SV Dinamo Helfort 15 Young Stars (Austria)

SV Dinamo Helfort 15 Young Stars is a football club that was formed in 1910 as Helfort Sports Club, based in the district of Ottakring in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Nobody is quite clear about the origins of the club name, as it represents no geographical feature.

The team started out playing in the lower reaches of regional football, moving to their own home ground on Kendlerstraße in 1921. The 3. Klasse Nord title was won in 1924-25, but rather than taking promotion, the club transferred to the alternative VAFÖ competition.

Helfort transferred back to the national set-up in 1934, finishing fourth in Division Zwei Nord on their return. The league title was won in 1936-37, which led to a three-team promotion round, which the team missed out on. The second tier became one league with automatic promotion the following season. Helfort finished as runner-up. 

1938-39 saw the beginning of the Austrian Anschluss, with the national championship becoming one of sixteen German top-flight Gauligas with the lower divisions feeding into it. Helfort played in Bezirksklasse Wien A, finishing third in 1941-42 and then runners-up the following season before moving to the southern section for 1944-45.

The side was leading the table until the season was abandoned because of War activities.

Their performance promoted them into the Erste Klasse in the liberated Austrian championship for 1945-46, which ended in relegation. A fourth place in the Wiener Liga ensued in 1947-48.

The Wiener Liga became the third level from 1949-50 as Helfort ended in fourth in 1951-52, which was bettered with runners-up in 1958-59. Another couple of fourth places were collected before the team won the title in 1964-65.

Helfort consolidated in Regionalliga Ost with several mid-table finishes before being relegated in 1969-70. Back in the Wiener Liga, the ‘Ottakringers’ finished third in 1973-74 before the competition became the fourth tier after league reorganisation.

In 1981, the club merged with another local club, FC Hornek, to become SC Helfort-Hornek. The club dropped down a further level, where it was renamed as SC Helfort-Teleges in 1986 before another merger took place in 1991, as FC Fortuna Wien joined forces as the club became SC Helfort-Fortuna.

The club's titles continued to change. In 1996, a sponsorship deal led to the creation of the name SC Helfort KDAG. The side made it back into the Wiener Liga as SKF Helfort 15, going on to finish as runners-up in 1996-97.

A sponsorship deal with SPC Gschwandtner Seminare Projekte Consulting led to the club being called SPC Helfort 15 before another relegation. The club would be crowned as Oberliga A champions in 2005-06 as they netted 108 goals in just thirty games.

Their spell in the Wiener Stadtliga lasted just one season as Helfort went down after a play-off defeat to LAC Inter. The team ended the 2007-08 campaign in third in Oberliga A before Wilhelm Binder and Martin Puza became joint chief trainers.

The third place was repeated in 2011-12 with Sasa Milenkovic top scoring. Ernst Ogris took over as chief trainer in June 2014, leading his team to fifth place before being replaced by Peter Keller in February 2016.

Christian Feitzinger took over as trainer in October 2016 as the side played in the fifth-tier 2. Landesliga. The club changed titles again in the summer of 2017 as they became SC Helfort 15 Young Stars while the team continued to struggle on the pitch.

Stefan Coric was appointed as the new chief trainer in May 2018, with the club name changing to SV Dinamo Helfort 15 Young Stars before finishing fourth place in 2018-19 as Vinko Lastric finished top of the goals chart.

Promotion to the Wiener Stadtliga followed, where fifth place was achieved in 2021-22 once normality had returned following the pandemic, with Besnik Mala leading the scoring. The performance was repeated a year later as the goals were shared around. 

2023-24 saw Helfort finish as league runner-up as Agron Mala topped the scoring charts. 

Coric continued to lead the side in the 2025-26 season.

SV Dinamo Helfort 15 Young Stars will play in the Wiener Stadtliga in the 2025-26 season.

My visit

Sunday 8th March 2020

It was a bright morning as I came up the steps at the Gottesmanngasse exit to the Kendlerstraße U-Bahn station. I was heading to the Wiener Stadtliga match around the corner between Helfort’s local rivals Slovan HAC and Schwechat.

However, as the entrance to Helfort Platz was bang opposite, I decided to go inside for a look. I had contemplated returning later in the evening for a game on the artificial pitch of the two for a game in what I thought might be the church league, but there were no guarantees.

The turf pitch seemed to be resting as the league season was nearing the end of the winter break. A match was in progress on the artificial pitch, with some players congregating by the clubhouse, looking as though they were next in action.

The ground was relatively basic but contained all the required features, with a banking down one side, having some open seating near the halfway line and a clubhouse built on top of it. Spectator accommodation on the other three sides was basic.

Happy to have ticked the ground off, I walked towards my 10.30 kick off and came across the home of Red Star Penzing a hundred metres or so further up Kendlerstraße. That would have to wait until full time!