Hannover 78

In 1883, when the players of DSV 78 finally took the pitch for a proper match, the club had already existed for five years.

Hannover 78 spent the 1980s as the team everyone else in German rugby had to get past. Between 1982 and 1991 the club took the national championship seven times. Since the 6:3 win over Victoria Linden in 1991, the championship has not returned to Hannover.

The cup form ran alongside it and slightly outlasted it. Twelve Rugby Cup wins between 1969 and 1998 included a 9:6 extra-time win over Viktoria Linden and a tighter, more local 9:3 final against Linden in 1985 — the same opponent the club has met often enough in finals that the fixture reads like a rivalry of its own. Benjamin Krause's 49 caps for Germany and Raphael Pyrasch's move from playing to coaching are the kind of detail that marks a club producing internationals rather than just collecting silverware, though neither changes the basic shape of the story.

Victoria Linden and SC Neuenheim remain the names Hannover 78 measures itself against nationally.