Erkenschwick

A police officer watching the team play in Aachen is said to have remarked that they "belong to the sky". The comment stuck, and Erkenschwick have been the Sky-Scorers (Die Himmelsstürmer) ever since. The attacking football behind it was played in the Oberliga West, then the top division, in every season from 1947 to 1963.

As coach he also found Horst Szymaniak, who went on to win 43 caps for West Germany and played for Inter Milan. Willy Jürissen, a former national goalkeeper, was player-manager in the late 1940s.

The club began on 9 June 1916 as Sportverein Erkenschwick. It merged with Blau-Weiß Oer in 1922 and dropped the "Oer" from its name in 1932. Later years brought three seasons in the 2. Bundesliga, in 1974–75, 1975–76 and 1980–81. In 1969 Erkenschwick reached the final of the German Amateur Championship and lost to SC Jülich 1910. They won the Westphalia Cup in 1987 and 1993, and the second win earned a first-round DFB-Pokal tie with Borussia Mönchengladbach, lost 0–2.

The worst moment came in 2008. The club filed for bankruptcy at the end of the 2007–08 season, and although it had qualified on the pitch for the new NRW-Liga, it could not take its place and had to start again in the lower divisions. It won the Westfalenliga 2 in 2022–23 and returned to the Oberliga Westfalen, now the fifth tier, in 2023. It finished fourth there in 2023–24.

Off the pitch, the ground was renamed Heinrichs Arena am Stimberg in August 2024 under a sponsorship agreement. In September 2024 the club took over the lease to renovate it, starting with permanent floodlights. The local derby with GW Erkenschwick is now fought mostly in youth football and the cup.