VfL Halle 1896

VfL Halle 1896 is a German football club from the city of Halle (Saale) in Saxony-Anhalt.

History

The oldest club in the city of Halle was founded as Hallescher Fußballclub von 1896 on 16 July 1896. HFC was one of a dozen clubs that formed the VMBV (Verbandes Mitteldeutscher Ballspielvereine or Federation of Middle German Football Teams) on 16 December 1900 and was a founding member of the DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) in Leipzig in January 1900.

In 1909 the club was the first in the country to purchase its own grounds and on 10 September 1910 hosted VfB Leipzig in their new stadium facility. The club merged with the Kaufmännischer Turnverein Halle on 23 September 1919 to become VfL Halle von 1896. The short-lived union ended in April the following year, but the club kept its new name. Throughout this period Halle enjoyed numerous successes, winning seven VMBV regional championships, as well as overall league titles in 1917 and 1919.

German football was reorganized under the Third Reich in 1933 into sixteen top-flight Gauligen. VfL Halle joined the Gauliga Mitte in 1937 and played first division football there until 1944, earning middling results. Play in the division ended with the advance of Allied armies into Germany as World War II drew to a close.

Hallescher FC

Hallescher FC is a German association football club based in Halle an der Saale, Saxony-Anhalt. The club currently plays in the 3. Liga, the third highest level in the German football league system. For many years, Halle has been in East Germany's highest league, the DDR-Oberliga, up-until the German reunification. However, like many other teams from the former East, it then suffered the effects of economic and demographic decline in the region in the 1990s and fell down to amateur leagues. Since 2000, Hallescher FC has ended its downward trend and in the 2011-2012 season, they finally returned to a professional football league after 20 years of absence.

History

The origins of the club can be traced back to Hallescher Fussball-Club Wacker 1900, founded in 1900 and generally referred to as Wacker Halle, which won the Saale district - named after the river Saale - of the Central German championship twelve times between 1910 and its last edition 1933. These are all to be considered championships of one of numerous German first divisions. Main rivals here were Hallescher FC and to a lesser extent Borussia Halle, Sportfreunde Halle and SV Halle 98.