Turn-und Sportverein Köln rechtsrheinisch 1874 e.V., to give the club its full title, is a sports club from the city of Cologne in Germany. The club was formed in 1874 as Kalk 1874 e. V. before moving into their own facility at Merheimer Heide in the Höhenberg district of the city in 1919.
A merger with Turnverein Köln-Höhenberg e. V. took place in 1946 to form the current club that has sections for tennis, fitness and gymnastics, karate, rugby, swimming and athletics as well as football.
The first team has played in the lower district divisions of Köln football for the vast majority of their history, with the 2004-05 season spent in Kreisliga B Staffel 5, one of a multitude of national ninth-level leagues from where they were relegated.
The side consolidated the following season in Kreisliga C Staffel 7 before the men’s adult club stopped competing, with the club concentrating on junior and women's teams of all ages and abilities.
The women’s first team gave the club the most prominence after taking over the operations of champion side SSG 09 Bergisch Gladbach, before passing on their license to Bayer Leverkusen in 2008 and then rebuilding the section. The men’s first team returned to action in 2008-09, playing in the eleventh-level Kreisliga D Staffel 11.
They finished in a modest eighth place before improving to fifth the following season. TuS finished as runners-up in 2011-12 to progress to Kreisliga C Staffel 6, which was too steep a jump, with the team finishing rock bottom twelve months later as they dropped to Staffel 10 of the lower level before moving to section 4.
The team was moved up to Staffel 4 of Kreisliga C for 2016-17, where they finished in seventh place before being relegated from Staffel 2 the following season. Christof Busch and Dominik Giffels scored the goals for the team coached by Heinz Koch that finished fifth in the 2018-19 Kreisliga D Staffel 5 season.
Their reward was a place in Kreisliga C Staffel 3 for 2019-20. TuS were top of the table when the season came to an early end owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, awaiting to see if they would be rewarded with promotion thanks to the goals of Ghivmay Tewelde and Codrin-Andrei Ginga.
The team won the league title in 2019-20 as the forward partnership bore fruit once more, as the club reached the ninth tier of German football. A promising fourth place followed in Köln Kreisliga B Staffel 1 before the team was relegated at the end of the 2021-22 season.
Ninth place was achieved by the side taking part in Kreisliga C Staffel 3 in 2022-23 under head trainer Sebastian Unger, who was then succeeded by Philipp Tritt. Benedikt Adenacker was next to arrive and take charge of the team for the 2023-24 campaign.
Hüseyin Aydin took charge of the side that finished runners-up in 2024-25 as Deniz Seker scored the goals. They lost their final game of the season when playing at home, which allowed Köln-Brück to sneak past and clinch the title. However, promotion was still won to the ninth-tier Kreisliga B2 Köln.
TuS Köln rrh will play in Kreisliga B2 Köln in the 2024-25 season.
My visitsFriday 26th October 2012
I was in
Germany on the first of four days of football and socialising, and was starting
my adventures on the banks of the Rhine in the city of Cologne. I had already
visited the home of Fortuna Köln and then Viktoria Köln.
It was as I was leaving Viktoria’s Flugafen Stadion that my attention was drawn to a venue across the lane with a track, goalposts on the pitch in the middle and a clubhouse.
The TuS-Anlage Sportpark Höhenberg arena was basically a running track with dugouts on the far side, with a couple of steps of terracing down the home straight, backed with a few park benches, and a cinder-surfaced pitch behind.
After taking my photos, I headed back down the lane to Frankfurter Strasse to catch a tram, which I alighted early from and ended up outside Köln Arena and caught a train to the Hauptbahnhof from Messe station.
On my return to London, I attempted to find out as many details as the official website offered, as well as a Portuguese-written entry for Wikipedia!
Tuesday 10th August 2021
I was in Germany for a weekend break to enjoy some football after Covid
restrictions were lifted slightly. All had gone well, and I’d had fun with
friends old and new. I thought everything was complete and ready for my flight
home when I became rather alarmed.
I’d returned to my hotel after the Viktoria Koln game in the DFB Pokal
and realised that I’d overlooked the requirement of a negative Covid test to
board my flight. In short, it was a real carry on, but I managed to get sorted.
The irony being the test was out in the car park at Sportpark Höhenberg, where I’d watched the game the night before and where TuS are based. Naturally, I went to have a look at the venue while I was there to see if there had been
any upgrades since my previous visit. The main pitch now had a 3G surface.