SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Apr 11, 1907
Club Members: 2,537
Nickname: Waldhof Buwe
Coach: Marco Antwerpen
Captain: Marcel Seegert

Bundesliga.2 Champions: 1
Regionalliga Südwest Champions: 2
Landespokal Baden Winner: 5

Website: www.svw07.de

Situated at the confluence of the Rhine and Neckar Rivers roughly halfway between Frankfurt and Stuttgart, the industrial city of Mannheim has played a pivotal role in transport history. Local aristocrat Baron Karl von Drais (who also invented the typewriter) went for the world's first bike ride here in 1817, long before other local sons such as Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz and Wilhelm Maybach invented the internal combustion engine and the car. It's the birthplace of the tractor, electronic ignition and where Julius Hatry built the world's first rocket-engine aircraft in 1929.

It's also home to SV Waldhof Mannheim whose roots date back to 1905 when a group of young men from the working class district of 'Waldhof' a few miles north of the city formed a club called 'Fußballgeselschaft Ramelia'. They were soon joined by players from local side MFC Phönix 02 Mannheim, but the merger was short lived and on 11th April 1907, Phönix members were among those who gathered at the Zum Tannenbaum restaurant in Mannheim to discuss forming yet another club. SV Waldhof 07 were officially registered with the DFB (German FA) on the 12th March 1908 and it didn't take long for the newcomers to find their feet - winning a number of regional championships in the inter-war period with four successive Berzirksliga Rhein Saar titles coming between 1930-33.

Following the Nazi rise to power in 1933, German football was reorganised into 16 top-flight regional divisions called Gauligen and with a team built around the axis of Otto Siffling (one of the most prolific forwards of the 1930s) and Sepp Herberger (the coach who would later guide West Germany to their 1954 'Miracle of Bern' World Cup triumph), SVW helped themselves to five Gauliga Baden titles in a battle for Baden Württemburg supremacy with city rivals VfR Mannheim. Transferring their Gauliga success to the national stage however proved something more of a challenge and a 1-3 reverse in the 1940 German Championship semi-final against FC Schalke 04 - the dominant team of the era -  was the best they managed under the Third Reich.

As Germany began rebuilding itself after the chaos of conflict, SVW returned to action in 1945 but, like many other clubs, found restoring past glories and a team ripped apart by war a struggle. After several seasons bobbing about in the Oberliga Süd, relegation in 1954 signalled the beginning of a slide into obscurity and it came as no surprise that the DFB (German FA) didn't consider them for the inaugural Bundesliga season in 1963. Having missed the cut, Waldhof found themselves added to the second-tier Regionalliga Süd roster instead and by 1970 had given the DFB some justification for their decision by crashing into the Amateurliga Nordbaden after a despondent season that saw them concede 99 goals and finish rock-bottom of the table. They bounced back in 1972 by outpacing FC Weinheim to the Nordbaden title before outfoxing FC Singen in a promotion play-off, but by now dark clouds were gathering over the Stadion am Alsenweg as growing financial pressures brought Waldhof to the brink of bankruptcy.

Salvation arrived in the form of German crisp manufacturer 'Chio Chips' who, keen to get 'eyeballs on the brand', offered a DM 190,000 investment in return for renaming the club 'Chio Waldhof 07'. With the snack company on board and the club's finances evened out (for the time being at least), big money was spent on the squad in an unsuccessful push to secure Bundesliga football. However, after another name change in 1975 when the prefix 'SV' was added to its appellation, with the club still mired in the mud of mid-table mediocrity, the company called time on their foray into football and the club was renamed 'SV Waldhof Mannheim 07' on 15th September 1978. It was a decision Chio Chips would soon regret however because just two years later came the appointment of a coach who would come to define a seemingly unrepeatable era of success for the Baden Württemburg club.

Klaus Schlappner grew up barely eight miles north of Mannheim and over the next seven years he propelled Waldhof from a middling second division club to one capable of challenging for European places in the Bundesliga. In an era when coaches tended to quietly watch from the sidelines, Schlappner, wearing his trademark Shephard's plaid hat, foreshadowed today's highly strung, emotional managers by barking instructions and getting into arguments with match officials. He'd pull the halfway flag out of the ground to get the ref's attention; and during a game against Bayer 04 Leverkusen, he offered the linesman a pair of glasses. Schlappi  was more than just a showman though; putting an emphasis on developing young local talent and instilling total discipline into his players that helped turn draws into wins and, first and foremost, defeats into draws. When Waldhof unexpectedly gatecrashed the Bundesliga in 1983, they did it with half the squad having been promoted from the club's youth ranks and the rest coming from the local area including prolific striker Fritz Walter (no relation to the 1.FC Kaiserslautern legend) who learnt the game in Weinheim, just ten miles to the east of Mannheim.

Having such a good eye for talent was born out of necessity though because the club have long lacked the financial might to support their ambition. In fact, they even lacked a ground to call their own during their time in the Bundesliga on account of their Stadion am Alsenweg (known as the Seppl Herberger Stadion since 1996) home falling well short of league standards. Waldhof were forced to cross the Rhine and play their 'home' matches in Ludwigshafen at the Südweststadion where they suffered some heavy defeats before Schlappner eventually steadied the ship by modifying the offensive approach that had secured promotion. With the team now much harder to break down and built almost exclusively around a core of eager homegrown talent like Jürgen Kohler, Christian Wörns and Maurizio Gaudino, the 'Waldhof Buwe ' (Waldhof Lads) came within a whisker of qualifying for the UEFA Cup in 1985 with a sixth-place finish, and made it as far as the DFB-Pokal semi-final the following year before eventual winners FC Bayern München were thrown in their path.

For Waldhof, the cup run was the final flourish of a golden period in their history and the eccentric Schlappner - a man so central to Waldhof's rise that he also co-wrote the club anthem - also triggered the demise that came when he left in 1987 to take over the reigns at SV Darmstadt 98. Kohler also followed him out of the door that summer when FC Köln came calling. Gaudino and Walter then defected to VfB Stuttgart and veteran Günter Sebert finally called time on his career one month after his 39th birthday. Weakened by the departures of key figures and without the appeal or funds to replace them, performances began to tail off and relegation was only avoided in 1988 after a penalty shoot-out victory in a play-off against none other than Schlappner's Darmstadt. Two years later though, the inevitable happened and SV Waldhof Mannheim dropped into the second tier after seven years of trading punches with German football's elite. With struggles off the field mirroring those on it, there was no guarantee that the club's fall from grace would end with relegation to the third-tier Regionalliga Süd which came in 1997 and Waldhof officials approached their counterparts at local rivals VfR Mannheim to discuss the possibility of a merger before disagreements over how it would all work saw the deal eventually fall through.

Waldhof returned to Bundesliga.2 in 1999 after beating Kickers Offenbach to the Regionalliga Süd title but their problems weren't behind them, and with debts threatening the swallow the club up again, they were demoted by the DFB to the fourth-tier Oberliga Baden-Württemberg in 2003 before another failed attempt at a merger with VfR. Things still hadn't quite hit rock bottom though and following a league restructure which saw them manage a couple of seasons in the Regionalliga, the club's perennial money problems proved that lightning can indeed strike twice when their playing licence was refused again in 2010 and the once proud club found themselves unceremoniously sent down to the now fifth-tier Oberliga Baden-Württemberg.

Recent years has seen something of a return to form and since making an immediate return to the fourth-tier in 2011, Waldhof haven't really looked back - although that's not to say that there haven't been some setbacks along the way. They finished the 2015-16 season top of the Regionalliga Südwest and qualified for a play-off against Regionalliga West champions Sportfreunde Lotte with promotion to the 3. Liga on the line. Despite a decent 0-0 draw in Lotte however, Waldhof stayed in the fourth-tier after a ruinous 2-0 defeat in the return leg before history repeated itself the following season when SV Meppen beat them in the 3. Liga promotion play-off. After a disappointing start to the 2017-18 season, Michael Fink was replaced by ex-FSV Frankfurt and Schalke II coach Berhard Trares who guided the team to a second-place finish and yet another promotion play-off defeat - this time by KFC Uerdingen.

In 2019 however, after three consecutive years of heartbreak, the Waldhof Buwe  finally ended a 16-year exile from professional football when Trares led them to the Regionalliga Südwest title with a tour-de-force campaign that saw them win 28 of the 34 matches and finish a full 21 points ahead of 1.FC Saarbrücken in second-place.