TSV Siegen
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| Full name | Sportfreunde Siegen von 1899 e.V. |
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| Founded | 25. July 1899 |
| Ground | Leimbachstadion |
| Capacity | 18,700 |
| Chairman | Ulrich Steiner |
| Manager | Ottmar Griffel |
| League | Regionalliga West (IV) |
| 2015–16 | Oberliga Westfalen (V), 1st (promoted) |
Sportfreunde Siegen is a German association football club based in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia. After going through insolvency in 2008, the first team was forcibly relegated to the fifth-tier NRW-Liga. Promotion to fourth division Regionalliga West was finally accomplished in 2012 but it was relegated again in 2015. The club’s home ground is the Leimbachstadion, an arena that can host up to 18,700 people.
The club was founded in 1899 as the football department of a gymnastics club called Turnverein Jahn von 1879 Siegen, being one of the first clubs in Western Germany to offer organized football to its members. In 1923, it merged with Sportverein 07 Siegen to become an independent football club called Sportfreunde Siegen von 1899.
The 1920s also marked the club's first ascension to the national level, competing in the Western German championship after claiming the crown in the district league four times in a row. Despite these results, the team did not qualify for the first division when German football was re-organized in the Third Reich. After World War II, the club initially could not match its pre-war successes until it won the German amateur championship in 1955 with a stunning 5–0 win over 05 Bad Homburg.
Two years later, Sportfreunde captain Herbert Schäfer was called up by national coach Sepp Herberger to play for the German national team. In 1954, Schäfer had been the last player being cut from the team which went on to win the World Cup. To this day, Herbert Schäfer still ranks as one of the best players to ever wear a Sportfreunde jersey.
Six years after winning the German amateur championship, Sportfreunde Siegen made the jump to professional football in 1961. When the Bundesliga was introduced in 1963, the club settled in the Regionalliga, which was the second highest division at the time. League games against renowned clubs such as Bayer Leverkusen, Fortuna Düsseldorf or Borussia Mönchengladbach were common during these days.
After some years of struggle, Sportfreunde Siegen fought its way back to professional football in 1972, claiming the West German amateur championship and promoting to the second-tier Regionalliga once again. Siegen remained on the professional stage for two more years before the introduction of the 2. Bundesliga forced the club to withdraw from this level in 1974. For the following twelve years, Sportfreunde Siegen continuously played in Germany's third division. After several ups and downs in the late 1980s and early '90s, the club made it back to third-tier Regionalliga in 1997, narrowly missing out on the promotion to the 2. Bundesliga by one game in 1999. In the same year, the team advanced to the quarter-finals of the DFB-Pokal, the German cup, before losing to Bundesliga side VfL Wolfsburg in a highly contested match.
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