FK Pirmasens

FK Pirmasens is a German association football club in Pirmasens, Rhineland-Palatinate. The team was formed as the football section of the gymnastics and sports club TV Pirminia Pirmasens in 1903 and became independent in 1914. They took on their current name in 1925. FK is one of the few teams that uses the German Klub in their name as opposed to the commonly affected English-style term Club.

History

The club developed into a strong amateur side in southwestern Germany. In post-First World War play, the club was grouped in the tier-one Kreisliga Saar in 1919 but then moved to the Kreisliga Pfalz in 1920. From 1930 to 1933 the team made three consecutive appearances in the final of the Southern German championship, on the strength of four Bezirksliga Rhein-Saar titles, and between 1934 and 1936 were three times vice-champions of the Gauliga Südwest, one of sixteen top flight divisions formed in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. World War II was hard on the club: following a 0:26 beating at the hands of 1. FC Kaiserslautern in 1942 they withdrew from competition until after the conflict. After the war the club played in the Oberliga Südwest and captured league titles there in 1958, 1959 and 1960 while finishing as vice champions in 1954 and 1962. The club was so popular at the time that they often had to abandon their home ground in favour of the stadium in nearby Ludwigshafen in order to accommodate crowds of up to 65,000 spectators.