The popular club built a new stadium, the Glückauf-Kampfbahn, in 1928, and acknowledged the city's support by re-naming themselves FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04. They won their first Western German championship in 1929, but the following year were sanctioned for exceeding salary levels set by the league and, in an era that considered professionalism in sport anathema, found themselves banned from play for nearly half a year. However, the ban had little impact on the team's popularity: in their first game after the ban against Fortuna Düsseldorf in June 1931, the team drew 70,000 to its home ground. The club's fortunes begun to rise from 1931, making a semi-final appearance in the 1932 German championship, losing 1–2 to Eintracht Frankfurt. The year after, the club went all the way to the final where Fortuna Düsseldorf proved the better side, winning 3–0.
With the re-organization of German football in 1933 under Nazi Germany, Schalke found themselves in the Gauliga Westfalen, one of sixteen top-flight divisions established to replace the innumerable regional and local leagues all claiming top status. This league saw Schalke's most successful decade in their history: from 1933 to 1942 the club would appear in 14 of 18 national finals — 10 in the German championship and 8 in the Tschammerpokal, the predecessor to today's German Cup and win their league in every one of its eleven seasons. The club never lost a home game in this league in all these eleven seasons and only six away games, remaining completely unbeaten in the Gauliga Westfalen in the 1935–36, 36–37, 37–38, 38–39, 40–41 and 42–43 seasons; a clear sign of the club's dominance.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Schalke's early years
The club was founded on 4 May 1904 as Westfalia Schalke by a group of high school students and first wore the colors red and yellow. The team was unable to gain admittance to the Westdeutscher Spielverband and played as one of the "wild associations" of early German football. In 1912, after a number of years of failed attempts to join the official league, they merged with the gymnastic club Schalker Turnverein 1877 in order to facilitate their entry. This arrangement held up until 1915 when SV Westfalia Schalke was re-established as an independent club. The separation proved short-lived and the two came together again in 1919 as Turn- und Sportverein Schalke 1877. The new club won its first honours in 1923 as champions of the Schalke Kreisliga. It was around this time that Schalke picked up the nickname "Die Knappen" – from an old German word for miner – because the team drew so many of its players and supporters from the coal mine workers of Gelsenkirchen.
In 1924, the football team parted ways with the gymnasts once again – this time taking the club chairman along with them. They took the name FC Schalke 04 and adopted the now familiar blue and white uniforms from which their second nickname would derive – "Die Königsblauen" (English: The Royal Blues). The following year the club became the dominant local side based on a style of play that used short, sharp man-to-man passing to move the ball. This system would later become famous as the "Schalker Kreisel" (English: spinning top). In 1927, it carried them into the top-flight Gauliga Ruhr, onto the league championship, and then into the opening rounds of the national finals.
In 1924, the football team parted ways with the gymnasts once again – this time taking the club chairman along with them. They took the name FC Schalke 04 and adopted the now familiar blue and white uniforms from which their second nickname would derive – "Die Königsblauen" (English: The Royal Blues). The following year the club became the dominant local side based on a style of play that used short, sharp man-to-man passing to move the ball. This system would later become famous as the "Schalker Kreisel" (English: spinning top). In 1927, it carried them into the top-flight Gauliga Ruhr, onto the league championship, and then into the opening rounds of the national finals.
Schalke 04
Fußball-Club Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04, commonly known as simply FC Schalke 04 or Schalke (German pronunciation: [ˈʃalkə]), is a German association football club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Schalke has long been one of the most popular football teams in Germany, even though major successes have been rare since the club's heyday in the 1930s and early 1940s. The football team is the biggest part of a larger sports club with more than 90,000 members (January 2011) making it the second largest sports club in Germany. Other activities offered by the club include basketball, handball, and track and field. Schalke 04 won its first major European trophy in 1997 by defeating Internazionale on penalty kicks for the UEFA Cup in Milan. Pope John Paul II became an honorary member of the club in 1987 after celebrating a mass in the Parkstadion. Schalke has a rivalry with Borussia Dortmund (see Revierderby) and also has a friendly relationship with Nuremberg. The mascot of the club is called Erwin (also Ährwin.)
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