FC Nurnberg

The club has won that division four times — 1980, 1985, 2001 and 2004.

Eighteen schoolboys set the thing up on 4 May 1900, and they set it up to play rugby. The switch to football came in June 1901. Within two decades the club was the strongest side in Germany: between July 1918 and February 1922 it played 104 competitive matches without losing, and five national titles arrived in eight years, starting with a 2:0 win over SpVgg Fürth in 1920. Fürth remain the opponent that matters — the Frankonian derby is the oldest fixture in German football, played more than 250 times.

The ninth championship, in 1968, was won from the front: top of the table from the fifth matchday to the last. The following season Nuremberg went down, the first reigning champions to do so, and needed nine years to come back. The most recent trophy is the DFB-Pokal of 2007.

Home is the Max-Morlock-Stadion, opened in 1928 in the Bauhaus manner, rebuilt between 1987 and 1991 and modernised again before the 2006 World Cup. It holds 46,780 for league matches. It has carried its present name since the 2017/18 season, having previously been the Frankenstadion and, in turn, two sponsors' grounds.

Morlock played for Nuremberg from 1940 to 1964: 472 matches, 294 goals, championships in 1948 and 1961, the cup in 1962, and a World Cup with West Germany in 1954. Supporters voted him the club's finest player in 2010 and again in 2020.