Club profile: SK Austria Klagenfurt

23. July 2021 in ADMIRAL Bundesliga

Founded: 2007
Home ground: Wörthersee Stadium (30.000)
Location: Klagenfurt, Carinthia
Colours: Violet/White
Manager: Peter Pacult
Website: SK Austria Klagenfurt

The history:

SK Austria Klagenfurt may have been officially founded in 2007, but the history of the club stretches back a great deal further, over 100 years in fact. Starting out as “Käufmännischer Sportklub Klagenfurt” back in June 1920, the club would go on to experience a century in football complete with incredible highs and several bitter lows, leading to their new-found status as a top flight team for the 2021/2022 season.

The Early Years

It wasn’t long into the club’s journey that the first of several mergers took place, as 1923 saw a fusion with Amateursportclub Klagenfurt to create “KASK Klagenfurt”, a team plying their trade in the league of the local state, Carinthia. Such mergers are commonplace in the history of Austrian football clubs, and therefore it’s perhaps no surprise that the next one took place a mere four years later, as the club joined forces with Klagenfurter SV to create “SC Austria Klagenfurt”.

During the wartime period of the 1930s and early 1940s the club’s operations were brought to a halt, meaning their players left for other teams, although a reformation of the club would reappear as soon as the summer of 1945 came around. The club remained in the local leagues, with games taking place at the Stadion an der Rosenthalerstrasse until the 1959/1960 season, when the team relocated.

Wörthersee Originals

The move to the first iteration of the Wörthersee Stadium (named after the famous nearby lake) swiftly paid dividends, as 1962 saw the club make its maiden appearance in the then top-flight Staatsliga, and the purple and white kit colours of the era would become a mainstay of Austria Klagenfurt from then on.

Despite enjoying their Staatsliga status for a while, as the years passed by, the club slowly sank down through the divisions. From the mid-1970s onwards, they spent four seasons in the top tier (led by club icons like Helmut König or Kassim Ramadhani), but by the early 1990s they were back in the regional leagues.

Doubling Up for the Cup

Aiming to become competitive at the top level once more, the club announced a shock merger with neighbours Villacher SV to become known as “Austria/VSV” in 1997, and the club decided upon a novel approach to the fixture list, staging alternate home games in Klagenfurt and Villach. The unorthodox method apparently worked, with the club bringing home a promotion to the second tier in their first year.

The club’s next guise is one still fondly remembered by many, as “FC Kärnten” (FC Carinthia) kicked off a new era in 1999, and enjoyed unprecedented success with Head Coach Walter Schachner. Always thinking one move ahead, he had manoeuvred his pawns into the promised land of the Bundesliga by 2001, and against all odds the team would go on to defeat league champions FC Tirol in the cup final in a Vienna game at the Ernst Happel Stadium.

After three years of solid Bundesliga performances, including European campaigns in 2001, 2002 and 2003, the team were eventually relegated and struggled to mount a challenge to return to the top tier.

European Championship Changes

With FC Kärnten marooned in the second division, and Austria due to co-host EURO 2008, the local authorities decided that a new club was needed to call an updated Wörthersee Stadium its home. Austria Kärnten was that team, but sadly, soon after the EUROs had come and gone, both teams were deep in the mire of financial troubles.

Behind the scenes, a concerned group had already formed “SK Austria Klagenfurt”, at least with regard to the official paperwork, as early as 2007, whilst the other local teams struggled. In 2010, this club, founded in the traditions of the original Austria Klagenfurt, had sprung to life and were playing in the regional leagues once more.

Back to the Bundesliga

After a few seasons in the Regionalliga, a successful play-off against Parndorf saw SK Austria Klagenfurt reach the second division in 2015, but just as things were looking up, licence issues meant that the team tumbled all the way back down the footballing pyramid.

By the 2018/2019 season the club had clawed their way back to take part in the new 16 team 2. Liga, and with relegation avoided successfully, 2019/2020 brought about the introduction of the team’s new-look emblem. After a tense battle with Wacker Innsbruck throughout the 2020/2021 season, a strong end to the year meant that SK Austria Klagenfurt finished in an all-important third place in the second tier, before dominating a promotion play-off with SKN St. Pölten to bring the club full-circle and secure Bundesliga status for the 2021/2022 season. What a journey!

The Stadium:

Klagenfurt’s Wörthersee Stadium is now the largest in the Bundesliga, although it started life as a rather smaller arena. The original build in 1960 had a capacity of just under 11,000 spectators, but with the 2008 UEFA European Championships in mind, the stadium was demolished in 2005 and reconstructed over the following two years to become the “Hypo-Arena”, a vast stadium with around 30,000 seats. Fans of Poland, Germany and Croatia were eventually able to enjoy the Klagenfurt scenery as the stadium hosted their group games during EURO 2008.

The initial plan had been to reduce the capacity of the Wörthersee Stadium significantly after the tournament, but in the end the decision was made to retain the 30,000 seats. By 2010, the arena had no local football club to host, and it had since been renamed as the Wörthersee Stadium once more, before SK Austria Klagenfurt were able to move back in to the ground on the site of their spiritual home since the 1960s.

The Wörthersee Stadium has housed the club ever since, as well as hosting big occasions on Austria’s sporting calendar such as the Austrian cup final, and a number of international fixtures. Other, non-sporting events also take place there from time to time, and one of the most memorable was 2019’s “For Forest” art installation, which saw 300 trees planted on the pitch as a warning about the future of green spaces. The images soon went viral and drew praise from the likes of actor Leonardo di Caprio, but by 2020 the pitch was returned to normal, and the ground hosted Carinthian side Wolfsberger AC for their UEFA Europa League adventures.

The 2021/2022 season brings Bundesliga football back to the Wörthersee Stadium, something which has been a long time coming for one of Austria’s largest arenas.

The Team:

Led by cult coach Peter Pacult, SK Austria Klagenfurt are back at the top table of Austrian football for 2021/2022. The Vienna-born coach has managed German sides 1860 Munich, Dynamo Dresden and RB Leipzig, but he’s well-known for his exploits in Austria, winning the Bundesliga with SK Rapid Vienna in the 2007/2008 season.

On the pitch, the team will have to adjust after losing the influential play-maker Oliver Markoutz, who decided to hang up his boots at just 26 to pursue a career in finance. There’s plenty of talent left in the squad though, with experienced striker Markus Pink leading the way last year with 18 goals and 5 assists. The Klagenfurter previously played for Austria Kärnten, so he’s well connected to the club’s history too.

Patrick Greil is certainly one to watch in the Bundesliga this season, having chipped in 8 goals and 9 assists as SK Austria Klagenfurt finished the 2.Liga strongly to seal promotion from third place. 2. Liga winners last year were Blau-Weiss Linz, but with no promotion for them, SK Austria Klagenfurt have secured the services of two of their title winners, defender Nicolas Wimmer, and midfielder Turgay Gemicibasi, both of whom were ready for a taste of top-flight football.

There are two imports from America as well, in the form of Thomas Roberts, the 20-year-old midfielder on loan from FC Dallas, and Gloire Amanda, a young striker signed from Oregon State. The team will be looking to keep hold of their confidence from a long winning run at the end of last season, but avoiding relegation will likely be the target for year one back in the Bundesliga.

Vocabulary

Die Kollegen von "The Other Bundesliga" porträtieren in regelmäßigen Abständen die Klubs der Liga - auf Englisch mit der dazugehörigen Vokabelauswahl. In dieser Serie sind bisher folgende Klubporträts entstanden:  SK Rapid Wien, SK Sturm Graz, LASK, FK Austria Wien, RZ Pellets WAC, FC Red Bull Salzburg, WSG Tirol  SV Guntamatic Ried, FC Flyeralarm Admira, TSV Egger Glas Hartberg