VfL Wolfsburg: Difference between revisions
| owntitle = Owner
| owntitle = Owner
| owner = [[Volkswagen AG]] (of [[Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung|GmbH]]){{cite web|url=http://annualreport2009.volkswagenag.com/additionalinformation/chronicle2009.html|title=Volkswagen Group Annual Report 2009|date=23 May 2009|access-date=17 August 2010|archive-date=31 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180331212836/http://annualreport2009.volkswagenag.com/additionalinformation/chronicle2009.html|url-status=live}}
| owner = [[Volkswagen AG]] (of [[Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung|GmbH]]){{cite web|url=http://annualreport2009.volkswagenag.com/additionalinformation/chronicle2009.html|title=Volkswagen Group Annual Report 2009|date=23 May 2009|access-date=17 August 2010|archive-date=31 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180331212836/http://annualreport2009.volkswagenag.com/additionalinformation/chronicle2009.html|url-status=live}}
| chrtitle = Managing director
| chrtitle = Managing
| chairman = Michael Meeske
Tim Schumacher
| chairman = Michael Meeske
Tim Schumacher
| mgrtitle = Head coach
| mgrtitle = Head coach
| manager = [[Niko Kovač]]
| manager = [[Niko Kovač]]
German association football club
Football club
Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg (pronounced [ˌfaʊ ʔɛf ʔɛl ˈvɔlfsbʊɐ̯k]) or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of Wolfsburg. It is best known for its football department, but other departments include badminton, handball and athletics.
The men’s professional football team play in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system. Wolfsburg have won the Bundesliga once in their history, in the 2008–09 season, the DFB-Pokal in 2015 and the DFL-Supercup in 2015.
Professional football is run by the spin-off organization VfL Wolfsburg-Fußball GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group.[2][3] Since 2002, Wolfsburg’s stadium is the Volkswagen Arena.
History[edit]
Foundation[edit]
The city of Wolfsburg was founded in 1938 as Stadt des KdF-Wagen to house autoworkers building the car that would later become famous as the Volkswagen Beetle. The first football club affiliated with the autoworks was known as BSG Volkswagenwerk Stadt des KdF-Wagen, a works team. This team played in the first division Gauliga Osthannover in the 1943–44 and 1944–45 seasons.
On 12 September 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, a new club was formed and was known briefly as VSK Wolfsburg. This side began play in the green and white still worn by VfL today; local youth trainer Bernd Elberskirch had ten green jerseys at his disposal and white bed sheets donated by the public were sewn together by local women to make shorts.
On 15 December 1945, the club went through a crisis that almost ended its existence when all but one of its players left to join 1. FC Wolfsburg. The only player remaining, Josef Meyer, worked with Willi Hilbert to rebuild the side by signing new players. The new group adopted the moniker VfL Wolfsburg, VfL standing for Verein für Leibesübungen. This can be translated as “club for gymnastics” or “club for exercises.” Within a year they captured the local Gifhorn title. In late November 1946, the club played a friendly against longtime Gelsenkirchen powerhouse Schalke 04 at the stadium owned by Volkswagen, emerging as the successor to BSG as the company sponsored side.
Postwar play[edit]
The club made slow but steady progress in the following seasons. They captured a number of amateur level championships, but were unable to advance out of the promotion playoffs until finally breaking through to the top tier Oberliga Nord in 1954 with a 2–1 victory over Heider SV. Wolfsburg, however, struggled in the top flight, narrowly missing relegation each season until finally being sent down in 1959. When Germany’s first professional football league, the Bundesliga, was formed in 1963, Wolfsburg was playing in the Regionalliga Nord (II) having just moved up from the Verbandsliga Niedersachsen (III), reaching the German Amateur Championship Final that same year (0–1 vs. VfB Stuttgart Amat.).
Second division and advance to the Bundesliga[edit]
Wolfsburg remained a second division fixture over the next dozen years with their best performance being a second-place finish in 1970. That finish earned the club entry to the promotion round playoffs for the Bundesliga, where they performed poorly and were unable to advance. From the mid-1970s through to the early 1990s, Die Wölfe played as a third division side in the Amateur Oberliga Nord. Consecutive first-place finishes in 1991 and 1992, followed by success in the promotion…
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