SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Apr 30, 1906
Club Members: 3,500
Nickname: Die Adler
Coach: Sascha Hildmann
Captain: Marc Lorenz

German Amateur Champions: 1
Regionalliga West Champions: 2
Oberliga Westfalen Champions: 7
Western German Cup: 1
Landespokal Westfalen Winner: 6

Website: www.scpreussen-muenster.de

The club's roots can be traced back to 30th April 1906 when a group of students at the Johann Conrad Schalaun Grammer School in Münster, having grown frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm towards football at the turn of the century, decided to strike out on their own and establish a club named after the former kingdom of Prussia - 'FC Preußen'. The patriotic footballers soon gained military support in the form of General Baron von Bissing who granted them use of a parade ground at the local Loddenheide army barracks ... on the proviso that they took the goalposts down after every match !

Life started for Die Adler (The Eagles) in the local amateur leagues and they were soon lifting their first silverware after holding off the challenge of SC Preußen Hamm and SuS Hamm to claim the West German FA C-Klasse title in 1907. They beat 1. Bielefelder FC Arminia (the precursor of today's DSC Arminia Bielefeld) to a maiden Westphalian Championship title in 1914 before football and, by proxy, the club was brought to a shuddering halt by the advent of war. When football resumed after the conflict, Preußen largely picked up where they'd left off and they were Westphalian champions again in 1921 before taking on their present day name - SC Preußen Münster (SCP) - later that year. In 1926, looking to build on their early success, the club moved into the newly built 40,000 capacity Preußenstadion but despite the promise, progress stalled and the next decade saw SCP mired in the mud of mid-table obscurity. 

After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, football was restructured across Germany with the creation of the Gauliga which funnelled clubs into 16 (later to become 18 following the Austrian Anschluß in 1938) top-flight regional divisions and Preußen played in the Gauliga Westfalen. Repeating their Westphalia Championship success proved a tall order though and a third-place finish in 1935 was they best they managed under the National Socialists.

Allied tanks on the streets of Berlin brought Hitler's 'Thousand Year Reich' to an end in 1945 and as a policy of de-Nazification was introduced across occupied Germany, all sports clubs were forced to disband. As football and dictatorship began untangling themselves after the conflict, Preußen duly reformed and returned to action in the newly created Landesliga Westfalen before securing promotion to the-then top flight Oberliga West in 1949.

Until this point, German people had been moulded by almost 100 years of glorifying the amateur spirit and professional sport was very much against the Zeitgeist. In an attempt to prevent the 'shamatuerism' prevalent in football before the war however, the Vertragsspieler (player under contract) system was introduced in 1948 which finally made it legal for clubs to pay a salary to their players - but when it became apparent that even the most progressive club officials couldn't ditch their Corinthian ideals completely, a wage cap of DM 320 per month was put in place. This is when Preußen Münster acted and chairman Josef Oevermann used his deep pockets to lure star forwards Felix "Fiffi" Gerritzen, future Borussia Dortmund legend Adi Preißler, Rudi Schutz, Jupp Lammers, Friedel Weghorst and Siegfried Rachuba (who would go on to become Preußen's record goalscorer with 97 goals in 238 games) to the fiercely ambitious club. The media, having guessed at a transfer value, dubbed the Prussians' forward line the "100,000 Mark Sturm " and the whole nation was stunned that they'd become the first German club to build a team by not only signing new players - but actually paying them to do so. The new arrivals tried to dial down the furore by insisting that the amounts they allegedly received to become 'players under contract' were wildly exaggerated, although Jupp Lammers admitted in later years that he was being paid DM 400 a month ... "under the table and tax-free". 

Preußen shrugged off the attention surrounding their use of the Vertragsspieler system and, emboldened by the new additions, narrowly missed out on having their name etched onto the Oberliga West trophy in 1951 after finishing a point adrift of champions FC Schalke 04. They had to settle for second best in the German Championship that year as well, losing 1-2 to 1.FC Kaiserslauten in the final after picking their way past 1.FC Nürnberg, Hamburger SV and Tennis Borussia Berlin in the group stages. After a fourth-place finish in 1954, the rest of the decade saw the 'Münster Men' loiter in the middle ranks on the back of some inconsistent league campaigns and given that their overall influence on the German game had up until that point been pretty minimal, it was a surprise to say the least when the German FA (DFB) decided to include them in the inaugural Bundesliga season in 1963.

Life in the top-flight was brief however and despite a memorable 2-1 triumph over Ruhr giants FC Schalke 04, they were relegated to the Regionalliga West after just one season. There would be no quickfire return either and Preußen spent the next couple of decades in the second-tier as a growing financial crisis developed off the pitch that would threaten the club's very existence. In 1970, horrticulture entrepreuner Günter Wellerdieck became club president and announced his arrival with hubris by vowing to lead Preußen back to the Bundesliga. Despite heavy investment in the team however, third-place finishes in 1976 and 1978 were the closest he came to delivering on his promise and, having gambled on Bundesliga football to pay for the signings of established players like Benno Möhlmann, Rolf Grünther, Werner Moors; debts of DM 2.1 million were threatening to swallow the club up. In addition to Preußen's beleaguered finances, accusations of tax fraud were levelled at Wellerdieck and in 1978, he, along with the rest of the club's board, resigned.

Given the upheaval of the previous few years, it was perhaps no surprise when Preußen dropped into the amateur Oberliga Westfalen in 1982 as struggles on the pitch began mirroring those off it. The appointment of Helmut Horch as coach in 1986 however brought an upturn in fortunes with back-to-back Oberliga Westfalen titles in the late-80s; and, after a numbing defeat to Hertha Berlin in a promotion play-off in 1988, Preußen dusted themselves down and secured a berth in Bundesliga.2 alongside MSV Duisburg the following year. They also lifted the Amateur German Championship in 1994 after Kickers Offenbach were narrowly beaten 1-0 in the final.
 

By this point however, the feelgood factor had already come to an end as Preußen were relegated from Bundesliga.2 in 1991 after just a couple of seasons and went into a tailspin that saw them come to rest in the then fourth-tier Oberliga Westfalen by 2006. The appointment of future Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Benfica coach Roger Schmidt a year later however steadied the ship and within a year, his ultra-attacking philosophy of incessant pressing had led Preußen to a timely fourth Oberliga Westfalen title and a place in the new Regionalliga West - part of a league restructure that saw the creation of the 3.Liga as the lowest professional division in Germany. The Schmidt era became defined by consistently strong Regionalliga campaigns, and quickfire Westpahalia Cup successes in 2008 and 2009 ensured a pair of lucrative DFB-Pokal ties against VfL Bochum and Hertha Berlin from the Bundesliga. It was under Marc Fascher however that Die Adler outpaced Eintracht Trier to the Regionalliga West title in 2011 and won promotion to the 3.Liga for the first time.

After several seasons of middle-order ranking, performances eventually fell away and the club were back into the fourth-tier at the end of the COVID-hit 2019-20 season, but having regrouped under new coach Sascha Hildmann, Preußen ended a three year exile from professional football when they became Regionalliga West champions for the second time in 2023.