VfL Wolfsburg

In September 1945, the men who worked at Volkswagen put a side together under the name VSK Wolfsburg. Kit was whatever could be found: their coach handed over 10 green shirts, and local women stitched white shorts from donated bedsheets. Green and white have stayed the colours ever since.

The name Wolfsburg gave the team its nickname, The Wolves.

For most of the club's existence there was nothing to put in a cabinet. A run to the German Cup final in 1995 ended 0:3 against Borussia Mönchengladbach, and that remained the closest they had come to anything.

The title arrived in 2008/09. Wolfsburg won the Bundesliga outright, a first for the club and the only one so far. Six years later came the other high point: the German Cup in 2015, beaten finalists no longer, with Borussia Dortmund put away 3:1. Later that year they added the Super Cup, taking Bayern Munich to penalties and winning there.

Since 2002 home matches have been played at the Volkswagen Arena, which holds 30,000, cut to 26,000 when European fixtures bring seated-only rules.

The man who ties the early story together is Bernd Elberskirch, the coach in that first autumn of 1945. He is remembered less for results than for the shirts he found when there were none — the reason a club in Lower Saxony still plays in green.