BSC Erlangen


The BSC Erlangen is a German association football club from the city of Erlangen, Bavaria. From 1957 to 1979, the club belonged to the Amateurliga Bayern, the highest football league in the state and then the third division of German football.

History

The club traces its roots to SC Erlangen, founded in 1919. After the Second World War, on 2 September 1945, representatives of two other Büchenbach clubs Mannergesangverein Büchenbach and Radfahrverein Büchenbach agreed to merge with SC, thus SpVgg Büchenbach was born.
The club first rose to prominence in 1957, when it gained promotion to the Amateurliga Nordbayern, from the 2nd Amateurliga Mittelfranken.
Avoiding relegation narrowly in its first season, 1957–58, it became a fixture in the highest Bavarian football league for the next two decades, belonging to it for 22 seasons. The club established itself as a mid-table side and in 1961–62 took out the league title. This qualified the club for the German amateur football championship, where it got knocked out in the first round. The season after, a seventh place proved to be just enough to qualify for the now unified Bavarian Amateurliga which kicked off in 1963.
The first two seasons in the Bayernliga, the club had to play against relegation. After this, the SpVgg established itself in the upper half of the table. The club rose as far as to a third-place finish in 1969–70. From 1976, the club's fortunes started to decline and it gradually slipped to the end of the table. In 1978–79, now with the league renamed Amateur Oberliga Bayern, the club found itself relegated, finishing 16th out of 18 teams.
The club had been the last founding member of the league to have belonged to it without interruption. In the all-time table of the Bayernliga from 1963 to 2008, it still holds the 14th place out of 99 clubs.
Playing in the Landesliga Bayern-Mitte from 1979, the club struggled to establish itself in this league. In 1981, the SpVgg Büchenbach renamed itself to BSC Erlangen.
In the 1983–84 season, the club's fortunes improved somewhat, finishing fourth in the Landesliga. After this season, it rapidly declined and in 1986 a last-place finish meant relegation to the Bezirksliga.
In 1988, a Mittelfranken Cup win earned the club a place in the DFB Cup 1988–89, where it drew Bayer Leverkusen and lost 0–5 at home in the first round.
It took the BSC until 1991 to return to the Landesliga. It returned with much better results and came second in the league in 1992–93, which qualified the club for the promotion play-off to the Bayernliga, where they failed. The team remained a strong force in the league until 1995, when it slipped back to the lower half of the table. After battling relegation for a couple of seasons, the club finally was moved down in 1999–2000, now to the Bezirksoberliga Mittelfranken.
The season after proved disastrous for the club, with only one win and three draws out of 30 games, a last place finish and relegation were inevitable.
After this, the BSC has been moving up and down between Bezirksliga and Bezirksoberliga, playing in the later once more since 2008. At the end of the 2011–12 season the club dropped back to the Bezirksliga after finishing eleventh in the Bezirksoberliga but remained at the same tier as the Bezirksoberliga was disbanded.
The 2012–13 was a disastrous one for the club, winning only one game and conceding 214 goals. Consequently, BSC was relegated to the Kreisliga. The decline of the once proud amateur club results from a Euro 800,000 dept and the inability to pay its players. Before the 2012–13 season the entire first team left the club, forcing BSC to field its reserve side. In the final games of the season the club was at times only able to field seven players. The club withdrew its senior team in February 2014 from the Kreisliga with the future of BSC being very uncertain at the time. For the following season the club stepped down three tiers, entering the B-Klasse Erlangen/Pegnitzgrund 1, a league where 12 out of 15 teams were reserve sides but also included another former Bayernliga club, the ASV Herzogenaurach. After a runners-up finish the club was promoted to the A-Klasse.

Honours

The club's honours:

League

The recent season-by-season performance of the club:
SeasonDivisionTierPosition
1999–2000Landesliga Bayern-MitteV17th ↓
2000–01Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVI16th ↓
2001–02Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII12th
2002–03Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII4th
2003–04Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII8th
2004–05Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII1st ↑
2005–06Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVI14th ↓
2006–07Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII7th
2007–08Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII1st ↑
2008–09Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVII9th
2009–10Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVII9th
2010–11Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVII10th
2011–12Bezirksoberliga MittelfrankenVII11th
2012–13Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-NordVII18th ↓
2013–14Kreisliga Erlangen/PegnitzgrundVIII16th ↓
2014–15B-Klasse Erlangen/PegnitzgrundXI2nd ↑
2015–16A-Klasse Erlangen/PegnitzgrundX13th
2016–17A-Klasse Erlangen/PegnitzgrundX3rd
2017–18A-Klasse Erlangen/PegnitzgrundX9th
2018–19A-Klasse Erlangen/PegnitzgrundX1st ↑

↑ Promoted↓ Relegated

DFB Cup appearances

The club has qualified for the first round of the German Cup just once:
SeasonRoundDateHomeAwayResultAttendance
DFB Cup 1988–89First round6 August 1988BSC ErlangenBayer Leverkusen0–5