Hessen Kassel

Twice in the 1990s, Kassel's football club went bankrupt and had to start over. The original KSV Hessen Kassel collapsed in 1993 under debts of more than 2.5 million marks; the successor formed in its place, FC Hessen Kassel, lasted only a few years before going under itself in 1997/98, owing around 1.8 million marks. V., and entered it in the Kreisliga A, the eighth tier of German football.

That earlier lineage had already been through one reinvention: the club known today took shape in 1947, when SV Kurhessen merged with VfL TuRa Kassel. Before financial ruin caught up with it, Hessen Kassel had spent eight seasons in the 2. Bundesliga through the 1980s and reached the DFB-Pokal quarter-finals in 1990–91, a run built partly around Dieter Hecking, who played there before turning to management. Karl-Heinz Metzner, a member of West Germany's 1954 World Cup squad, had worn the shirt a generation earlier.

Climbing back through the divisions took time. The Oberliga Hessen title came in 2005–06, and the Regionalliga Südwest followed in 2012–13, a result that earned a place in the promotion play-offs for the 3. Liga — settled there by Holstein Kiel. Holger Brück became the figure most associated with the rebuilding.

Home games are played in front of 18,737 at the Auestadion, and the fixture against CSC 03 Kassel still draws the city's attention as the Kasseler Stadtduell. The club last added to its cabinet with the Hesse Cup, won in 2019 and again in 2021.