BSC Erlangen

The BSC Erlangen is a German association football club from the city of Erlangen, Bavaria. From 1957 to 1979, the club belonged to the Amateurliga Bayern, the highest football league in the state and then the third division of German football.

History

The club first rose to prominence in 1957, when, under the name of SpVgg Büchenbach, it gained promotion to the Amateurliga Nordbayern (III), from the 2nd Amateurliga Mittelfranken.

Avoiding relegation narrowly in its first season, 1957–58, it became a fixture in the highest Bavarian football league for the next two decades, belonging to it for 22 seasons. The club established itself as a mid-table side and in 1961–62 took out the league title. This qualified the club for the German amateur football championship, where it got knocked out in the first round.^[1] The season after, a seventh place proved to be just enough to qualify for the now unified Bavarian Amateurliga which kicked off in 1963.

The first two seasons in the Bayernliga, the club had to play against relegation. After this, the SpVgg established itself in the upper half of the table. The club rose as far as to a third place finish in 1969–70. From 1976, the clubs fortunes started to decline and it gradually slipped to the end of the table. In 1978–79, now with the league renamed Amateur Oberliga Bayern, the club found itself relegated, finishing 16th out of 18 teams.

The club had been the last founding member of the league to have belonged to it without interruption. In the all-time table of the Bayernliga from 1963 to 2008, it still holds the 14th place out of 99 clubs.^[2]

Playing in the Landesliga Bayern-Mitte (IV) from 1979, the club struggled to establish itself in this league. In 1981, the SpVgg Büchenbach renamed itself to BSC Erlangen.

In the 1983–84 season, the clubs fortunes improved somewhat, finishing fourth in the Landesliga. After this season, it rapidly declined and in 1986 a last-place finish meant relegation to the Bezirksliga (V).

In 1988, a Mittelfranken Cup win^[3] earned the club a place in the DFB Cup 1988-89, where it drew Bayer Leverkusen and lost 0–5 at home in the first round.^[4]

It took the BSC until 1991 to return to the Landesliga. It returned with much better results and came second in the league in 1992–93, which qualified the club for the promotion play-off to the Bayernliga, where they failed. The team remained a strong force in the league until 1995, when it slipped back to the lower half of the table. After battling relegation for a couple of seasons, the club finally was moved down in 1999–2000, now to the Bezirksoberliga Mittelfranken.

The season after proved disastrous for the club, with only one win and three draws out of 30 games, a last place finish and relegation were inevitable.^[5]

Since then, the BSC has been moving up and down between Bezirksliga and Bezirksoberliga, playing in the later once more in 2008–09.

Honours

The club's honours:

Recent seasons

The recent season-by-season performance of the club:^[6][7]

• With the introduction of the Bezirksoberligas in 1988 as the new fifth tier, below the Landesligas, all leagues below dropped one tier. With the introduction of the Regionalligas in 1994 and the 3rd Liga in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2nd Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier.

DFB Cup appearances

The club has qualified for the first round of the German Cup just once:

References

External links

• Official team site
• BSC Erlangen profile on Weltfussball.de
• Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv historical German domestic league tables (German)
• Manfreds Fussbal Archiv Tables of the Bavarian amateur leagues