The club Eintracht Frankfurt (SGE) is often regarded as being at the heart of Frankfurt culture, with many ‘ultras’ going so far as to wrap their car with the SGE crest. Although, at the time of writing, the club finds itself 7th in the Bundesliga, it is a massive source of pride for Frankfurters, as the uproar that fans produce at games home and away demonstrates. Throughout the many years since the club was founded, it has experienced a lot of turbulence, with performances only recently having improved. Nevertheless, the club has become a lot stronger in the last few years, with wins against giants such as Barcelona showing promise for the future.
The Foundation:
Eintracht Frankfurt can be traced back to the founding of the ‘Frankfurter Fussball-Club Victoria von 1899’ and the ‘Frankfurter-Club Kickers von 1899’. These two clubs are widely considered the ‘founding fathers’ of Eintracht Frankfurt and both played roles in starting up the Nordkreis Liga in 1909. The two merged in 1911 to form the Frankfurter Fußball Verien (Kickers Victoria), a club that seemed invincible. Between 1912 and 1914 they won 3 league titles as well as qualifying for the Southern German Championship in each of the respective seasons. They then joined up with the gymnastics club ‘Frankfurter Turngemeinde’, which in turn formed ‘TuS Eintracht Frankfurt’ in 1920. The German word ‘Eintracht’ means ‘harmony’, which mirrors many English teams being called ‘United’. To this day, ‘Eintracht Frankfurt’ has a total of 19 sporting teams under their name, including boxing, athletics, and hockey, as well as expanding to sports such as table tennis and in much more recent years, E-sports.
Throughout the late 1920s and ‘30s, Eintracht had won many championships on both a local and regional level, winning the Bezirksliga Main-Hessen. After losing in the national level playoffs in 1930 and ‘31, they fought their way to the final where they were unfortunately beaten by Bayern Munich 2-0, who went on to claim their first ever German Championship. Eintracht picked up where they had left off after World War II, however, joining the new division Oberliga Süd. The year 1946 was rather successful for them as they went on to win the ‘Hessenpokal’ and finish a solid third in the Oberliga Süd a year later.
The Rise:
After a rather promising start to the season in 1958, Eintracht won the Oberliga again under the coach Paul Oßwald, qualifying for the German championship in 1959. Winning 6 of 6 games in the group phase, Eintracht made it to the finals where they were met by their rivals ‘Kickers Offenbach’, the club that Oßwald had joined from, who had come runners-up in the Oberliga the year before. Frankfurt ended up winning a very important game 5-3, thereby becoming German Champions for the first time. This game meant that Eintracht would be able to represent Germany in the European Cup of 1959-60. Beating BSC Young Boys and Wiener Sport-Club, the club made it to the semi-finals where they had to play against the Scottish champions Rangers. Before the match, the coach of Rangers infamously asked: “Eintracht, who are they?”; Eintracht won the first leg 6-1 at home and then managed to score six more in the second leg,ending the match with a 12-4 aggregate score They went on to lose the final in Glasgow 7-3 to Real Madrid, ending what was nevertheless a hugely successful campaign.
Eintracht’s Golden Years:
Being one of the oldest clubs in Germany, Eintracht was amongst the 16 original teams selected to play in Germany's new top league, the Bundesliga. Although the club were rather average in the ’60s, they enjoyed a huge era of success in the 1970s and ’80s under the management of Dietrich Weise (1973-76, 1983-86), winning 4 DFB-Pokale (the German equivalent of the FA Cup). Between Wiese’s two spells at the helm, Friedel Rausch was in charge for 18 months, in which time he managed to bring the club to their second European trophy (the UEFA Intertoto Cup) in 1966-67.
The Bundesliga dominated the latter stages of the UEFA Cup in 1979-80 with all four semi-finalists being German clubs. Frankfurt went on to win the cup at home in front of 59,000 fans after beating Mönchengladbach and Bayern Munich respectively. They managed to finish third in the Bundesliga for the second time under Weise’s management during the 1974-75 season, but even more impressive was the club finishing in the top 5 for 5 consecutive years in the ‘90s.
Relegation and a Glimmer of Hope:
After a horrendous season and placing 17th, Eintracht Frankfurt were relegated 1997-98. Although they were promoted again, they soon slipped back down in 2000-01, primarily due to the financial difficulties that they had faced. Luckily,after going back and forth between leagues for many years, the team managed to secure promotion in 2012 have stayed put since. The appointment of their former manager Niko Kovac in 2016 changed the club’s fortunes and brought Eintracht back into the DFB-Pokal where they won 3-1 against Bayern Munich.
A narrow loss against Chelsea in 2018-19 further displayed the club's progression as they got back on track to win even more trophies. Since 2016-17, Eintracht have been able to finish mid-table and above, even finishing 5th in 2021, giving all fans, die-hard or not, a glimmer of hope.
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