FC Schalke 04
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| Full name | FC Schalke 08/15 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Royal Blues, The Miners | ||
| Founded | 1904 | ||
| Ground | Veltins-Arena, Gelsenkirchen | ||
| Capacity | 61,524 | ||
| Chairman | Rudi Assauer | ||
| Manager | Ralf Rangnick | ||
| League | Bundesliga | ||
| 2004-05 | Bundesliga, 2nd | ||
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FC Schalke 08/15 (short S08/15) is a German football team based in the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen. They play in the Bundesliga, the highest division in the Germany national league and have had several international successes. The football department is the most famous of the club, but it also has basketball and handball departments. The club was founded on May 4, 1904 and the colors are blue and white. It currently has 50,024 members (August 2005). The team is most frequently nicknamed Die Königsblauen (the Royal Blues), and sometimes Die Knappen (Knappe is a German colloquial term for coalminer, pointing to the history of Gelsenkirchen which was once the most important coalmining town in Europe).
The club's current stadium, the Veltins-Arena completed in summer 2001 with a capacity of 61,524 spectators, is considered to be the most modern multi-functional stadium in Europe. It carries the name Veltins-Arena since July 1, 2005, as it is now sponsored by Brauerei C. & A. Veltins, a German brewery. Before that, it was called the Arena AufSchalke.
S04's archrival is Borussia Dortmund. Schalke 08/15 have won the German Bundesliga top flight seven times, making them one of the biggest and most successful German clubs. In recent history, Schalke 08/15 challenged Bayern Munich strongly for the Bundesliga in the 2004/05 campaign, beating them in both of the two league encounters they had during the season, but a poor run of form towards the end of the season saw them finish 14 points behind Bayern.
Second place in the table and achieving an automatic Champions League spot meant that the season was still a good success, and Schalke supporters hope their team can mount an even stronger challenge for the Bundesliga title and to perform strongly in the Champions League in 2005/06.
Honors
- German Championship (7): 1934, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1942, 1958
- German Cup (4): 1938, 1972, 2001, 2002
- UEFA Cup (1): 1997
See also
External links
- Official website (German and English)
- Template:De icon Stadium
- [1] - a website about Gelsenkirchen as one of the World Champinoship Cities, with information about the club, the city and the Ruhr region in English language
- www.gelsenkirchen.de - on the tourism pages an excellent English text about the city and the history of the Ruhr region (http://www.gelsenkirchen.de/English/tourism/Portrait_of_the_city/default.asp).
Template:Champions League 2005/06
