SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Jun 22, 2010
Club Members: 704
Nickname: Der Höhenberger
Coach: Olaf Janßen
Captain: Moritz Fritz

Regionalliga West: 2
Landespokal Mittelrhein Winner: 7

Website: www.viktoria1904.de

Like many of Cologne's senior clubs, Viktoria's history is a constant flux of mergers, name changes and insolvency which began in their case with the formation of FC Germania Kalk in 1904. It wasn't too long before the newcomers had merged with local club FC Kalk to form SV Kalk 04 in 1909 before Mülheimer FC became bedfellows to create VfR Mülheim-Kalk 04 a couple of years later. In 1918, after the neighbouring towns of Mülheim and Kalk had both been incorporated into the wider Cologne city region, the club was renamed VfR Köln 04 rrh (Viktoria and its predecessor clubs have traditionally represented the right bank of the Rhine - hence the suffix 'rrh').

After spending their formative years playing in local championships, the first silverware arrived in 1926 after BV Altenessen were pipped to the West German Championship title but, despite being able to call on the talents of German international Erich Schröder, VfR struggled to build on this success and progress stalled over the next few seasons. Following the Nazi rise to power in 1933, German football was reorganised into 16 top-flight regional divisions called Gauliga and the club established themselves as a solid performer under the Third Reich - winning the Gauliga Mittelrhein title in 1935 and 1937 before consecutive runners-up finishes in 1942 and 1943 followed in the Gauliga Köln-Aachen. 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 VfR formed one half of a combined war team (Kriegsspielgemeinschaft ) called KSG VfR 04 Köln/Mülheimer SV 06 from 1943.

Allied tanks on the streets of Berlin brought Hitler's 'Thousand Year Reich' to an end in 1945 and as football and dictatorship began to untangle themselves after the conflict, VfR returned to action by lifting the Rheinbezirksliga title in 1947 before securing a third-place finish in the short-lived British Occupation Zone Football Championship the following year. After a single-season cameo in the-then top flight Oberliga West, VfR joined up with wartime partners Mülheimer SV on 29th July 1949 and spent the next three campaigns as 'SC Rapid Köln 04' in the 2.Oberliga West before performances fell away resulting in relegation to the third-tier Landesliga Mittelrhein in 1952. With 1.FC Köln ruling the roost in the city, club officials decided that performances on the 'right bank' needed to improve and the best way to do this would be yet another case of out with the 'not-so-old' and in with ... a new club. And so by 1957, SC Rapid Köln 04 were no more and in their place came SC Viktoria 04 Köln after a merger with SC Preußen Dellbrück - who at least brought some pedigree to the union having reached the semi finals of the National Championship in 1950 and considered the only local side capable of challenging Effzeh 's city-wide dominance. 

In 1962, the city of Cologne selected Viktoria as its representative in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup where they were drawn against Hungarian giants Ferencváros. Unfortunately however, the club's first - and so far only - European adventure ended at the first hurdle after a ruinous 1-4 defeat in Budapest undid some good work in the home-leg and they crashed out of the tournament 5-7 on aggregate. Having also missed the cut when the German FA (DFB) decided which sixteen clubs should form the new Bundesliga in 1963, Viktoria settled down as a largely unspectacular performer and spent the next 30 years bouncing between the second and third tiers - although in a throwback to the more successful days of SC Preußen Dellbrück, they became the first amateur club to knock a Bundesliga side out of the DFB-Pokal when they beat Eintracht Braunschweig 2-1 in a third-round tie in 1975.

In 1994, they were joined by players from local club SC Brück and became known as SCB Preußen Köln, but it wasn't long before things started to unravel as the club began a slide down the leagues - ending up in the fifth-tier Verbandsliga Mittelrhein by the 1997-98 season. Things hadn't quite hit rock bottom however and after yet another name change - this time to SCB Viktoria Köln - the rollercoaster became one permanent dip in 2010 when the lack of a large enough fanbase to sustain the club brought insolvency and, just over a century after FC Germania Kalk had been formed, one of Cologne's oldest clubs ceased to exist.

However, as history has shown, the cathedral city is a fertile breeding ground for football clubs and it wasn't long before green shoots began to emerge. On 22nd June 2010, FC Viktoria Köln 1904 were formed and despite SCB's insolvency they managed to salvage the old club's youth department. With an emphasis now on developing young local talent, Viktoria kicked off life in the Kreisliga D - the lowest rung of the German football ladder - but were soon 'promoted' to the fifth-tier NRW-Liga (Nordrhein-Westfalen-Liga) after acquiring the playing licence of local outfit FC Junkersdorf in 2011. Der Höhenberger then carried the momentum into the following season - winning promotion to the fourth-tier at the first time of asking by lifting the NRW-Liga title in 2012 before securing their place in the 3.Liga when they became champions of the Regionalliga West in 2019.