Baltenverband

VfB Konigsberg 1907-08

The Baltische Fußball Meisterschaft, initiated in 1908, was the newest of the 8 regional championships that fed the German National Championships. It featured teams from Pomerania, East and West Prussia* .

1907-08	VfB Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
1908-09	VfB Konigsberg
1909-10	Prussia Samland Konigsberg
1910-11	SC Lituania Tilsit	Tilsit/Memel
1911-12	BuEV Danzig	Danzig
1912-13	Prussia Samland Konigsberg	Konigsberg
1913-14	Prussia Samland Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
1919-20	Titania Stettin	Pommern
1920-21	VfB Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
1921-22	Titania Stettin	Pommern
1922-23	VfB Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
1923-24	VfB Konigsberg
1924-25	VfB Konigsberg
1925-26	VfB Konigsberg
1926-27	Titania Stettin	Pommern
1927-28	VfB Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
1928-29	VfB Konigsberg
1929-30	VfB Konigsberg
1930-31	Prussia Samland Konigsberg
	VfB Konigsberg
1931-32	Hindenburg Allenstein
	Viktoria Stolp	Grenzmark
1932-33	Prussia Samland Konigsberg	Ostpreussen
	Hindenburg Allenstein
1933-34	Preussen Danzig
	Viktoria Stolp	Pommern Ost
1934-35	York Insterburg	Ostpreussen
	SC Stettin	Pommern West
1935-36	Hindenburg Allenstein	Ostpreussen
	Viktoria Stolp	Pommern Ost
1936-37	Hindenburg Allenstein	Ostpreussen
	Viktoria Stolp	Pommern

VfB Konigsberg reached the semi finals of the National Championship in 1923. 

Of course, the cities that were represented in this competition are no longer in Germany. 
Their names are gone from the map.
The succesful clubs:

Name	Founded	Present location
VfB Konigsberg	1900	Kaliningrad. Russia
Königsberg Fußballmeister	1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925
Baltische Fußballmeister	1908, 1909, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1929, 1930
Prussia Samland Konigsberg	1904	Kaliningrad, Russia
Baltische Fußballmeister	1910, 1913, 1914, 1931, 1933
SC Lituania Tilsit	1907	Sovetsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
Baltische Fußballmeister	1911
BuEV Danzig	1903	Gdańsk, Poland
Baltische Fußballmeister	1912
Stettiner Fussballclub Titania 1902	1902	Szczecin, Poland
Baltischer Fußballmeister	1920, 1927
SV Hindenburg Allenstein	1921	Olsztyn, Poland
Viktoria Stolp	1909	Słupsk, Poland
Preussen Danzig	1909	Gdańsk, Poland
York Insterburg	1921	Chernyakhovsk, Kaliningrad Russia
Stettiner SC	1908	Szczecin, Poland

* The 'feeder' championships were as follows:

1908-10:

Ostpreussen: Pommern: Westpreussen

 1910-13:

Allenstein: Danzig: Graudenz: Insterburg: Konigsberg: Rustenburg: Tilsit/Memel

 1913-30:

Ostpreussen: Pommern: Westpreussen

1930-:

Grenzmark: Ostpreussen

Poland

For their first foray into international football Poland took a Cracovia dominated XI to meet Hungary at the Hungária körúti Stadion. Indeed there is some speculatiuon that the fixture only came about because of the influence of the Cracovia coach, Jesza Poszony. As Imre Pozsonyi (he was also known as Emérico Pozsonyi) he had played in  what was 

retrospectively designated as Hungary's very first international in 1902. 
Poszony was made coach of the new Polish national squad. Following a series of trials,  an initial cohort of 33 was reduced to a squad of 16 for the first match.  Eventually 13 players made the arduous 36 hour train journey to Budapest. The team was selected by Józef  Szkolnikowski, President of the Polish FA.

GK	Jan Loth	KS Polonia
FB	Ludwick Gintel	KS Cracovia
FB	Artur Marczewski	KS Polonia
HB	Zdzisław Styczeń	KS Cracovia
HB	Stanisław Cikowski	KS Cracovia
HB	Tadeusz Synowiec   c	KS Cracovia
F	Stanisław Mielech	KS Cracovia
F	Wacław Kuchar	LKS Pogon Lwów
F	Józef Kałuża	KS Cracovia
F	Marian Einbacher	KS Warta
F	Leon Sperling	KS Cracovia

The 2 reserves were : Stefan Loth - (KS Polonia) & Mieczysław Batsch - (LKS Pogon Lwów) 

For Hungary this was the 80th international . 
 The hosts won 1-0 with an 18th minute goal from Jenő Szabó. Hungary missed a penalty and Jan Loth put in an impressive performance. It was a creditable result for Poland.

Wisła Kraków

1907

Wisła Kraków was founded in May 1906 by students of the Second Practical School in Kraków, 
In 1925 they made the first appearance in the Polish championship, which that season was formed of 3 leagues of 3 teams followed by a round-robin final. Wisła  reached the final stage but finished bottom of the table. 
In 1927 the Championship took on a more familiar form. 14 teams took part and Wisła emerged as champions (scoring an average of 3.6 goals per game in the process). They repeated the feat the following season. 

Polish artist Wlastimil Hofman painted the 1927 team:

Legioniści

1916

Whereas the 1914-18 war was a time of inactivity for most European clubs, it was also a time that saw the birth of others. Legia Warszawa SA  was founded in March 1916 as Drużyna Sportowa Legia. Stanisław Mielech  was the main organizer. It was a club for serving members of the Polish army.  Initially the team played  near Maniewicze (now in Ukraine), against other military units. The move to Warsaw in the summer of 1916 came as the result of a massive Russian offensive. Whilst the war was still in progress Drużyna Sportowa Legia are recorded as having played 9 games in Warsaw in which they were undefeated, including a draw with Polonia (their first match- with Mielech getting a last minute equalizer) and a victory over Cracovia. The win over Cracovia came on August 19th, 1917 and, due to the ongoing conflict in Poland it was Legia's last game until March 14th, 1920.

1916

1916

Players of  Legia and Divisional Sanitary Department (plain shirts)- Legia won this match 7-0.

1917

Some Jewish Teams...

Up until the 1939-45 War Jewish people in central and eastern Europe lived in separate communities within communities. This insularity was a result of discrimination. Jewish people organised their own educational, cultural, sports and social institutions. We have already looked at such major organizations as Hakoah Wien and Hakoah Berlin .

Smaller communities also had their distinctly Jewish clubs. Here are some photographs of Jewish football clubs. 

Neustadt Tavrig  1928 ( Zemaiciu Naumiestis, Lithuania, USSR)

Kurenets 1920s (Belarus, USSR) 

Grodzisk Mazovyet (Poland)

                                                      Novogrudok Maccabi (Belarus, USSR) 

Monastir, August 1928 (Macedonia )