Rapid Vienna
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| Full name | Sportklub Rapid Wien |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) |
Die Grün-Weißen (The Green-Whites), Hütteldorfer |
| Founded | 1899 |
| Ground | Weststadion |
| Capacity | 28,345 |
| Chairman | Michael Krammer |
| Manager | Damir Canadi |
| League | Austrian Bundesliga |
| 2015–16 | Austrian Bundesliga, 2nd |
| Website | Club home page |
Sportklub Rapid Wien (German pronunciation: [raˈpiːd viːn]), often called Rapid Vienna in English, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid is the most successful Austrian club in terms of league titles; it has won 32 Austrian league titles, and a German championship in 1941 during Nazi rule. Rapid twice reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985 and 1996, losing on both occasions.
The club is often known as Die Grün-Weißen (The Green-whites) for its team colours or as Hütteldorfer, in reference to the location of the Gerhard Hanappi Stadium, which is in Hütteldorf, part of the city's 14th district, Penzing.
The club was founded in 1897 as Erster Wiener Arbeiter-Fußball-Club (First Viennese Workers' Football Club). The team's original colours were red and blue, which are still often used in away matches. On 8 January 1899 the club was renamed, taking on its present name of Sportklub Rapid Wien, following the example of Rapide Berlin. In 1904, the team colours were changed to green and white. The club won Austria's first ever national championship in 1911–12 by a single point, and retained the title the following season.
Rapid became a dominant force during the years between the world wars, an era in which Austria was one of the leading football nations on the continent. It won its first hat-trick of titles from 1919 to 1921. After the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, Rapid joined the German football system, playing in the regional first division Gauliga Ostmark along with clubs such as Wacker Wien and Admira Vienna. Rapid would be the most successful of these clubs. They won the Tschammerpokal, predecessor of today's German Cup, in 1938 with a 3–1 victory over FSV Frankfurt, and followed that with a German Championship in 1941 by defeating Schalke 04, the most dominant German club of the era. The team was able to overcome a 3–0 Schalke lead to win the match 4–3.
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