Hamburger SV

Did You Know?

• HSV fans can be buried at a dedicated graveyard near the home stadium, covered in turf from the original Hamburg pitch.
• The band Abschlach! has written the HSV anthem "Mein Hamburg lieb ich sehr" and performs it before every game.
• The club has a fan club for gay and bisexual fans called BLUE PRIDE, which merged into the Volksparkjunxx in January 2012.

History

Hamburger SV’s roots go back to 29 September 1887, when Der Hohenfelder Sportclub and Wandsbek-Marienthaler Sportclub merged to create Sport-Club Germania Hamburg. That club was the first of three that would come together on 2 June 1919 to form the HSV we know today. The other two were Hamburger FC, founded in 1888, and FC Falke Eppendorf, from 1906. World War I had drained all three of players and money, making it impossible for them to survive alone.

SC Germania started as an athletics club and only took up football in 1891, after some English members brought the game with them. It won the Hamburg-Altona championship five times, the first in 1896. One of its players, Hans Nobiling, moved to Brazil and helped start SC Internacional, which later merged into São Paulo FC, and also SC Germânia, which became EC Pinheiros. Hamburger SC 1888 was formed by students on 1 June 1888.

Both SC Germania and Hamburger SC 1888 were among the 86 clubs that founded the German Football Association (DFB) in Leipzig on 28 January 1900. FC Falke, also started by students in Eppendorf on 5 March 1906, never made it big and stayed in lower leagues. The newly merged HSV reached the 1922 national final against 1. FC Nürnberg, who were going for a third straight title.

The first match ended 2–2 and was stopped after three hours and ten minutes because it got dark. The replay also went to extra time, and with no substitutions allowed, Nürnberg was down to seven players—two injured and two sent off—so the referee called it off at 2–2. After much debate, the DFB gave HSV the win but asked them to turn down the trophy for the sake of sportsmanship, which they did, grudgingly. No Viktoria trophy was awarded that year.

Rivals and affinities

HSV’s biggest regional rivalry is the Nordderby against fellow northern club Werder Bremen. In the spring of 2009, the two sides met four times across three weeks, with Werder knocking HSV out of both the UEFA Cup and the DFB-Pokal at the semi-final stage. Within Hamburg itself, HSV’s main local opponent is FC St. Pauli. After spending seven seasons apart in different divisions, the clubs were set to face each other again, and tensions between their fanbases flared well before kickoff.

Around 100 HSV supporters disrupted a St. Pauli concert that was being held on what they considered the HSV side of the Reeperbahn. During a league match, HSV fans unfurled a banner challenging St. Pauli to a brawl with the slogan “Finally satisfy our lust – 100 of you vs. 100 of us.” In retaliation, St. Pauli fans attacked HSV supporters who were preparing a choreography and wrecked part of it. Some HSV fans then hung effigies in St. Pauli’s colors from several bridges around the city, and about 80 HSV ultras marched through the Reeperbahn shouting insults.

For the first second-division Hamburg derby on 10 March 2019 at Millerntor-Stadion, police escorted both sets of supporters to prevent clashes. HSV won 4–0, their first victory at that ground since 1962. Years earlier, after Benedikt Pliquett celebrated by kicking HSV’s corner flag in 2011, Tom Mickel later copied the gesture with his own “Kung-Fu Kick.”

In international competitions

HSV's first European participation came after winning the German championship in 1960, entering the 1960–61 European Cup. They beat Young Boys 8–3 on aggregate in the preliminary round, winning 5–0 away and drawing 3–3 at home. HSV reached the European Cup semi-final in 1961. They later played in two finals: losing 1–0 to Nottingham Forest in 1980 and defeating Juventus 1–0 in 1983.

Along with Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, HSV is one of three German teams to have won the European Cup. HSV won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1976–77 and were runners-up in that competition in 1968 and the UEFA Cup in 1982. They reached the semi-finals of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup, eliminated by regional rivals Werder Bremen, and the same stage in the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League, missing the chance to play the final at their own stadium; that was the club's most recent European campaign.

Having lost the 1968 European Cup Winners' Cup final, the 1980 European Cup final, and the 1982 UEFA Cup final, HSV became the first club to be runner-up in all three major UEFA club competitions. Additionally, after losing the European Super Cup in 1977, the 1983 Intercontinental Cup, and the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup, they became the first and only club to obtain the silver medal in all six confederation competitions. HSV's biggest European win was 8–0 against Brașov on 23 October 1974; their biggest defeat was 6–0 to Liverpool in the 1977 Super Cup second leg.

Manfred Kaltz holds the record for most European appearances with 81, and Horst Hrubesch is the leading goalscorer with 20. As of the end of the 2021–22 season, HSV is unranked among European clubs; the last year with a coefficient was 2014, when they ranked 64th.

Honours

HSV has won the German national championship six times: in 1923, 1928, 1960, 1978–79, 1981–82, and 1982–83. They have been runners-up eight times. The club has won the DFB-Pokal three times: 1962–63, 1975–76, and 1986–87, and been runners-up three times. HSV won the DFB-Ligapokal in 1972–73 and 2003, and were runners-up in the DFB-Supercup in 1977, 1983, and 1987.

In European competition, they won the European Cup in 1982–83 and were runners-up in 1979–80; they won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1976–77 and were runners-up in 1967–68; they were runners-up in the UEFA Cup in 1981–82. HSV also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup outright in 2005 and 2007, and were runners-up in 1999. They were runners-up in the UEFA Super Cup in 1977 and 1983, and in the Intercontinental Cup in 1983. The club's three Bundesliga championships entitle them to display one gold star; their pre-Bundesliga championships are not recognized under the current system.

HSV holds the record for most regional titles, with 31, though these do not count as trophies. The 1922 championship final was abandoned, and the DFB requested HSV to renounce the title, which they did. Until the 2017–18 season, HSV was the only club to have played continuously in the Bundesliga since its foundation in 1963.