Happy birthday, dear Salzburg Austria!
Dear Austrians! Wishing yourself a happy birthday is still a bit strange, even at 89. Nevertheless, a club is the sum of its members and friends. In this sense, not only the club, but also everyone who has Austria in their hearts has a little birthday today. Have a nice day!
We take the opportunity to make a small digression about the founding of our sports club. In the Austria Wiki you can learn a lot about the history of Austria. Click here for the chapter “Foundation and promotion” from which the text below is taken.
The association is founded on September 13, 1933 in the Hotel “Schwarzes Rössl” in the course of the dissolution of the two Salzburg city associations FC Hertha (Gr. 1923) and FC Rapid (est. 1928) officially founded by its members as the “Austria Salzburg Sports Association”. However, the preparatory basic agreement of the officials had already taken place a few days earlier – on the night of September 7th to 8th, 1933 and already after midnight – during a secret meeting in the “Café Mozart” in Getreidegasse. The first chairman of the association is dr Fritz Krieger from FC Hertha Salzburg, is head of the football section and is therefore responsible for sport Josef “Brandi” Brandstaetter, later association president, municipal councilor and municipal utility director. The FC Rapid field in Lehen (roughly where the HAK and the vocational school are today) that the footballers built themselves is chosen as the venue, since FC Hertha has to share its football field on the Kolping sports facility in Hellbrunn with FC Altstadt.
Purple and white are chosen as the colors of the club. Some still think today that they deliberately chose colors that were not part of party politics and wanted to set an example for an independent Austria with “Austria”, especially at this time. The trigger for the merger is the creation of a two-country ten-league Upper Austria/Salzburg, in which Salzburg is entitled to participate with only two teams. Surprisingly, in a qualifying tournament, FC Rapid was identified as a participant alongside subscription state champions SAK 1914, although they were considered too weak for this league. In order to create a counterweight to the all-powerful SAK, the Rapid “workers’ association” merged with the “bourgeois” Hertha on September 13, which at the time (on the eve of the civil war in February 1934) was considered a real political sensation. Two days after the merger staged by Josef Brandstätter, the Austrians played their first game very successfully, the Heeressportverein Wien was downgraded 6-0.
At the start of the championship on September 17th, Austria receive Germania Linz, but after a 4:0 half-time lead, the encounter only ends with a 4:4. The following team is the first of all “Austria” to line up: Moser; proroc, J. Schwartzer; Renner, Ackerl I, white; Falkensteiner, lilac, UlamecSchobersberger, M. Tails. In October, a man joins Austria who will shape club life for years to come: Karl Sachs – with up to 100 goals per season for many years the football prodigy of the SAK 1914 – falls out with his parent club and strengthens after a short interlude SSK 1919 Nun die Austria. Even as a player, he already plays officials, and at the height of World War II he is Austria’s representative on the board of directors FG Salzburgafter the war then chairman of the association and finally from 1952-1966 first president of Austria.