FC Herzogenaurach
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| Full name | 1. Fussball Club 1916 Herzogenaurach e.V. |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Pumas |
| Founded | 1916 |
| Ground | Rudolf-Dassler-Sportfeld |
| Capacity | 1.500 |
| Chairman | Walter Nussel |
| Manager | Matthias Zenger |
| League | Bezirksliga Mittelfranken 1 (VII) |
| 2015–16 | Kreisliga Erlangen/Pegnitzgrund 1 (VIII), 1st (promoted) |
The 1. FC Herzogenaurach is a German association football club from the city of Herzogenaurach, Bavaria.
The history of the club is strongly interwined with the Sports equipment manufacturer Puma, then just a local company and sponsor of the FC and its rivalry to ASV Herzogenaurach, which was sponsored by another local company, Adidas.
Formed in 1916, the club did not begin to play competitive football till 1919 due to the difficult circumstances of the First World War. Between the two world wars, the club played on local Middle Franconian level, at times as high as the Bezirksliga, the local third division.
With the rise of the Nazis, the club profited from the disbanding of the local workers club Freie Union, a predecessor to the ASV herzogenaurach.FC gained a considerable number of players from this in 1933.
After the Second World War, the club played in the local A-Klasse, later the Bezirksliga Mittelfranken-Nord. With a championship in the later in 1965–66, the FC's rise to the higher Bavarian amateur leagues begun.
In the Landesliga Bayern-Mitte for the first time for the 1966–67 season, the club finished in a respectable eleventh spot and repeated this result the season after. In November 1967, it was offered a sponsorship by the Puma AG, which it accepted, a fact which earned it its later nickname The Pumas. Puma offered a similar sponsorship to the other club in town, ASV Herzogenaurach, but was beaten to this by Adidas, its long-term rival. The rivalry between Puma and Adidas, which is in truth the rivalry of the two brothers who owned the companies then, Rudolf Dassler and Adolf Dassler, actually predates the rivalry of the two football clubs, stretching back to 1948.
In the Landesliga in 1968–69, the club met its local rival once more, the ASV having earned promotion to the league in 1968. The first season there together, ASV finished fourth while the FC came third, the clubs being separated by one point. The season after, the FC won the league and earned promotion to the Amateurliga Bayern (III) while the ASV came third. The ASV had to wait another two seasons to do the same and win the league and promotion in 1972.
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