SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Dec 15, 1895
Club Members: 6,366
Nickname: Die Löwen
Coach: Daniel Scherning
Captain: Jannis Nikolaou

German Champions / Bundesliga: 1
3.Liga Champions: 1
Landespokal Niedersachsen Winner: 2

Website: www.eintracht.com

In 1874, a teacher called August Hermann walked onto a playing field at the Martino Katharineum Grammar School in Braunschweig and threw a football towards a group of students. They had absolutely no idea what to do with it and, having only a basic grasp of the rules himself, neither did Hermann - but his 'throw-in' is regarded by historians as 'the moment when football in Germany was born '. Hermann's experiment must have also made a deep impression on his colleague Konrad Koch who published the country's first set of association rules in 1875 and went on to become regarded as a pioneer of the German game. At the time, Germany was dominated by the Prussian ideals of discipline and order; and football was initially viewed with disdain before interest in the new English sport gained traction and young men began kicking leather balls about. The impetus created by progressive men like Hermann and Koch led to clubs being set up across the country and on 15th December 1895, Braunschweig - 'The Birthplace of German Football' - got one too when a local engineer by the name of Karl Schaper formed FuCC Eintracht 1895 Braunschweig.

After becoming one of the 86 founder members of the DFB (German FA) on 28th January 1900, the club spent their early years going through mergers and name changes whilst achieving a degree of success in local and regional championships - winning the Duchy of Braunschweig Championship in 1904 before lifting the North German Championship title in 1908 and 1913. After moving into the Eintracht Stadion in 1923, quickfire Kriesliga Süd titles followed in 1924 and 1925 before the club joined the top-flight Gauliga Niedersachsen in 1933 when German football was restructured following the Nazi rise to power. As the war turned against Germany however; player shortages and travel problems meant that clubs were forced to play their matches closer to home and the Gauliga Braunschweig Südhannover division was formed in 1942. Eintracht became its inaugural champions with a tour-de-force campaign that saw them bag 146 goals and they entered the national championships as one of the favourites for the title. Unfortunately for them, so did Dresdner SC who met the men from Lower Saxony in the early rounds and gave them a 4-0 mauling en route to becoming German champions for the first time. 

The Allies brought Hitler's 'Thousand Year Reich' to an end in 1945 and introduced a policy of de-Nazification in occupied Germany which forced all sports clubs to disband. Eintracht duly reformed later that year as TSV Braunschweig before becoming a founder member of the Oberliga Nord and playing in both editions of the short-lived British Occupation Zone Football Championship in 1947 and 1948. On 1st April 1949, the club was renamed 'Braunschweiger TSV Eintracht von 1895' (Eintracht Braunschweig) before tragedy struck when goalkeeper Gustav Fähland died of internal bleeding a few days after colliding with a Werder Bremen striker in an Oberliga Nord match.

In 1963, the German FA (DFB) were busy deciding which sixteen teams would form the inaugural Bundesliga which would bring all the regional Oberligen  together in one nationwide professional league. Three clubs from the Oberliga Nord would be chosen and after Hamburger SV and SV Werder Bremen were given their entries; having satisfied all the qualifying criteria, officials at Hannover 96 were confident of securing the final berth. On 6th May 1963 however the DFB announced that Eintracht would be given the nod instead despite the fact that Hannover had the bigger stadium, the higher average attendances, met all the financial prerequisites and ranked higher than Braunschweig in the DFB's twelve-year performance ranking. Hannover were incensed and, suspecting that Eintracht's president Dr. Kurt Hopert had pulled some strings with his contacts at the DFB, launched an ultimately unsuccessful appeal against the less than transparent decision to award their rivals a Bundesliga licence. 

Eintracht shrugged off the controversy surrounding their entry and for three years, despite being perennial relegation candidates, survived in the division as coach Helmuth Johannsen coaxed slightly above-average performances from a slightly below-average team. During a friendly against Dukla Prague in 1966 however, Johannsen tried something different and taking inspiration from Helenio Herrera's all-conquering 'Grande ' Inter Milan side of the time, played his captain Joachim Bäse as a Libero (sweeper). It was a tactical switch that changed the direction of German football and influenced a whole new generation of players including Franz Beckenbauer, Klaus Augenthaler, Lothar Matthäus and Matthias Sammer. Suddenly much greater than the sum of their parts, Eintracht sensationally brought the Bundesliga title to Braunschweig in 1967 and 100,000 fans packed the city centre to celebrate the most unlikeliest of achievements. The following season saw Braunschweig play in Europe for the first time with many again underestimating the Lower Saxons and fearing an embarrassment for German football. Not for the first time however, Eintracht defied expectations and progressed to the European Cup quarter-finals where they met Italian giants Juventus. The Germans took a 3-2 lead from the first leg with them to Turin and only an 88th minute penalty from Giancarlo Bercellino to level the aggregate score kept Juve  in the competition. In the days before penalty shoot-outs, a play-off to decide the tie took place in Bern's Wankdorf Stadium and was won by the Italians 1-0, courtesy of a goal by Roger Magnusson.

Eintracht were enjoying a golden period in their history but tragedy struck the club again during the 1968-69 winter break when Jürgen Moll - a member of the Bundesliga winning team - was killed in a car crash along with his wife as they returned from holiday. On 14th April 1969, 21,000 packed the Eintracht Stadion to see West Germany's 1954 'Miracle of Bern' World Cup winners play Eintracht Braunschweig before an Eintracht/Hannover 96 XI took on a Bundesliga XI in two charity matches organised for the benefit of the Molls' children.
 

Helmuth Johannsen left in 1970 to take over the reigns up the road at Hannover 96, and Eintracht's new coach Otto Knefler found his first season in charge of Die Löwen  (The Lions) mired in controversy as the club became embroiled in the Bundesligaskandal at the end of the 1970-71 season. An investigation by the DFB's chief prosecutor, Hans Kindermann, found that Eintracht's involvement in the match-fixing scandal centred around a DM 170 000 bonus that captain Lothar Ulsaß had negotiated with Arminia Bielefeld owner Rupert Schreiner before a match with Rot Weiß Oberhausen - Arminia's rivals in that season's relegation battle. The game ended 1-1 and Schreiner initially reneged on the deal insisting that the money was for victory, not a draw before handing over DM 40,000 when confronted by Eintracht player Max Lorenz who'd been sent to collect the money on behalf of his team. As many as 50 players, managers and officials from clubs across the country were implicated and in addition to Ulsaß and Lorenz; 14 Eintracht players received fines or suspensions. Schreiner's Arminia also had their Bundesliga licence revoked and were demoted to the Regionalliga - although this didn't come into effect until the end of the following season due to the length of time it took Kindermann and the DFB to investigate the whole sorry affair.

Foreshadowing the modern-day transition of football from sport to business, Eintracht realised the potential benefits of commercialism in the game and their match against FC Schalke 04 on 24th March 1973 became the first in the Bundesliga to feature shirt sponsorship after agreeing a DM 100,000 deal with Jägermeister. The DFB immediately opposed the arrangement having banned shirt sponsors when Wormatia Worms had similar ideas about using footballers as mobile advertising hoardings in 1967 and began a long running dispute with Jägermeister tycoon Günter Mast over the issue. In the end, Mast circumvented the ban by simply replacing the Lion on Eintracht's club badge with the herbal liqueur company's Deer Head emblem - a move the DFB had no answer to. He ran into sterner opposition from both the DFB and Eintracht fans though when he floated the idea of renaming the club 'Jägermeister Braunschweig' in 1983.   

Back on the field, Eintracht narrowly missed out on having their name etched into the sterling silver of the Meisterschale  for a second time in 1977 after finishing a point adrift of champions Borussia Mönchengladbach and being pushed into third place on goal difference by FC Schalke 04. Having come so close to glory, they looked to strengthen the team and made headlines by paying DM 1.6 million to bring German World Cup winner Paul Breitner to the club from Real Madrid. After the bright lights of the Spanish capital however, the wolverine defender didn't settle in provincial Braunschweig and having likened the club to “a village shop where everyone just gibbers about horses and apples ”, headed off to join Bayern München after just one season in Lower Saxony. 

Breitner's departure seemed to signal the end of Eintracht's heyday and by the time the 70s gave way to the 80s the club had been relegated to the second tier. Financial pressures were also building after banking on long-term Bundesliga survival to pay for expensive stadium renovations and with the DFB threatening to revoke Eintracht's playing licence, Braunschweig city council stepped forward to clear the club's DM 11.9 million debts.

The problems developing on and off the pitch were put into perspective in March 1983 however when midfielder Lutz Eigendorf was killed in a car crash after a night out at a local bar. Police reports attributed the accident to drink driving but suspicions arose on account of the fact that Eigendorf had made an enemy of a powerful man. Erich Mielke was the infamous head of East Germany's secret police and president of BFC Dynamo who went on to tower over East German football amidst widespread rumours of bribery, doping and corruption. Dynamo's star player was Eigendorf but in 1979 he fled to the West where he played for 1.FC Kaiserslautern before moving on to Eintracht Braunschweig in 1982, often criticising the GDR regime in interviews. Mielke had reportedly taken Eigendorf's defection as a personal affront and with spies sent west to track him, conspiracy theories continue to swirl that the player was a victim of a Stasi  plot to assassinate the 'traitor'. 

Following the upheaval during the first part of the decade, it was no surprise when Eintracht were relegated from the Bundesliga again in 1985 and they spent the next 20 years bouncing between Bundesliga.2 and the third-tier Regionalliga Nord. 2008 saw the creation of the 3.Liga as the lowest professional division in Germany and as part of the league restructure, a 10th place Regionalliga Nord finish or better would have been enough to see Eintracht 'promoted'. With the club once again on the brink of financial disaster, struggles off the pitch were mirroring those on it and after a disappointing start to the season, the appointment of youth team coach Torsten Lieberknecht as manager came just in time to see them secure that elusive 10th place and avoid playing fourth-tier football for the first time in their history.

Retaining the club's professional status seemed to liberate Eintracht on the pitch and as the storm clouds lifted they began a resurgence that saw them climb back into the second-tier after winning the 3.Liga title in 2011. Two years later, after an absence of 28 years, Eintracht returned to the Bundesliga for a single-season cameo before chaos and disorder characterised another tumble down the leagues. Today, they're back in Bundesliga.2 and their passionate following will hope that it isn't too long before Die Löwen roar back to life in the Bundesliga and prove that if any club is capable of overcoming adversity and triumphing against the odds - it's Eintracht Braunschweig.