying Allied authorities, like most other organizations in Germany, including sports and football clubs. Club members reconstituted the team in 1946 as SG Probstheida under the auspices of the occupying Soviets. After playing as BSG Erich Zeigner Probstheida and then BSG Einheit Ost, the club merged with SC Rotation Leipzig in 1954 and played in the DDR-Oberliga, East Germany's top flight league, but earned only mediocre results. In 1963 Leipzig's two most important clubs – SC Rotation and SC Lokomotive Leipzig – were put together resulting in two new sides being founded – SC Leipzig and BSG Chemie Leipzig. East German football went through a general re-organization in 1965, creating football clubs as centres of high-level football, during which SC Leipzig was transformed into 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, while rivals Chemie Leipzig continued as a Betriebssportgemeinschaft (BSG), or a company team. Playing as Lokomotive, the club's fortunes improved somewhat as they almost always finished well up the league table, but they were unable to capture the top honour in the DDR (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik or German Democratic Republic) with losing final appearances in 1967, 1986, and 1988.
Lok earned a clutch of East German Cups with victories in 1976, 1981, 1986 and 1987 against failed appearances in the Cup final in 1970, 1973 and 1977. They also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1966 and made an appearance in the 1987 final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup falling 0:1 to Johan Cruijff's Ajax Amsterdam after a Marco Van Basten goal.
Re-unification in 1990 was followed by the merger of the football leagues of the two Germanys. A poor season led to a seventh place finish in the transitional league, but an unexpectedly strong playoff propelled the club into the 2. Bundesliga.
1. FC Lokomotive made a grasp at their former glory by re-claiming the name VfB Leipzig. A third place finish in 1993 advanced the team to the top flight Bundesliga where they finished dead-last in the 1994 season. The new VfB began a steady slide down through the 2. Bundesliga into the Regionalliga Nordost (III) by 1998 and then further still to the Oberliga Nordost/Süd (IV) by 2001. They were bankrupted in 2004, their results were annulled and the club was dissolved.
In 2004, the club was re-established by a group of fans as 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig. The renewed side had to start in the lowest league eleventh-tier 3. Kreisklasse, Staffel 2 in 2004–05. Even so, they continued to receive soldidly enthusiastic fan support: their game against Eintracht Großdeuben's second team in the Leipzig Zentralstadion on 9 October 2004 broke the world record for lower-league attendance with an astounding 12,421 spectators in the stands. Thanks to a merger with SSV Torgau, the club could play in the seventh-tier Bezirksklasse Leipzig, Staffel 2 in 2005–06. Finishing this league as champion, the team qualified for the sixth-tier Bezirksliga. In 2006 Lok Leipzig also played a friendly match vs. FC United of Manchester (4–4) and qualified for the Landespokal 2006–07 by winning the Bezirkspokal. Lokomotive Leipzig finished as champions of their group and promoted to fifth-tier Landesliga Sachsen Group for 2007–08 season. The club finished 2nd to FC Erzgebirge Aue II and missed out on direct promotion to NOFV-Oberliga Süd by 2 points in 2007–08 season. It still had the chance to regain Oberliga status through a relegation play-off with FC Schönberg 95, winning game one 2–1 at Schönberg. In the return leg, in front of almost 10,000 spectators, the club lost 0–1 but still gained Oberliga promotion on the away-goal rule[1]. Lokomotive Leipzig finished Oberliga as 3rd in 2008–09, as 12th in the 2009–10 and as 8th in the 2010-11 seasons.
| Season | Competition | Round | Nation | Club | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963–64 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 1R | Újpesti Dózsa | 0–0, 2–3 | |
| 1964–65 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 1R | Wiener Sport-Club | 1–2, 0–1 | |
| 1965–66 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 2R | Leeds United | 1–2, 0–0 | |
| 1966–67 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 1R | Djurgårdens IF | 3–1, 2–1 | |
| 2R | R.F.C. de Liège | 0–0, 2–1 | |||
| 1/8 | S.L. Benfica | 3–1, 1–2 | |||
| 1/4 | Kilmarnock FC | 1–0, 0–2 | |||
| 1967–68 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 1R | Linfield FC | 5–1, 0–1 | |
| 2R | FK Vojvodina | 0–0, 0–2 | |||
| 1968–69 | Inter-Cities Fairs Cup | 1R | Kjøbenhavns Boldklub | walkover | |
| 2R | Hibernian | 1–3, 0–1 | |||
| 1973–74 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Torino Calcio | 2–1, 2–1 | |
| 2R | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 3–0, 1–4 | |||
| 1/8 | Fortuna Düsseldorf | 1–2, 3–0 | |||
| 1/4 | Ipswich Town | 0–1, 1–0 (4–3 a.p.) | |||
| 1/2 | Tottenham Hotspur | 1–2, 0–2 | |||
| 1976–77 | UEFA Cup Winner's Cup | 1R | Heart of Midlothian | 2–0, 1–5 | |
| 1977–78 | UEFA Cup Winner's Cup | 1R | Coleraine FC | 4–1, 2–2 | |
| 1/8 | Real Betis | 1–1, 1–2 | |||
| 1978–79 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Arsenal FC | 0–3, 1–4 | |
| 1981–82 | UEFA Cup Winner's Cup | Q | Politehnica Timişoara | 0–2, 5–0 | |
| 1R | Swansea City | 1–0, 2–1 | |||
| 1/8 | Velez Mostar | 1–1, 1–1 | |||
| 1/4 | FC Barcelona | 0–3, 2–1 | |||
| 1982–83 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Viking | 0–1, 3–2 | |
| 1983–84 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Girondins de Bordeaux | 3–2, 4–0 | |
| 2R | Werder Bremen | 1–0, 1–1 | |||
| 1/8 | Sturm Graz | 0–2, 1–0 | |||
| 1984–85 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Lillestrøm SK | 7–0, 0–3 | |
| 2R | Spartak Moscow | 1–1, 0–2 | |||
| 1985–86 | UEFA Cup | 1R | Coleraine FC | 1–1, 5–0 | |
| 2R | AC Milan | 0–2, 3–1 | |||
| 1986–87 | UEFA Cup Winner's Cup | 1R | Glentoran FC | 1–1, 2–0 | |
| 1/8 | SK Rapid Wien | 1–1, 2–1 | |||
| 1/4 | FC Sion | 2–0, 0–0 | |||
| 1/2 | Girondins de Bordeaux | 1–0, 0–1 (a.p.) | |||
| Final | Ajax Amsterdam | 0–1 | |||
| 1987–88 | UEFA Cup Winner's Cup | 1R | Olympique de Marseille | 0–0, 0–1 | |
| 1988–89 | UEFA Cup | 1R | FC Aarau | 3–0, 4–0 | |
| 2R | SSC Napoli | 1–1, 0–2 |
BSG Leipzig-Ost
SC Rotation Leipzig
SC Leipzig
1. FC Lok Leipzig
VfB Leipzig
1. FC Lok Leipzig
Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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