Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the oldest football club in Germany?
"Altona" is one of Germany's oldest football clubs: they were part of the Altona-Hamburg football league formed in 1894, as well as one of the founding clubs of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) at Leipzig in 1900. In 1903 at their home ground, they hosted the first-ever German national championship final played between "VfB Leipzig" and "DFC Prague". The match was refereed by "AFC" player Franz Behr, who also served as the vice-chairman of the newly formed DFB until 1904. The club rescued the match by providing a new ball when the original one proved to be unsuitable for play. The hosts of the country's first title match never won or even played in a national final, being able to advance only as far as the semi-finals in 1903 and 1909, and the quarter-finals in 1914.
BFC Germania 1888 continued to play on the local amateur circuit. After World War II occupying Allied authorities banned all organizations in the country including sports and football clubs. The team was re-established in 1946 as "SG Neu-Tempelhof" and appeared fleetingly in the Amateurliga Berlin (III) in 1948–49 where they were able only to earn a single point from a draw in 18 matches.
BFC Germania 1888 was part of the country's first football league, the BDF (Bund Deutscher Fußballspieler or Federation of German Football Players) which was formed in November 1890 and was active until February 1892. The league was made up of the Berlin-based clubs BFC Vorwärts 1890, BFC Askania 1890, BFC Borussia 1890, BFC Concordia 1890, BFC Hellas 1890, BFC Tasmania 1890 and BFC Teutonia 1891. Germania emerged the winner in a tournament staged by the league, and as the DBF was the only football league in the country at the time, can lay claim to being Germany's first champion. Club records indicate that "BFC" then defended their title, but no supporting evidence has been found.
Trade unions in Germany have a history reaching back to the German revolution in 1848, and still play an important role in the German economy and society. In 1875 the SPD, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which is one of the biggest political parties in Germany, supported the forming of unions in Germany. The most important labour organisation is the German Confederation of Trade Unions "(Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – DGB)", which represents more than 6 million people (31 December 2011) and is the umbrella association of several single trade unions for special economic sectors. The DBG is not the only Union Organization that represents the working trade. There are smaller organizations, such as the CGB, which is a Christian-based confederation, that represent over 1.5 million people.
The most popular sport in the UK became association football; Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club still in existence to the present day. The home nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions, most notably England's Premier League and FA Cup, and the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup. Referred to as the "home of football" by the international governing body FIFA, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The English Premier League (formed in 1992 by member clubs of the old Football League First Division) is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers also have a wide global fanbase.
The location of the history and legacy of Wimbledon F.C., as well as the honours won by the club, was disputed for four years after the independent commission's approval of the move on 28 May 2002. In the view of AFC Wimbledon and that club's supporters, the "identity of a football club is implicitly bound up in its community". The club regards itself as Wimbledon F.C.'s spiritual continuation to this day, holding that the community maintaining and backing AFC Wimbledon is the same one which originally formed Wimbledon Old Centrals (later Wimbledon F.C.) in 1889, "and kept Wimbledon Football Club alive until May 2002".
The German Federation of Trade Unions ("Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund" (DGB)) is the largest umbrella organization of unions in Germany. The eight different unions that belong to it cover many sectors of German industry, public services such as police, and higher and professional education. In 2001, DGB united 84% of all union members in Germany. While the number of members was over eleven million in 1991, it has reduced to 6.19 million in 2010. Of these members, about two thirds were actively employed. The following list shows the unions belonging to DGB:
Wimbledon Football Club was an English football club formed in Wimbledon, south-west London, in 1889 and based at Plough Lane from 1912 to 1991. Founded as Wimbledon Old Centrals, the club were a non-League team for most of their history. Nicknamed "the Dons" and latterly "the Wombles", they won eight Isthmian League titles, the FA Amateur Cup in 1963 and three successive Southern League championships between 1975 and 1977, and were then elected to the Football League. The team rose quickly from obscurity during the 1980s and were promoted to the then top-flight First Division in 1986, just four seasons after being in the Fourth Division.
Greenock hosts a rugby union team, Greenock Wanderers RFC, founded in 1873. It is one of the oldest clubs in Scotland.
The English Football League, established in 1888 as The Football League by Aston Villa director William McGregor and renamed "English Football League" in 2016, was the first professional football league in the world. Since its founding, however, many other leagues have been founded in England. Sunday leagues are played each weekend by clubs, the study made by the FA sees to this. Over the years there has been an increasing effort to link all these leagues together in a Pyramidal structure allowing promotion and relegation between different levels. The primary motivation for this drive is to maintain the possibility that any club in England may dream of one day rising to the very top, no matter what status they currently hold. In a study made by FIFA in 2006 there are around 40,000 clubs registered with the FA, which is 11,000 more than any other country, the closest being the Brazilian Football Confederation who have 29,000 registered clubs. Even without taking relative population into account, England has more football clubs than any other country in the world.
A 2006 poll found that association football was the most popular sport in the UK. In England 320 football clubs are affiliated to The Football Association (FA) and more than 42,000 clubs to regional or district associations. The FA, founded in 1863, and the Football League, founded in 1888, were both the first of their kind in the world. In Scotland there are 78 full and associate clubs and nearly 6,000 registered clubs under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Football Association. Two Welsh clubs play in England's Football League, one in the Premier league, and others at non-league level, whilst the Welsh Football League contains 20 semi-professional clubs. In Northern Ireland, 12 semi-professional clubs play in the IFA Premiership, the second oldest league in the world.
The rules of football were first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley, and England has the oldest football clubs in the world. Recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club. The first ever international football match was between England and Scotland in 1872. Referred to by the sport's governing body FIFA as the "home of football", England hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup, and won the tournament. With a 32.3 million viewing audience, the 1966 final is the most watched television event ever in the United Kingdom. The English Barclays Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. In 2016, Leicester City, who were 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, became champions. By some measures it was the greatest sporting upset ever: multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport. As is the case throughout the UK, football in England is renowned for the intense rivalries between clubs and the passion of the supporters, which includes a tradition of football chants, such as, "You're Not Singing Any More" (or its variant "We Can See You Sneaking Out!"), sung by jubilant fans towards the opposition fans who have gone silent (or left early).
The modern game of lawn tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the 1860s, and after its creation, tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population, before spreading around the world. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is credited as being a pioneer of the game. The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, first occurred in 1877, and today the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July. Created in the Tudor period in the court of Henry VIII, the English dessert strawberries and cream is synonymous with the British summer, and is famously consumed at Wimbledon.
Group C
Wimbledon Football Club was an English football club from Wimbledon, south-west London, amateur from 1889 to 1964 and professional thereafter. Founded in 1889 as Wimbledon Old Central Football Club, an amateur club playing in local league competitions, the club shortened its name to "Wimbledon" in 1905, entered the FA Amateur Cup for the first time in 1905–06 and joined the Spartan League in 1909. After going out of business a year later, Wimbledon immediately reformed and returned to local leagues in 1912, where the team stayed until the 1919–20 season when the club joined the Athenian League. Moving to the Isthmian League in 1921, Wimbledon won four league championships in six years during the 1930s and reached the FA Amateur Cup Final in 1935 before losing to Bishop Auckland after a replay. The club continued to be successful following the Second World War, again reaching the Amateur Cup Final in 1947 and finishing as runners-up in the Isthmian League in 1950 and 1952. After claiming a fourth Isthmian League crown in 1959, Wimbledon then took three successive championships from 1962 to 1964, as well as the 1963 FA Amateur Cup.
With the August 2013 launches of national sports networks Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, FX no longer serves as a regular pay-TV outlet for Fox Sports. However, UFC 185 preliminary fights aired on FX due to FS1 showing college basketball. Also on March 5, 2016 FX aired a Bundesliga match between that league's top two teams Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund to provide wider distribution of the fixture, as Fox, FS1, and FS2 all had sporting commitments of their own at the time of the match and the match was to air on the little-distributed Fox Soccer Plus (which does not have carriage on numerous TV providers). Because this was Fox's first year of coverage of Germany's top soccer league and Bayern and Borussia are the two most successful Bundesliga teams (and have an intense rivalry known as Der Klassiker), Fox wanted to give the game wider distribution, and so the game was moved to FX in a last-minute decision. In June 2016, FX continued its broadcast of sports with the airing of three games from the Copa América Centenario in order to gain a wider viewing audience for the selected teams.
One of the most decorated clubs in Belgian football, it has been Belgian league champion on 15 occasions, second only to major rivals Anderlecht, and it shares the Jan Breydel Stadium with city rival Cercle Brugge, with whom they contest the Bruges derby.
The world's oldest football clubs were founded in England from 1789 and, in the 1871–72 season, the FA Cup was founded as the world's first organised competition. The first international match took place in November 1872 when England travelled to Glasgow to play Scotland. The quality of Scottish players was such that northern English clubs began offering them professional terms to move south. At first, the FA was strongly opposed to professionalism and that gave rise to a bitter dispute from 1880 until the FA relented and formally legitimised professionalism in 1885. A shortage of competitive matches led to the formation of the Football League by twelve professional clubs in 1888 and the domestic game has ever since then been based on the foundation of league and cup football.
The most important labor organization is the German Confederation of Trade Unions ("", or "DGB"), which is the umbrella association of eight single trade unions for individual economic sectors, representing more than 6 million people . The largest single trade union is the IG Metall, which organizes about 2.3 million members in metal (including automobile and machine building), electronics, steel, textile, wood and synthetics industries.
Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes had made the opposite journey and went to Britain to complete their studies in civil engineering and commerce. While in the United Kingdom, these students developed an interest in football and on their return to Bilbao they began to arrange games with British workers. In 1898, students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois founded the "Athletic Club", using the English spelling. In 1901, a meeting was held in the Café García, which established more formal rules and regulations. In 1902, the two Bilbao clubs formed a combined team, known as "Bizcaya", in the first Copa del Rey. They returned with the trophy after defeating Barcelona in the final. This would lead to the eventual merger of the two clubs as "Athletic Club" in 1903. In the same year, Basque students also formed "Athletic Club Madrid"; this club later evolved into Atlético Madrid. The club's foundation date is a subject of debate among football historians. The club itself declares 1898, but others claim 1901 or 1903 as the true founding year.
Since 2002, the association has extended to cover the whole of Germany, including camp communities of former prisoners of the concentration camps as incorporated associations. The VVN-BdA claims to be the biggest antifascist organisation in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The club is based in Cardiff and plays most of its home games at Sophia Gardens, which is located on the bank of the River Taff. Matches have also occasionally been played at Swansea, Colwyn Bay and Cresselly (despite the latter towns being in Denbighshire and Pembrokeshire respectively).
The Cologne Crocodiles were formed in 1980, making it one of the oldest American football clubs in Germany. The club, in its first season, took part in the Nordwestdeutsche Football Liga, a renegade league which only existed for two seasons, 1980 and 1981.
FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin was formed in a merger of BFC Viktoria 1889, one of the oldest football clubs in Germany, and Lichterfelder FC, a club which had gone through a number of name changes and mergers before.
In 1900 the team left to join the VDBV (Verband Deutscher Ballspiel Vereine or Federation of German Ballplay Teams) and in that same year became a founding member of the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) at Leipzig. However, with the growth of the game and the arrival on the scene of many new teams "Germania" became less prominent. By the start of World War I the club had fallen out of Berlin's top flight competition.
The Panthers were formed on 1 May 1978 and, while not the first American football club in Germany—this honour going to the Frankfurter Löwen who were formed in 1977 but folded in the mid-1980s—are the oldest still existing club.