Category: The most successful fan clubs in Europe

As is known, football writes its own stories.

In addition to the romantic comeback stories of individual performers and the upsets of small underdogs against bigger powers, the founding of an entire club by their supporters who did not want to let it die is also one of the great successes in most people’s history. Beautiful little article in the world.

At the national level, the example of Austria’s Salzburg is perhaps the most notable case in the recent past, but many clubs abroad also exist solely or only because of committed fans whose love for their club lies in countless areas.

No, first Provides insight into this and introduces some of the most interesting fan clubs currently:

Bury can be found deep within English football

Let’s start our journey by moving deeper into amateur football to AFC Bury, currently in the NWCFL Premier Division, the ninth highest division in England and therefore last in our rankings.

Due to ongoing financial difficulties, predecessor club FC Pori, founded in 1885, was excluded from the third division in 2019, meaning the traditional club has ceased playing since then.

In response to the shock, some fans later founded the AFC to keep football alive in Bury, but this did not go down well with all fans and has since divided football sentiment in the north Manchester city.

The Hamburg camp has also been divided since 2014

In 2014, some Hamburger SV fans also wanted to follow a new path, as its professional division was about to become a joint-stock company.

In protest against these circumstances, the decision was later made to leave the former Bundesliga giants and henceforth establish their own club, HFC Falke Hamburg.

The Falcons initially started in the basement of the German league system, Zone 5. Through constant belief in yourself and consistent work within the club, you have now reached the 7th Division District League and are maintaining good progress there.

The famous fan club is based on Glazer’s protest

We now return from Hamburg to the island of Manchester, a city which, in addition to the greats Manchester City and Manchester United, is home to another very interesting club. We are talking about Manchester United.

The club was founded in 2005 in protest against the takeover of Manchester United by the Glazer family, and is the most prominent representative in our ranking who can currently be found in the Northern Premier League.

As early as 1998, there were plans to found a new club by the Red Devils’ supporters, although an ultimately unsuccessful takeover by Rupert Murdoch was on the agenda at the time.

When the Glazer deal was completed in May 2005, some fans called the club Manchester United. The stadium’s home stadium, Broadhurst Park, opened in 2015.

Telford continues the club’s long tradition

It continues with AFC Telford United, which was re-established in 2004 from Telford United, founded in 1872.

Due to professionalism going wrong at the turn of the millennium, which ended with the liquidation of its predecessor in 2004, a group of fans decided to maintain their club’s traditions and started with AFC Telford in the Northern Premier League One Division North. League.

In the years since, they have managed to work their way up to the seventh tier of the Southern League Central Division through strong performances and are perhaps yet to reach the end of their journey to the top.

Fan clubs have also been created in Croatia

After a short stop at FC Chester, founded as a successor to Chester City in 2010, we now move to Croatia to NK Varteks, newly founded in 2011 by NK Varazdin fans.

Due to financial difficulties, Varazdin was unable to participate in three consecutive away matches the following year, which resulted in their suspension and relegation to the last league.

Oddly enough, NK Varteks, which was founded by the “White Stones” fan club and reached the fourth division, was ahead of its parent club for a long time.

However, due to an official error, Frazdin missed three leagues after only one year and was immediately promoted to the third league. In the 2018/19 season they managed to return to the Croatian Senate and currently play in the HNL Second Division.

Leipzig is the capital of fan clubs

In addition to England and Southern Europe, there have also been one or two success stories on German soil in the past.

In Leipzig, the fan club branch has been successful for two clubs, because both Lüke Leipzig and Chemi Leipzig, unlike RB Leipzig, represent the traditional football of the Saxon capital.

Chemie’s history begins in 1997, when fans wanted to revive the magic of the German Democratic Republic and its namesake BSG Chemie Leipzig, which was merged into FC Sachsen Leipzig in 1990.

That plan was successful and took Chemie to the Nordost Regionalliga, where he currently occupies a midfield position.

By the way, city rivals Leipzig can be found in the same league.

The history of the newly founded Blue and Yellows goes back to 2003, when some supporters in the Treibhaus pub decided to re-establish the formerly bankrupt club VfB Leipzig and thus give the youth teams a new home.

On 7 October 2021, Lokomotiv Leipzig officially became the club it originally was in 1893: 1. FC Lokomotiv Leipzig.

Wimbledon and Hapoel Jerusalem were consistently successful

Hapoel Jerusalem from Israel has been represented in professional football for a long time and is therefore one of the top international supporters’ clubs, along with AFC Wimbledon of the English Third Division.

The Israeli club re-established itself in 2020 with the help of its fanbase, returning to the Israeli Senate in 2021 after a 21-year absence and playing in the top flight ever since.

However, the start of the season has not gone to plan so far, and we are currently only at the bottom of the table after the first few games.

GAK is also at the forefront

Let’s now turn to three national representatives who made the big leap from junior football to professional football. On the one hand, the almost promoted GAK will be introduced to the currently most successful fan clubs.

After financially stressful years, which ended with the temporary demise of the traditional club on 30 October 2012, their supporters re-established their traditional club and started over as “GAC”.

In the following years, they went from promotion to promotion with a large following and returned to professional football in the 2019/20 season for the first time since its founding under the name “GAK”, which they had regained since 2014.

Blue and White as beneficiaries of GAK error

In the last season of the Admiral 2nd League, they were on the verge of securing promotion, but their mistake in the last round of the match at FC Dornbirn prevented the big comeback, but gave another promotion to their fan club – FC Blau-Weiss Linz.

Stahlstädter was founded in 1997 from former clubs FC Linz and SV Austria Tabak Linz.

For the first few years they were active in the First Regional League of Upper Austria before being promoted to the Central Regional League at the turn of the millennium. After several years, with ups and downs in between, they managed to make their way to the second division in the 2016/17 season and stayed there until the end of last season.

In an exciting finish, we secured promotion to the Admiral Bundesliga for the first time by beating Sturm Graz II and thus first place in our classification.

The tale of football in purple and white after the Red Bull shock

Finally, another nationally famous example of the successful founding of a new club by its supporters is the history of Austria’s SV Salzburg.

As is known, the traditional club, which was struggling financially in the 2000s, was acquired by the beverage company Red Bull in 2005, which completely changed the existing structures and founded FC Red Bull Salzburg.

The traditional club from the Lehn district of Salzburg, which had been wiped out as a result, was revived by its fans and was initially registered in the lowest league.

Through great commitment and a firm belief in a glorious resurrection, Austria were able to return to professional football with promotion to the Second League in the 2015/16 season, something they now want to face again as leaders of the Western Region League.

The next confrontation with the “Bulls” in the Austrian Federation Cup next Tuesday (from 8:45 pm/Live tape >>>) marks the first reunion for both fighting teams.

Ranking of fan clubs according to their league affiliation: