They re-appeared in the first division after a single season absence, but no longer seriously challenged for the title. Vienna remained competitive through the balance of the decade, consistently finishing in the top three, but the club faded through the 60s until they were finally relegated in 1968 for the first time since their return to the top flight after World War I. Wiener Sport-Club finished with 75: 40 goals, achieving a quotient of only 1.875 but on equal points (39). Example: when Vienna won the championship in the 1954–1955 season they ended up with 64:26 goals = 2.461 quotient. 20:1= 20, 20:2=10, so the higher quotient, the better with the exception of zero. A 1:0 was better than a 10:1 win, the higher the quotient the better, although the ideal one being zero (forced goals divided by allowed goals). However, led by club legend Karl Koller, in 1955 Vienna enjoyed an excellent season that ended with the club's sixth national championship title as they finished ahead of Wiener Sport-Club since they had the better goal quotient. Through the late 40s and on into the early 50s the club's performance was uneven as they generally earned only mid-table results. In league play in the 1946 season Vienna earned only a fifth-place finish but did go on to capture the Liberation Cup donated by the Soviets. Occupied by Allied forces after the end of the war, Austria was once again independent of Germany and a separate league structure was re-established. As World War II drew to a close and Allied armies advanced into Germany league play collapsed with Vienna still in a tight race again looking to repeat as division champions. A third Gauliga title in 1944 again put the club into Germany's national playoffs where this time they went out 2:3 in the quarterfinals to eventual champions Dresdner SC. The club did, however, have a successful Tschammerpokal run, winning the 1943 competition by defeating Luftwaffen-SV Hamburg 3:2 in extra time to become the second Austrian side to take the cup by following in the footsteps of Rapid Wien, victors in 1938. Vienna repeated as divisional champions the following season, but this time advanced only as far as the semi-finals before being put out 1:2 by FV Saarbrücken. In 1942, Vienna captured the divisional title in what was by then known as the Gauliga Donau-Alpenland (Ostmark) and went all the way to the final played on 4 July 1942 in Berlin where they dropped a 0:2 decision to Schalke 04 the dominant side of German football in the era. This led to the appearance of Austrian sides in the national finals of Germany and in competition for the Tschammerpokal, predecessor of today's German Cup. First division Austrian teams played in the newly formed Gauliga Ostmark as part of the league structure established under the Third Reich in the re-organization of German football in 1933. They later successfully played the country's first match under floodlights on 3 November 1956.Īfter Austria was united with Germany in the Anschluss in 1938 the football competitions of the two countries were also merged. The team was involved in a failed attempt in the 1924–25 season to play Austria's first night game on a field lit by torches and flares, and playing with a ball covered in lime to make it more visible. Vienna captured a second national title in 1933 with a third Austrian Cup following in 1937. The cup title was unique in the history of the competition as they swept their opposition, winning all six of their matches. That same year the team also won the Mitropa Cup, one of Europe's first international club competitions. The club gradually returned to form and consistently finished in the top half of the league table through the 20s winning Austrian Cup titles in 19 before finally claiming the national championship in 1931. In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Vienna performed poorly and by 1915 had fallen out of first division play and did not return to the top flight until after the war in 1919. The club also made a losing appearance in the 1907 final of the Wiener Cup which emerged when the Challenge Cup competition fell into disarray between 19. Cricket won the first cup competition in 1897, but First Vienna followed with consecutive cup titles in 18. In 1897, the chairman of the Cricketers donated the Challenge Cup establishing a competition open to all football clubs in what was then Austria-Hungary, drawing teams from Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. Challence Cup 1899 winners First Vienna FC.
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