FK Pirmasens


FK Pirmasens is a German association football club in Pirmasens, Rhineland-Palatinate. The team was formed as the football section of the gymnastics and sports club TV Pirminia Pirmasens in 1903 and became independent in 1914. They took on their current name in 1925. FK is one of the few teams that uses the German Klub in their name as opposed to the commonly affected English-style term Club.

History

The club developed into a strong amateur side in southwestern Germany. In post-First World War play, the club was grouped in the tier-one Kreisliga Saar in 1919 but then moved to the Kreisliga Pfalz in 1920. From 1930 to 1933 the team made three consecutive appearances in the final of the Southern German championship, on the strength of four Bezirksliga Rhein-Saar titles, and between 1934 and 1936 were three times vice-champions of the Gauliga Südwest, one of sixteen top flight divisions formed in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. World War II was hard on the club: following a 0–26 beating at the hands of 1. FC Kaiserslautern in 1942 they withdrew from competition until after the conflict. After the war the club played in the Oberliga Südwest and captured league titles there in 1958, 1959 and 1960 while finishing as vice champions in 1954 and 1962. The club was so popular at the time that they often had to abandon their home ground in favour of the stadium in nearby Ludwigshafen in order to accommodate crowds of up to 65,000 spectators.
After the formation of the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional league, in 1963 Pirmasens found themselves in the second division Regionalliga Südwest where they consistently finished in the upper half of the league table over the course of the next decade. While they had several opportunities to advance to the Bundesliga through the promotion rounds they were unsuccessful. By the mid-1970s the club was faltering. They narrowly missed relegation in 1977, only staying up because rival SV Völklingen was denied a license. However, by 1980 they found themselves in the Amateur Oberliga Südwest, slipped to the Verbandsliga Südwest by 1993, and just two seasons later were playing in the Landesliga Südwest. The club has recovered nicely and climbed as high as the third division Regionalliga Süd in 2006–07.
In 2006, the club stunned German football when they defeated Werder Bremen in the first round of the DFB-Pokal in a penalty shootout.
Since 2007 the club played in the Oberliga Südwest where the team has achieved good results, coming second in 2010 and 2011. From 2012–13 the Oberliga Südwest was renamed Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar, with FKP continuing in this league. The club won the championship in 2014 and earned promotion to the Regionalliga Südwest.

Reserve team

The club's reserve team, FK Pirmasens II, achieved its greatest success in 2014–15 when it won promotion to the Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar.

Current squad

Honours

The club's honours:

League

The recent season-by-season performance of the club:
SeasonDivisionTierPosition
1999–2000Regionalliga West/SüdwestIII17th ↓
2000–01Oberliga SüdwestIV8th
2001–02Oberliga SüdwestIV7th
2002–03Oberliga SüdwestIV13th
2003–04Oberliga SüdwestIV12th
2004–05Oberliga SüdwestIV10th
2005–06Oberliga SüdwestIV1st ↑
2006–07Regionalliga SüdIII17th ↓
2007–08Oberliga SüdwestIV10th
2008–09Oberliga SüdwestV3rd
2009–10Oberliga SüdwestV2nd
2010–11Oberliga SüdwestV2nd
2011–12Oberliga SüdwestV3rd
2012–13Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/SaarV8th
2013–14Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/SaarV1st ↑
2014–15Regionalliga SüdwestIV14th
2015–16Regionalliga SüdwestIV13th
2016–17Regionalliga SüdwestIV14th ↓
2017–18Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/SaarV2nd ↑
2018–19Regionalliga SüdwestIV9th
2019–20Regionalliga SüdwestIV16th

Famous players

, played for West Germany's 1954 World Cup winning Miracle of Bern side.