Hilden

For two seasons now the black-and-whites have been playing away from home without leaving town. The Sportanlage Hoffeldstraße holds around 2,500, and it has served as the club's ground through 2024/25 and 2025/26 while the Stadion am Bandsbusch, with its 4,500 capacity, waits for them.

That promotion came with the Oberliga Niederrhein title in 2025/26 — the club's first. Before it there were two Landesliga Niederrhein championships, in 1976/77 and 2012/13, the second of them the start of the climb that has now run its course.

The club's own history goes back further than either. Hildener Fußball-Club came first, in 1903; Germania 05 followed two years later, and in 1918 the two became VfB 03 Hilden. The side reached the Gauliga Niederrhein, then the top flight, in the mid-1930s and again during the war years. In the 1940 Tschammerpokal they beat VfR Ohligs and BV Remscheid before going out to TuS Duisburg 48/99 in the last sixteen — the deepest run the club has made in the national cup.

Hilden's youth pitches have sent players a good way past the Niederrhein. Antoine Hey came through here before a career that took him into the Germany set-up and then into coaching. Ihlas Bebou and Elias Kachunga, the latter later of Huddersfield Town, followed the same route out.

The fixture that fills the ground is 1. FC Monheim. The local press calls it the Nachbarschaftsduell. Promotion has taken Hilden out of Monheim's league — for now, that price has gone with it.