Dresden English Football Club

The Dresden English Football Club was a football club founded in 1874 in Dresden, the first in Germany and likely the first outside Great Britain.

Dresden English FC
Full nameDresden English Football Club
Founded18 March 1874 (1874-03-18)
Dissolved30 April 1898 (1898-04-30)
GroundGüntzwiesen, Dresden
Capacity5000
ChairmanRev. Bowden

History

Initial foundation

The Dresden English Football Club was founded in 1874 and was the first football club in Germany,[1] probably the first in continental Europe.[2][3][4] That year, over 70 members participated, primarily Englishmen working in Dresden,[5] watched by hundreds of spectators.[2] They played on a meadow at the Güntzwiesen, near the Blüherpark and the site of today's Glücksgas Stadium.[2][6]

In April 1874, the Illustrirte Zeitung [sic] of Leipzig reported on the establishment of an association "calling itself Dresden Football Club (D.F.C.)" to play a game "in which the ball is propelled forward with the foot", and described: "some twenty young men in a costume, namely in different colours to distinguish them. A kind of woollen or silk underjacket, with or without sleeves, short-fitting leg coverings that show the bare knee, long stockings, [and] very comfortable shoes or lace-up boots make up the ensemble."[7][3]

Between 1891 and 1894, seven matches are documented, the first six of which the Dresden team won; as a Vienna sports paper reported, they had not even allowed a goal to be scored against them. Their goal ratio was 34:0.[2][3] In a match played on New Year's Day 1891, they defeated the English F.C. of Berlin 7:0; according to an account published in 1898 by the founding vice-president of the German Football Association, Philipp Heineken, the Berliners described their play as nonplusultra.[2][3] On 18 April 1892 at Berlin, in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Culture and of the British ambassador, they won 3:0 against a representative city team; this was presumably the Deutscher Fußball- und Cricketbund, which had the status of an early national German team.[2][3] Their first defeat, on 10 March 1894, was a 2:0 loss to another Berlin team, Tor und Fußball Club Victoria 89, with both goals scored in the first ten minutes.[2][8]

Players in 1894 were: Beb (Captain), Burchard, Crossley, Graham, Atkins, Spencer, Ravenscraft, Johnson, le Maistre, Luxmoore, Young. The president of the club was Rev. Bowden.[2]

Refoundation

On 30 April 1898, former members of the Dresden English Football Club and of the Neue Dresdner FC (founded in 1893 by former DEFC members and now SpVgg Dresden-Löbtau 1893) founded the Dresdner Sport-Club.[3][4][9] Until sports historian Andreas Wittner uncovered the earlier history of the DFC, it was thought to have been founded only in 1890.[3]

See also

References
  1. Jones, Ben (12 May 2013). "The Football History Boys: Football By Decade: 1900s". Thefootballhistoryboys.blogspot.de. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  2. Wittner, Andreas (7 April 2006). "Als die Engländer noch dauernd siegten". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  3. "Von England über Dresden in alle Welt - DSC ältester Verein" (in German). Dresdner SC 1898 e.V. 11 July 2006. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  4. Friedmann, Fabian (25 November 2010). "Der vergessene Klub des Helmut Schön" (in German). Dresdner SC 1898 e.V. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  5. According to some sources, some of the non-Germans were Americans: Köpp, Achim (2 March 2011). "Die Wiege des deutschen Fußballs". Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (in German). Archived from the original on 31 July 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2013.; Wittner, Andreas (26 February 2011). "Konrad Koch: Wo Bälle mit dem Fuße fortgeschleudert werden. Fußball: Wie das Spiel nach Deutschland kam und welche Rolle Konrad Koch dabei wirklich hatte". Darmstädter Echo (in German). Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  6. Bahr, Eckhard (2010). Dresden: Mit Meißen, Radebeul und Sächsischer Schweiz. Städteführer (in German). Berlin: Trescher. p. 115. ISBN 9783897941564.
  7. Quoted in Die Welt and Echo Online: "einer Gesellschaft, die sich Dresden Football Club (D.F.C.) nennt ... bei dem die Bälle mit dem Fuße fortgeschleutert werden ... einigen zwanzig jungen Männern in einem Costüm, und zwar zur Unterscheidung in verschiedenen Farben. Eine Art wollener oder seidener Unterjacken, mit und ohne Ärmel, kurz anliegende Beinkleider, die das nackte Knie sehen ließen, lange Strümpfe, sehr bequeme Schuhe oder Schnürstiefel bilden die Bekleidung."
  8. Hans-Peter Hock states that they played 20 matches up to February 1898, the last in Prague against the Deutscher Fußball-Club: Hock, Hans-Peter (2013). Dresden fußballarchäologisch. Ein Tribut an die Englisch Football Clubs in Germany (in German). Dresden: Henge-Produktion. p. 42.
  9. According to Die Welt, the Neue Dresdner FC was not founded until after the 1894 loss.

Further reading
  • Genschmar, Jens (2012). Dresden—Wiege des Fußballs: Fußball in Bildern 1874–1945 (in German). Dresden: Edition Sächsische Zeitung. p. 152. ISBN 9783943444070.

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