FC Köln
1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln (German pronunciation: [ɛf ˈt͡seː ˈkœln] (
listen)) or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs Kölner Ballspiel-Club 1901 and SpVgg Sülz 07. Köln competes in the Bundesliga after promotion in 2018–19 following relegation to 2. Bundesliga the previous season. The team are two-time top-flight champions, winning the Bundesliga in 1964 and 1978. The team plays its home matches at RheinEnergieStadion.
The club's nickname Die Geißböcke (The Billy Goats) refers to the club's mascot, a male goat named Hennes after the veteran FC player and later manager Hennes Weisweiler. The first Hennes was donated by a circus entrepreneur as a Cologne carnival joke. The current mascot is Hennes IX as of 1 August 2019 after Hennes VIII was retired by the club due to old age.[1] Another nickname for the club, more common locally due to its ambiguity, is FC (often written as Effzeh), a common German abbreviation for football clubs. Characteristic for the dialect spoken around Cologne, this is pronounced "EF-tsay", in contrast to the Standard German pronunciation of the abbreviation where the second syllable is emphasized ([ʔɛf ˈtseː]). Köln play at home in white and red, both colours having been used as the main shirt colour throughout its history. The club has long-standing rivalries with nearby clubs Borussia Mönchengladbach, Fortuna Düsseldorf, and Bayer Leverkusen.
Like many of Germany's other professional football clubs, 1. FC Köln is part of a larger sports club with teams in other sports like handball, table tennis and gymnastics. 1. FC Köln has over 100,000 members, making it the fourth largest club in Germany.[2][3]
