FC Augsburg

SGL Arena (Capacity: 30.660)

FC Augsburg - Werder Bremen (3:1) (1.Bundesliga, 5. October 2012)
1:0 Werner (2.), 1:1 de Bruyne (19.), 2:1 Hain (32.), 3:1 Baier (72.)

Attendance: 28.133
Cost: 29 Euro (sitzplatz)
Programme: (1 Euro)

PICS TO FOLLOW SOON

Club History: (wiki)
FC Augsburg is a German football club based in Augsburg, Bavaria. The team was founded as Fußball-Klub Alemania Augsburg in 1907 and played as BC Augsburg from 1921 to 1969.

The club, who has long fluctuated between the second and third division, experienced a difficult time in the early 2000s, suffering relegation to the fourth division for two seasons. FCA recovered from this, returning to professional football by 2006. After FC Augsburg missed out on promotion to Bundesliga in the relegation playoffs 2010, the club finally reached the top tier of the German football league system in 2011 and surprisingly resisted relegation in the following season.

A merger of Augsburg's two most successful clubs, TSV Schwaben and BC Augsburg, was discussed as early as in the late 1940s, but distrust between the two sides and a fear that the other club would dominate the merger caused each side to hesitate, despite the financial trouble both clubs were in. A first serious meeting between the two sides was held in 1964, both clubs having dropped out of tier-one football by then. The leadership of the multi-sports club Schwaben was completely behind a merger but the club's football department was not and once more the process of forming FCA was stalled. Traditionally, BCA saw itself as a working-class club, based in the north of Augsburg, while Schwaben was the club of the more affluent and based south of the city, with the river Wertach forming something of a boundary between the two clubs territories.

In 1968, with BCA struggling in the third division after relegation from professional football the year before and Schwaben soon to follow, another effort was made. In April 1969, a high-level meeting between the two club bosses brought the decision to merge the clubs and name the new side FC Augsburg. FCA was to be a football club only with no other sports department. The then-mayor of Augsburg, Hans Breuer, was one of the driving forces behind the move.

The merger came at a time of on-the-field decline for both sides, Schwaben had just been relegated from the tier-two Regionalliga Süd and decided that an attempt to regain their status was financially impossible, while BCA narrowly missed out on promotion to the league that season. In June, 256 of 265 of BCA's members present voted for the merger while, shortly after, 75 percent of Schwaben's members approved the motion, too.

Schwaben however opted for the "small solution", the club was to remain independent with only its football department merging into the new club. But even this move was not universally popular within the club, with some former members forming a new football club, the Eintracht Augsburg and restarting at the lowest level of the pyramid. For this reason, FCA is generally not considered to carry on the traditions of TSV Schwaben, only those of BC Augsburg. A year later, the footballers of Eintracht rejoined Schwaben but, since then, have always remained an amateur club. It took the new football department until 1981 to regain its third-division status, where they were to meet FCA for the first time in league football and renewed the Augsburg derby.

The new FCA played its first game on 30 July 1969, when it met 1. FC Nuremberg in Augsburg in front of 13,000 and lost 3–0 in extra time.

HONOURS:
2. Bundesliga
Runners-up: 2001

Regionalliga Süd (II-III)
Champions: (2)1974, 2006

Bayernliga (III-IV)
Champions: (5) 1973, 1980, 1982, 1994, 2002
Runners-Up: 1985

Schwaben Cup
Winners: (13) 1969–1972, 1980, 1986, 1988, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005
Runners-Up: 1992

STADIUM HISTORY: (wiki)
SGL arena, until 1 July 2011 the Impuls Arena, is a football stadium in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. It is used mostly for football matches and hosts the home matches of FC Augsburg.

The stadium has a capacity of 30,660 with 19,060 seats and standing room for 11,034. A second phase of construction could expand capacity to 49,000 in the future. It replaced the club's previous stadium, Rosenaustadion.

The stadium was renamed SGL arena after SGL Carbon acquired the naming rights for the structure in May 2011. The contract has a term of seven years and began on 1 July 2011.

Augsburg is one of the official host cities of the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and the subsequent 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. The Impuls arena was location of several matches in group stage and quarterfinals. During the FIFA-competitions it is renamed “FIFA Women's World Cup Stadium Augsburg”.