Stuttgarter Kickers

It is a modest address for a club whose academy has sent players in the other direction: Jürgen Klinsmann came through before Klinsmann became a name known well beyond Stuttgart, and Thomas Tuchel passed through in the early 1990s.

The club's best football came earlier and further up. In 1987 the Kickers reached the DFB-Pokal final and lost 3–1 to Hamburger SV, Dirk Kurtenbach scoring their only goal. The following year they won the 2. Bundesliga and reached the Bundesliga itself for the first time, only to go straight back down; a second promotion in 1991–92 ended the same way. Before either World War, the club had already been Southern German champions three times, in 1908, 1913 and 1917, and had finished runners-up for the German championship in 1908.

Games against VfB Stuttgart carry the weight of a rivalry that goes back to 1912, sharpened by a 11–0 win over their neighbours in 1916 that the Kickers have never had reason to let fade. They play at the GAZi-Stadion auf der Waldau, opened in 1909, its steep terraces close enough to the pitch that there was never room for a running track.

None of it traces back to football at all.