Club profile: FC Flyeralarm Admira

18. May 2022 in ADMIRAL Bundesliga

Founded: 1905

Home Ground: BSFZ-Arena

Location: Mödling, Lower Austria

Colours: Red & Black

Manager: Andreas Herzog

Website: www.flyeralarmadmira.at

The history:

Admira Wacker are nine-time Austrian league champions, and boast six Austrian Cup trophies in their cabinet as well. This decorated club has played a huge role in the history of Austrian football, and has been instrumental in the development of a number of big names early in their careers. With so much success behind them, the Südstädter are now battling to get back amongst Austria’s elite.

A fruitful early phase

Technically Admira’s history can be traced back to 1897, but it wasn’t until October 1905 that Sportklub Vindobona and Burschenschaft Einigkeit joined together to form Admira in the Northern Viennese district of Jedlesee. Progress was steady in the Austrian leagues, until participation in some non-championship games against teams from Bratislava saw the club forcibly relegated to the fourth division in 1911. The team placed importance in developing young players even in the early days, and off the back of that philosophy, Admira built towards a first Austrian title in 1927. The next year saw a first ever league and cup double for the club, and over the following 11 years, the team amassed a total of seven league titles, three cups, and even reached the final of Europe’s Mitropa Cup. After winning the Gauliga Ostmark in 1939, Admira made it all the way to the final of the German Football Championship, only to be comprehensively beaten by Germany’s top team of the era, Schalke 04.

From Wartime woes to SC Wacker

After being frontrunners throughout the 1930s, Admira suffered greatly with players being drafted for the Second World War and they fell away as a competitive force. Two years after the war ended, another club by the name of SC Wacker were to become champions in Austria with a side featuring a young Gerhard Hanappi in midfield. They too reached a Mitropa Cup final in 1951, but they wouldn’t go on to form a part of the Admira story until two decades later. With Admira in a slow decline and lacking purchasing power, there was a merger with the railroad sports club ESV Vienna, leading to the team playing as ESV Admira Vienna in the 1950s, and later changing their name to Admira Energie, in reference to a sponsorship arrangement with the energy company NEWAG/NIOGAS in 1960.

Today’s club takes shape

1960 saw Admira drop out of the top tier for the first time since 1914, but midway through the decade the club were back at the top of the game, winning another Austrian Cup in 1964 and securing another stunning league and cup double in the 1965/66 season. After that triumph, at the behest of NEWAG/NIOGAS, the Admiraner began their move towards their modern day home in Mödling, just south of the capital city. At the end of the decade though, the club was again struggling financially, and was searching for a partner to merge with. That partner would turn out to be SC Wacker, who had been up and down between the top two tiers, and an arrangement to join the two organisations together and create FC Admira Wacker was formally completed in 1971.

A European interlude

By 1973, Admira were back up into the European places, and caused a sensation in the UEFA Cup by defeating Internazionale after extra time thanks to a late Günther Kaltenbrunner goal at the San Siro. Apart from winning the popular Vienna Stadthalle Tournament in 1975, the 70s and 80s yielded steady progress, but more runners’ up medals than trophies. The Südstädter were Austrian Cup finalists in 1979 and 1989, and finished second in the Bundesliga in 1989, too, going on to win Austria’s Supercup in the same year. Between 1987 and 1995 Admira Wacker were a regular fixture in the UEFA Cup or the European Cup Winners’ Cup, with a 1990 quarter-final run being a highlight, as well as a trip to face Italian giants Juventus in the 1994/95 season.

Admira’s talent for development

To this day, Admira are known for their focus on bringing through talented young players. A large number of well-known Bundesliga players have spent time at the club at one point in their careers, and league legends like Josef Degeorgi, Manfred Zsak, Didi Kühbauer and Andi Herzog all came through the academy and went on to have distinguished footballing CVs. In later years, international players such as Marc Janko, Marcel Sabitzer and Louis Schaub have shown that the pedigree of Admira’s youth players has remained at a very high standard. The 1995 “Bosman ruling” was a landmark moment in football, allowing out-of-contract players to leave clubs for no fee, and teams like Admira lost a lot of promising youth talents for little or no financial compensation as a result. The club went through a further merger in 1998 to join with local club VfB Mödling, but at the end of the 1997/98 season Admira Wacker Mödling slipped out of the Bundesliga.

The new millennium in Mödling

Under the stewardship of President Hans-Werner Weiss, the club steadied themselves, and won Austria’s second tier title in the 1999/00 season. In 2005, new ownership took over with big ambitions, but the era of Majid Pishyar instead brought instability and financial troubles back to the club. With many players forced to leave, the club were no longer competitive, and off the pitch, a new league licence couldn’t be obtained, so Admira were sent down to the Regionalliga Ost for the first time in their history. Richard Trenkwalder took over in 2008, renaming the club Trenkwalder Admira, an identity which is synonymous with a successful rebuilding period.

Back to the top flight

With Didi Kühbauer at the helm, the club were back in the Bundesliga by the beginning of the 2011/12 season, having edged out Altach in a thrilling promotion race. The first year back yielded an incredible third place finish, as the goals of Patrik Jezek and Philipp Hosiner sent the team to Europe for the first time in 18 years. Sparta Prague proved too strong in qualifying then, but just four years later there was more success, with a place in the Cup final, and fourth spot in the league sealing another European berth. Admira would impress by making it through two rounds before bowing out to Slovan Liberec, but in the 2018/19 season, CSKA Sofia was the first and last taste of European football for the club. Since 2017 the club have been called FC Flyeralarm Admira for sponsorship reasons, and although many recent relegation battles have ended in success, a place in the Bundesliga’s top six “Championship Round” has so far eluded Admira.

The stadium:

Initially, the club played at the Jedlerseer Stadium in Vienna’s Hopfengasse, but that stadium is where Floridsdorfer AC play their home games today. Admira’s former sponsors NEWAG/NIOGAS, today known as EVN, moved the club next door to their own base in Maria-Enzersdorf, a few kilometres south of Vienna. Starting in 1965, they built a stadium to house the club alongside their HQ, and it was opened with a 3-1 win over FC Wacker Innsbruck in March of ‘67. Willi Kreuz goes down in history as the man who scored the opening goal at the stadium which, since 2012, has been known as the BSFZ Arena.

The team:

There have been signs of upward momentum since Andreas Herzog took over as coach in 2021. The man who made more than 100 appearances in Austria’s national jersey has instilled a more competitive edge in this Admira team, and with experienced players like keeper Andreas Leitner, and midfielder Thomas Ebner, there has been a little more space for others to shine. Young loan striker Suliman-Marlon Mustapha has impressed up front in the 2021/22 season, and Roman Kerschbaum has been peerless in the centre for Admira, taking over playmaking duties as well as penalty-taking, recording the highest figures for both goals and assists at the club. He will become the next in a line of Admira players to join Rapid Vienna, when he moves in the summer of 2022.

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 Austria Klagenfurt, SK Rapid Wien, SK Sturm Graz, LASK, FK Austria Wien, RZ Pellets WAC, FC Red Bull Salzburg, WSG Tirol, SV Guntamatic Ried, TSV Egger Glas Hartberg