ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the beginnings of Association football in Germany and considers new historical sources which extend the present state of knowledge considerably. For many years, academics believed that Association football was introduced in Germany either in 1874 by the teacher Konrad Koch in Brunswick or in the same year by members of the Dresden Football Club. However, brief articles in the English magazine The Field: the Country Gentleman's Newspaper make it clear that the English team in Dresden was already formed in 1873 and played according to rugby rules. The oldest extant proof for Association football can be traced to Lüneburg close to Hamburg from 1875. The most significant centres for the establishment of the latter game in the German Empire were Berlin and Southwest Germany, within the area Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden/Freiburg from 1885–9. The present article illuminates the interchange between German and British sportsmen, noting how, in the 1890s, Association football became more popular than its rugby counterpart.
