SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Oct 16, 1952
Club Members: 11,126
Nickname: KSC
Coach: Christian Eichner
Captain: Jérôme Gondorf

German Champions: 1
DFB-Pokal: 2
Bundesliga.2 Champions: 3
3.Liga Champions: 1
Regionalliga Süd: 2
Oberliga Süd: 3
Landespokal Baden: 3
UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1

Website: www.ksc.de

In the late 19th-century, Germany was dominated by the Prussian ideals of discipline and order; and football was initially viewed with disdain as players were branded 'Traitors to the Fatherland'. By the 1890s however, interest in the new English sport was beginning to gain traction and after Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg had been established as 'islands of football' in the north of the country, the game's growing popularity spread to the south-west region of Baden. The person almost solely responsible for this was a 15-year-old student called Walther Bensemann who arrived in the radial city of Karlsruhe in 1888 with a leather ball under his arm and a will to proselytize Germany after being shown the game by British classmates at boarding school in Switzerland. He was an active missionary. Within a year he'd formed the first football club in southern Germany - the International Football Club - and was later instrumental in the formation of Eintracht Frankfurt before going on to establish what would become Germany's most popular football magazine - 'kicker ' (never spelt with a capital letter !). Born a year before fellow pioneers August Hermann and Konrad Koch introduced the game in Braunschweig, the young Bensemann may not have been the first to get the ball rolling in Germany but he brought a new dynamic to football development after seeing its potential to unite and inspire. In 1891, FV Karlsruhe (who had merged with Bensemann's International Football Club) were the first to pick up the gauntlet he'd thrown down, followed on 6th June 1894 by members of a gymnastics club (Karlsruher Turngemeinde) who, having grown frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm at the turn of the century towards football, decided to strike out on their own and form Karlsruher Fußball Club Phönix - the precursor of today's Karlsruher SC.

It didn't take long for the footballing gymnasts to find their feet and after becoming one of the 86 founder members of the DFB (German FA) on 28th January 1900, Phönix won successive Südkriesliga titles in 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904 and 1905 before transferring that dominance to the national stage by becoming Deutsche Fußballmeisterschaft  in 1909 - beating defending champions Viktoria 89 Berlin 4-2 in the final. Three more Südkriesliga titles followed before the club joined forces in 1912 with local side KFC Alemannia to form KFC Phönix. In 1914 however, football, and by proxy the club, was brought to a shuddering halt by the advent of war and with many of Phönix's members serving in the armed forces, four of their 1912 title-winning side tragically lost their lives in the conflict. Like many clubs at the time, Phönix found restoring past glories and rebuilding a team ripped apart by war difficult and played as a largely uncompetitive side throughout the inter-war years although, in a throwback to more successful times, the Südkriesliga title was brought back to Karlsruhe in 1922.
 
After the Nazi rise to power, football was restructured in Germany with the creation of the Gauliga in 1933 which funnelled clubs into 16 (later to become 18 following the Austrian Anschluß  in 1938) regional divisions and Phönix played in the Gauliga Baden, with a second-place finish in 1935 being their high-water mark under the Third Reich. As Hitler's megalomania turned the second world war against Germany however; player shortages, travel problems and damage to grounds from Allied bombing raids meant that fulfilling fixtures became increasingly difficult and many clubs folded. As football in Germany struggled to get its breath back after the conflict, in order to ensure survival, mergers were completed between clubs over the next few years including the one that saw Phönix and VfB Mühlburg agree to join forces on 16th October 1952 and form Karlsruher Sport-Club Mühlburg Phönix (KSC). It wasn't too long before the union brought dividends as the combined side lifted quickfire DFB-Pokal trophies in 1955 and 1956 before a hat-trick of Oberliga Süd titles in 1956, 1958 and 1960 were added to the trophy cabinet. 

After failing to follow up the 'Miracle of Bern' World Cup triumph of 1954, the DFB replaced the regional Oberliga competitions with a pan-German professional league and KSC's consistently strong performances up to this date made them automatic choices to become one of the sixteen clubs that formed the new Bundesliga in 1963. They spent five-years in the top-flight as an unspectacular mid-table side before performances dropped away and they were relegated to Bundesliga.2 Süd in 1968 after a despondent campaign that saw them finish bottom of the pile. The Karlsruhers regrouped and by the time the 1975-76 season kicked-off, they were trading punches amongst Germany's elite again. Once again though, the stay was a brief one and the 'Elevator Club' then spent the next decade bouncing between the top two divisions as a quick revolving-door 'policy' saw no fewer than 9 managers hired and fired in as many years before the appointment of a coach who would come to define a seemingly unrepeatable era of success at the Baden-Württemberg club. 

Winfried Schäfer brought an immediate upturn in the club's on-field fortunes and after guiding them to promotion in his debut campaign, propelled KSC from mid-table also rans to a side that began challenging for European competition. An unbroken eleven-year spell in the Bundesliga included sixth place finishes in 1993, 1994 and 1997. The club also marked their 'centenary year' with a fine run in the 1993-94 UEFA Cup as PSV Eindhoven, CF Valencia, Girondins Bordeaux and Boavista were bundled out of the competition before Austria Salzburg - the club that now goes by the contemporary and controversial name of Red Bull Salzburg - prevailed in the semi-final on the away goal rule courtesy of a 1-1 draw at the Wildparkstadion. KSC came close to winning their third DFB-Pokal in 1996 (losing to rising force 1.FC Kaiserslautern 1-0 in the final) but the future still looked bright for the club as they won European honours for the first time, beating Standard Liège on aggregate to lift the UEFA Intertoto Cup later that summer. 

By the end of the decade however, things had started to go wrong. Weakened by the departures of Mehmet Scholl, Oliver Kahn, Jens Nowotny, Thorsten Fink and Michael Tarnat, KSC not only crashed into Bundesliga.2 but carried on into the third-tier Regionalliga Süd as overextension and mismanagement saw debts threaten to swallow the club up. Roland Schmider, who'd been the club's president for 26 years, found himself in the crossfire of criticism and was forced to resign; with his successor, Gerhard Seiler, having to draw on his contacts as mayor of Karlsruhe to walk the club back from the cliff edge. Securing the club's financial future coincided with an upturn in fortunes and with future 'Nationalelf '  coach Joachim Löw at the helm, KSC clinched the Regionalliga Süd title in 2001 and returned to the second tier.

After several seasons of middle-order ranking, KSC secured a berth in the Bundesliga in 2007 after a tour-de-force campaign that saw them become the first, and so far only, team to occupy top spot throughout an entire Bundesliga.2 season. Once again though, the stay was a brief one and relegation brought considerable financial implications as players signed on top-flight wages became a burden to a club operating on a second-tier income. With the club once again on the verge of bankruptcy, struggles off the pitch mirrored those on it as KSC took another tumble down the leagues before a gradual recovery saw them return to Bundesliga.2 when a 4-1 victory over Preußen Münster secured the 3.Liga title in 2019.