SpVgg Bayern Hof


SpVgg Bayern Hof is a German association football club based in Hof, Bavaria. The club was founded on 1 June 1910 as Ballspielclub Hof, but within a year was renamed Britannia Hof. In 1913, they merged with FC Roland Hof and FC Phoenix Hof to become FC Bayern Hof.

History

FC Bayern Hof was a decent, but unremarkable, local side through its early decades. It spent five seasons in the tier-one Bezirksliga Bayern from 1927. In 1944, the team won promotion to the Gauliga Bayern, Staffel Oberfranken, one of sixteen top flight division that had been created in 1933 in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. However, by that time World War II had overtaken that part of the country and Gauliga play was ended there in the fall.
After the war Bayern Hof advanced to the Landesliga Bayern in 1946 where they came out on top of the Staffel Nordbayern only to lose the divisional playoff to Wacker München. League re-structuring saw the club in the 2. Oberliga Süd to open the 1951–52 season. They remained competitive throughout the decade, generally finishing in the top half of the table.
A second-place result in 1959 put the club into Oberliga Süd to play first division football for the first time. They managed only middling results against the stronger, better established teams there and so did not qualify for play in the Bundesliga – Germany's new professional league – when it was established in 1963. BH played in the Regionalliga Süd and through the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the team played good football and earned some solid finishes – including a division title in 1968 – but failed in three tries to make it through the promotion rounds to the new top division in 1967, 1968 and 1972.
In the pre-season 1969–70 Bayern Hof had a taste of international football as they took part in the 1969 Cup of the Alps. They hosted three games at their Stadion Grüne Au against Hellas Verona, Lausanne Sports and Bologna.
In 1978, they slipped to the tier-three Bayernliga and began a descent that would land them in Landesliga Bayern-Nord by 1980. In the next fourteen seasons until 1994, the club existed as an elevator side between the Landesliga and Oberliga, playing in the later in 1983–84 and 1988–1990 while generally finishing in the top-three in the Landesliga in the other seasons. It made a more permanent return to the Oberliga Bayern in 1994, when the new Regionalliga Süd was formed and the best teams from the Bayernliga entered the new league.
A decade in the Bayernliga saw the club finish fourth three times, in 1996, 2000 and 2002, but, in 2004, it was relegated again. In 2005 FC Bayern Hof merged with SpVgg Hof to form SpVgg Bayern Hof. SpVgg Hof had been formed in 1893 as the football department of the gymnastics club TV Hof, itself founded in 1861. The footballers became independent in 1924 and were distinguished only by single season appearances in the top flight in 1921 and 1929, and an advance to the Amateurliga Bayern for the 1966–67 season.
In 2006 the newly unified club captured the division title in the Landesliga Bayern-Nord and were promoted to the fourth division Bayernliga. A difficult 2007–08 season saw the club in deep relegation trouble all season but eventually they managed to climb one rank above the relegation zone and survive.
After two better seasons, the club once more played against relegation in 2010–11, having to face SpVgg Bayreuth in a decider, which Hof won 2–1 in extra time to qualify for the Bayernliga promotion round against the Landesliga runners-up. In this game, a 1–0 victory over Jahn Regensburg II proved enough to maintain its league status. The following season, Hof was a strong contender for the league title, eventually coming second to TSV 1860 Rosenheim and earning promotion to the new Regionalliga Bayern. The club was however criticised by the BFV for its desolate second team who, uniquely for a Regionalliga team, was relegated from the ninth tier in 2011–12 and completely withdrawn for 2012–13. Hof answered this with an open letter to the association, pointing out the club's excellent and extensive youth program and the fact that fielding a second team would still cost it €60,000 to 80,000 per season in the Bezirksliga, an amount the club was unwilling to spend. In the 2012–13 season the club had to struggle against relegation all season and beyond, having to defend its league place in the relegation round with the Bayernliga runners-up. In a two-leg play-off against TSV Großbardorf Hof defended its league place with an aggregate score of 8–4. the following season the club finished 17th once more but this time was directly relegated back to the Bayernliga. Hof finished third in the Bayernliga in 2015–16 and qualified for the promotion round to the Regionaliga where it defeated Viktoria Aschaffenburg and returned to the fourth tier.

Squad

Honours

The club's honours:

League

‡ Marks championships won by SpVgg Hof, all others by Bayern Hof.

Recent managers

Recent managers of the club:
ManagerStartFinish
Henrik Schödel1 July 200527 October 2006
Armin Eck30 October 200614 September 2007
Andy Singer18 September 200710 March 2008
Michael Voigt1 July 200712 November 2009
Thomas Kost17 November 200930 June 2010
Daniel Felgenhauer1 July 201024 September 2010
Norbert Schlegel24 September 201026 May 2013
Daniel Felgenhauer Henrik Schödel26 May 201331 March 2014
Michael Voigt1 April 201430 June 2014
Faruk Maloku1 July 201430 June 2015
Miloslav Janovsky1 July 2015Present

Recent seasons

The recent season-by-season performance of the club:

SpVgg Bayern Hof

SpVgg Bayern Hof II

↑ Promoted↓ Relegated

DFB Cup appearances

The club has qualified for the first round of the German Cup a number of times:
SeasonRoundDateHomeAwayResultAttendance
DFB-Pokal 1962–63First round1 June 1963FC Bayern HofHamburger SV2–5
DFB-Pokal 1967–68First round27 January 1968FC Bayern HofBorussia M'gladbach0–1
DFB-Pokal 1974–75First round7 September 1974Karlsruher SCFC Bayern Hof0–1
DFB-Pokal 1974–75Second round25 October 1974FC Bayern HofVfL Bochum2–2 aet
DFB-Pokal 1974–75Second round replay21 December 1974VfL BochumFC Bayern Hof5–0
DFB-Pokal 1975–76First round1 August 1975VfR BürstadtFC Bayern Hof1–2
DFB-Pokal 1975–76Second round18 October 19751. FC MülheimFC Bayern Hof1–3 aet
DFB-Pokal 1975–76Third round13 December 1975SG Wattenscheid 09FC Bayern Hof2–3
DFB-Pokal 1975–76Fourth round31 January 1976FC Bayern HofHamburger SV0–2
DFB-Pokal 1976–77First round6 August 1976FC Bayern HofVfB Oldenburg3–2
DFB-Pokal 1976–77Second round16 October 1976Hertha BSC BerlinFC Bayern Hof3–1
DFB-Pokal 1977–78First round29 July 1977Concordia HamburgFC Bayern Hof2–0
DFB-Pokal 1978–79First round5 August 1978FC St. PauliFC Bayern Hof3–0 aet
DFB-Pokal 1981–82First round28 August 1981FC Bayern HofWaldhof Mannheim0–2
DFB-Pokal 1982–83First round27 August 1982FC Bayern HofArminia Bielefeld0–5

Source: