Small advert, big impact

In the summer of 1893, the citizens’ association of the city of Stuttgart proposed the “revitalisation of youth and public games” on the ice rink located in the district of Stöckach. Thanks to the help of secondary school teacher Carl Kaufmann, it became possible to play there two afternoons a week. The game of football, which was still completely unknown in Stuttgart at the time, proved to hold a particular appeal for teenagers and young men.

This eventually prompted Kaufmann to begin advertising for the new sport. One such advert, which was only recently rediscovered, was printed in the middle section of the ‘Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt’ newspaper on 16 July 1893. The somewhat plain announcement, surrounded by a large jumble of other advertisements, invited all “friends of outdoor ball games” to play football at Stöckachplatz.

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The advert was a resounding success, prompting a lively response and a swift desire among the players to form a club. An attempt by Stöckach, which was still a loose collective of players, to merge with Cannstatt Football Club, which had existed since 1890, was rejected at a joint meeting in early September.

Instead, they decided to start small and modestly, which is why Stuttgart Football Club – the older of VfB’s two predecessor clubs, the founding year of which still adorns the VfB crest today – was founded by 20 members on 9 September 1893 at the ‘Zum Becher’ tavern at Kernerstraße 8.