F.C. Hansa Rostock

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Hansa Rostock
Full name F.C. Hansa Rostock e.V.
Nickname(s) Hansa, Hanseaten, Kogge,
Hansa-Kogge, Ostseestädter
Founded 28 December 1965
Ground DKB-Arena, Rostock
Ground Capacity 29,000
Chairman Michael Dahlmann
Manager Andreas Bergmann
League 3. Liga
2012–13 12th
Home colours
Away colours
Third colours
Current season

F.C. Hansa Rostock [ʔɛf ˈt͡seː ˈhanza ˈʁɔstɔk] is a German association football club based in the city of Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They have emerged as one of the most successful clubs from the former East Germany and have made several appearances in the Bundesliga.

Rostock played the 2011–12 season in the 2nd Bundesliga, but was relegated to the 3rd league after a 5–4 loss to Union Berlin in the penultimate match of the season.[1]


The club was established on 1 November 1954 as the multi-sport Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, couldn't be recruited from local Betriebssportgemeinschaften like the squad of the handball section, so a transfer of BSG Empor Lauter's squad from Lauter to Rostock was considered. The area around Lauter, near the Czech border, was well represented in East German football by competitive sides including Wismut Aue, Fortschritt Meerane and Motor Zwickau, so politician Karl Mewis ordered the re-assignment of the footballers of Empor Lauter, over the futile protests of the team's local supporters, to Rostock. This was not an uncommon occurrence in East German football, as clubs were regularly renamed, re-structured, dismantled, or shuffled from city to city at the direction of well-placed communist officials.

The wholesale transfer of the Lauterers to Rostock part way through the 1954–55 season led to the disappearance of that association from play. A new club was formed in 1956 as BSG Motor Lauter and on 1 August 1990 it took up the tradition of the original side to play as Lauterer Sportverein Viktoria 1913.

Play in Rostock[edit]

Newly formed SC Empor Rostock took the place of the former Lauter-based club in first division play in November 1954. They finished second the next season, but in 1956 plunged to 14th place and were relegated. They quickly bounced back, rejoining the DDR-Oberliga in 1958, before going on to become a very competitive side with a series of three vice-championships to their credit from 1962–1964, as well as several appearances in the final of the FDGB Pokal. The re-organization of East German sports in 1965 led to the association's football department becoming independent as Fußball Club Hansa Rostock, which was designated as one of the country's 11 football clubs, "focus clubs" intended to groom talent for the development of a strong East German national side. The new club's name acknowledged Rostock's history as one of the major trading centres of northern Europe's Hanseatic League.

By the 1970s the club was consistently finishing in the lower half of the league table and was relegated to the second division DDR-Liga for a single season on three different occasions late in the decade. They returned to form in the 1980s and as the football leagues of the two Germanys were merged in 1991 after the re-unification of the country, Rostock won its first national championship in the last ever season of East German football, played out in the transitional NOFV Oberliga Nordost. This is their only top flight title to date in East Germany or the unified Germany.

They would also capture the last ever East German Cup with a 1:0 win over FC Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt.

United Germany and the Bundesliga[edit]

The squad of January 1990

The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the league was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991–92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of the club ahead of them. Three seasons of tempering in the 2. Bundesliga would return the club to the top flight for the 1995–96 season. In ten years spent in the Bundesliga the team's best results were a pair of sixth place finishes. In spite of frequent placings in the bottom half of the league table, they would persist as the only former East German side able to consistently challenge the well-heeled clubs of the west. On 1 December 2002 Rostock became the first club to field six foreigners from the same country in a Bundesliga match (Prica, Lantz, Wibran, Jakobsson, Arvidsson and Persson – all Swedes).

Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004–05 season, earning only a single win and five draws in 17 matches. They were unable to recover despite the late arrival of Finnish striker Jari Litmanen and at season's end were relegated, leaving the former DDR without a club in the top flight for the first time since re-unification. Like other East German teams they were the victims of a harsh economic reality as the wealthier, well-established western sides bought up the most talented eastern footballers as their clubs struggled to survive financially: Rostock's Stefan Beinlich, Oliver Neuville and Victor Agali were just three players sent west for cash. After two years in the 2. Bundesliga the club returned to the top flight for the 2007–08 season, but was again relegated.

The club's poor form continued in 2009–10 and they finished third last. With this season, a new promotion/relegation format accompanied the introduction of the 3. Liga and Rostock found itself in a playoff versus the third place third division club FC Ingolstadt. Hansa lost both legs of the contest and was sent down to the 3. Liga, while Ingolstadt won promotion to the 2. Bundesliga alongside the top two third tier teams which advanced automatically by virtue of their finishes. Their stay in the 3. Liga, however, was a short one as they earned promotion back to the 2nd Bundesliga at the first attempt in 2010/11.




A study published in 2007 by Sportfive reported Hansa's fanbase to be the seventh largest in Germany, involving up to two million supporters.[2] According to another study published in 2008 by Allensbach Institute, Hansa is the most popular German football club in the New Länder and the most popular club of the former GDR in reunited Germany.[3] Hansa Rostock's official anthem is "FC Hansa, wir lieben Dich total" (Hansa FC, We Totally Love You), recorded in 1995 by the East German band the Puhdys. Hansa struggles with hooliganism, estimating up to 500 supporters to be leaning towards violence.[4] The club itself as well some fans' associations are anxious to curtail these in several ways.[5] In 2005, the club successfully sued three streakers who disrupted their 2003 match against Hertha Berlin, to recoup the €20,000 they were fined by the DFB for failing to maintain adequate security at their ground.

Hansa's hooligan element identify with far-right politics. Matches against Hamburg-based FC St Pauli, who have a left-wing identity, have been nicknamed the 'political derby' (German: Politischen derby), and have seen crowd trouble.[6]


The original Ostseestadion was built in 1954, with the participation of several hundred citizens of Rostock who helped for free. The first international match in the Ostseestadion of East Germany was on 26 September 1956. In 2001, the stadium was refurbished and modified to accommodate 30,000 spectators. On 2 July 2007 the naming rights were sold to Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), hence the new official name is "DKB-Arena".


As of 31 January 2014 (2014-01-31)


No. Position Player
1 Germany GK Jörg Hahnel
3 Germany DF Steven Ruprecht
4 Germany DF Tommy Grupe
5 Germany MF Denis-Danso Weidlich
6 Belgium MF Ken Leemans
7 Germany MF Shervin Radjabali-Fardi [7]
8 Poland MF David Blacha
9 Germany MF Julian Jakobs
10 Netherlands FW Johan Plat
11 France MF Alexandre Mendy
13 Montenegro MF Milorad Peković
16 Germany DF Martin Pett
No. Position Player
17 Namibia MF Manfred Starke
18 Greece FW Nikolaos Ioannidis (on loan from Olympiacos)
19 Germany MF Sascha Schünemann
20 Germany GK Fabian Künnemann
21 Germany FW Halil Savran
22 Germany GK Johannes Brinkies
23 Germany MF Robin Krauße
24 Germany DF Lukas Pägelow
25 Germany DF Sebastian Pelzer
29 Germany DF Mustafa Kučuković
33 Germany MF Leonhard Haas




Supervisory Board


Head Coach

Assistant Coach

Goalkeeper Coach

Hansa Rostock II squad[edit]

As of 3 July 2012 (2012-07-03) Manager: Germany Axel Rietentiet


No. Position Player
Germany GK Paul Ladwig
Germany GK Tobias Werk
Germany DF Lennart Bremer
Germany DF Hannes Grundmann
Germany DF René Lange
Germany DF Tom Schulz
Germany MF Michael Borchert
No. Position Player
Germany MF Christian März
Germany MF Martin Pett
Germany MF Maximilian Rausch
Germany MF Timo Schmunck
Armenia FW Sargis Adamyan
Germany FW Hannes Uecker
Republic of Ireland FW Selcuk Tidim

Notable players[edit]

See also List of F.C. Hansa Rostock players


See also F.C. Hansa Rostock statistics


  1. ^ 1. FC Union Berlin - Hansa Rostock 5:4, 2. Bundesliga, Saison 2011/12, 33.Spieltag - Spielbericht - kicker online
  2. ^ 11Freunde.com. "Marktstudie: Köln mischt die Bundesliga auf". 
  3. ^ FC-Hansa.de. "Hansa bleibt beliebtester Fußballverein in Ostdeutschland". 
  4. ^ Tagesspiegel.de. "Kampf um die Nummer eins". 
  5. ^ Spiegel.de. "Rostock, wir haben ein Problem". 
  6. ^ http://worldsoccertalk.com/2009/03/06/the-political-derby-radical-left-3-2-hard-right/323/
  7. ^ [1]

External links[edit]