1. FC Magdeburg

1. FC Magdeburg is a German association football club based in the city of Magdeburg. The club was founded in 1965 from the football department of SC Magdeburg and spent all but one season in East Germany top flight, the DDR-Oberliga, winning three championships and seven cup titles. It is the only East German club to have won a European title, winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1974. After German reunification, the club fell on hard times and only returned to professional football in 2015 when the side was promoted to the 3. Liga. History Football has been played in Magdeburg since the end of the 19th century. On 15 June 1896 SV Victoria 96 Magdeburg was founded, a club that had its best days before World War II, when it participated in the German championship finals on several occasions. Later the club participated in the Gauliga Mitte. After World War II, all sports clubs in the Soviet Occupation Zone were dissolved and a number of smaller clubs were created, which at first competed at a local and regional level. In 1945 players from the disbanded clubs Magdeburger SC Prussia 1899 and Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg formed Sportgruppe (SG) Sudenburg. This club and SG Lemsdorf came together as the sports club BSG Eintracht Sudenburg, which in turn merged with SAG Krupp Gruson in 1950. The next year the club was renamed BSG Stahl Magdeburg, and then in 1952, became BSG Motor Mitte Magdeburg. In 1957 the football department of Motor Mitte was moved to SC Aufbau Magdeburg, a political decision with the goal of achieving higher standards of performance. In 1965, the football department was again broken out of SC Aufbau Magdeburg and a pure football club was created, 1. FC Magdeburg. This was part of a general – again politically motivated – movement in East Germany towards football-only clubs with the goal of achieving higher standards. Ten dedicated football clubs were created during the winter break 1965–1966 1. FC Magdeburg was the first football club to be founded. The 1960s SC Aufbau Magdeburg were promoted to the first tier of East German football in 1959. At the beginning of the 1960s, the club usually played in the lower midtable of the DDR-Oberliga, but in 1964 the club had its first major success with a surprise win of the FDGB-Pokal. In the final at Dessau, SC Augbau Magdeburg came back from being 0–2 down to beat SC Leipzig 3–2.