FC Kray (Germany)

Fußballclub Kray 1909/31, or more commonly FC Kray, is a football club from the district of Kray in the North Rhine Westphalian German city of Essen. The club was formed through a merger of DJK SV Kray 09 and VfL Kray 1931 in 1987.

DJK SV Kray 09

The club was formed by Willi Schröer, a youth who received a football from his father for Christmas, along with fellow enthusiasts in 1909, as SV Kray 09, starting out life playing at a ground near to the Joachim coal mine.

In 1911 they moved to a new venue on Döppelhahn in the south of Kray. A merger in 1920 with the catholic based DJK-Sportverband saw the club retitled as DJK SV Kray 09. The club also formed an athletics department.

Because of popularity the club looked for another home and settled at Kortstraße where the Hövelschen brickworks previously stood. In 1933 the side were placed in 2. Klasse Westdeutschen Spielverbandes before they as a club with religious background were forced to cease playing in 1934, also losing their home ground.

The club was re-established in April 1950 after the DJK sports association restarted. The team was placed in 2. Kreisklasse Gruppe Essen-Süd-Ost, with promotion to 1. Kreisklasse arriving in 1955-56.

A 2-1 defeat to Rot Weiss Essen in the DFB Pokal in 1960-61 was a major highlight at DJK SV but that was succeeded when the club won the DJK National Championship title defeating DJK Augsburg in front of 20,000 spectators in Nürnberg.

The team had been promoted to regional football but the 1963-64 campaign saw them relegated back to 1. Kreisklasse. The following season saw SV reach the DJK National Championship final which was lost in Düsseldorf.

Several other sport departments were added to the club over the ensuing years before the football clubs final 1986-87 season ended in eleventh place of the Kreisklasse A Südost.

VfL Kray 1931

As their title suggests, VfL were formed in 1931, with Wilhelm Kefenhörster providing the club with its first bar at his home, while he leased a plot of land on Wilhelmstraße, now Riddershofstraße, for the club to play home matches in Kray-Süd.

Initially the team played in Kreisliga Gaus Gelsenkirchen before switching to Gau Essen in 1935 at a time when Germany was under control of the Third Reich. In 1945 following War, VfL were given a place in the local Bezirksliga.

Promotion to 2. Kreisklasse was achieved in 1952-53, before dropping back down a year later. In 1962 VfL moved to a new pitch with a clay surface on Buderusstraße not far from Krayer Straße, which would eventually become Kray Arena, then winning promotion to 1. Kreisklasse in 1962-63.

After reconstruction of German football following the introduction of national football through the Bundesliga, VfL won promotion to the Bezirksliga Niederrhein in 1963-64. VfL were relegated in both 1972-73 and 1973-74.

From 1973 extra sports departments were added to the club prior to player-trainer Hans Legenbauer helping the side to promotion in 1979-80 after victory in the play-off against Sportfreunde 07 as VfL went up to Ruhrbezirksklasse football.

FC Kray 1909/31

The youth sections ran the food and drink sales at both VfL and DJK SV, working together and coming up with the idea of merging to form a new club with four senior and thirteen youth sides.

FC Kray were awarded VfL’s place in the Bezirksliga, with DJK a level lower at the time in the Kreisliga, also taking up residency at VfL’s Kray Arena. In their inaugural 1987-88 season, FCK won promotion to Landesliga Niederrhein, going on to win that competition in 1988-89.

This promoted Kray to the fourth tier Verbandsliga Niederrhein, where they remained until the end of the 1992-93 campaign when they were relegated to the Landesliga, where FCK remained until winning the 1999-00 Landesliga title to return to the Verbandsliga.

The team landed a seventh place finish on their return, backing it up with another mid-table finish until the club was relegated in usual circumstances at the end of the 2002-03 season after what should have been a safe finishing position.

However, Rheydter SV from the higher Oberliga declared themselves bankrupt, and were given a place in the Verbandsliga to restart. Kray were forced to drop down to Gruppe 1 of the Landesliga under new trainer Wolfgang Priester.

A third place in 2006-07 showed promise followed by the appointment of new head coach Andreas Egler in 2008, before the side came close to relegation to Bezirksliga in 2009-10 after Jürgen Lucas and co-trainer Markus Schnarre took over team affairs.

Therefore, it was somewhat of a surprise as FCK won the Landesliga title the following 2010-11 season to go up to the Niederrheinliga as the Verbandsliga had been renamed under head coaches Rudi Risse and Wolfgang Keiter.

Kray Arena was fitted with a new artificial pitch as FCK lifted the Niederrheinliga title to win promotion to the fourth national tier Regionalliga West after defeating KFC Uerdingen 3-0 on aggregate in the play-offs after a reorganisation of the German league system.

However, their spell lasted just one season after having to start the season at the Uhlenkrugstadion home of neighbours Schwarz-Weiß Essen as a bottom place finish sent Kray back to the Niederrheinliga.

A second place finish in 2013-14 with Timur Karagülmez leading the scoring led to victory in the play-offs and a return to Regionalliga West. Again, this meant playing games at Uhlenkrug while Kray Arena was improved with the building of the Rudi-Risse-Tribüne.

Both derbies with Rot Weiss Essen were played at Stadion Essen while only games with lesser fans could be played at Kray Arena. The team survived in 2014-15 but went down the following season with the same stadium restrictions in operation under coach Michael Lorenz.

Another problem that Kray Arena faced was complaints from local residents about the progress and bigger crowds. Peace was resolved in 2016 as measures were put in place to reduce noise and traffic.

However, the amiable resolution failed to assist on the pitch as FCK were relegated in bottom place of the fifth level Oberliga Niederrhein in 2016-17. Fifth place ensued in the Landesliga Niederrhein Gruppe 2 season of 2017-18.

Michele Lepore led the side to the Landesliga title in 2018-19 before he was replaced by Philip Kruppe whose team sat in twelfth place in the fifth tier Oberliga Niederrhein when the season was ended early owing to the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Dennis Brinkmann was at the helm in 2020-21, another season abandoned early because of the pandemic with Kray in the same placing. Christian Mikolajczak was appointed as head trainer for the 2021-22 season.

FC Kray will play in Oberliga Niederrhein in the 2021-22 season.

My visit

FC Kray u15s 2 FSV Duisburg u15s 2 (Saturday 7^th August 2021) C Junioren Friendly (att: c45)

Awaking in Wuppertal I had a busy Saturday’s itinerary lined up on my latest jaunt around the cities and football venues of North Rhine Westphalia. I was happy with my planning as I took the train to Düsseldorf where I dropped off my bag in a left luggage locker.

My initial plans saw me earmark the match in the Fußball-Freizeit-Liga between Arminia Essen v 1. SC BW Wulfen III at the home of TuS Essen-West with an 11am kick off. It was handy enough for my 2pm game, but the possible standard of football deterred me.

I’d even considered heading to the Bayer Uerdingen Cricket Club in Krefeld which was staging an international T20 tournament between Germany, France and Norway. I definitely had no idea of what standard that would be, and the ground wasn’t conducive to public transport, so it was quickly erased from my mind.

I had done some real investigation work, trying to find a game at prominent venues. I was confident I had come up trumps with the game at Kray Arena with the same start time, even if it was an underage game.

The S Bahn service took me to Steele station, stopping nearly everywhere on route. Not to worry. It was always good to discover new places. From alighting it took me around twenty minutes to head north along Krayer Straße towards the ground.

Heading up Buderusstraße, I was delighted to see the gates to Kray Arena open, and then see players warming up. I wasn’t sure of the age group. My friend Thorsten put me right when I messaged him with a guide to the junior “Junioren” grades.

‘A’ was under 19, ‘B’ under 17 and ‘C’ under 15, though it was noticeable there were one or two big lads among them. Nowhere near as big as the ref Niklas Grziwa mind. That said, he was probably the biggest person in the ground.

The stadium was neat and functional. A large clubhouse stood well back from the entrance side of the pitch, with a small shelter also with distance from the pitch. Various other buildings housed multiple changing rooms.

Both ends had high fencing behind them to stop errant shots going out of the ground. A second pitch, also with artificial turf was staging plenty of younger age stuff, with plenty of parents looking on.

The far side was where I headed to take a seat in the elevated Rudi-Risse-Tribüne which had a four lane straight track dividing it from the pitch. Everything was in good order and tidy without anything out of place. Kray, pronounced “Kry”, were obviously a well run club.

They also looked to train their young charges well as I was treated to an entertaining game of a good technical level. The large pitch ensured play wasn’t congested. While it’s nice to see players play from the back, I thought one or two took it a step too far. Their confidence was high.

It was an equally matched encounter with the sides finishing the first half of their thirty-five minutes each way game with rolling substitutions at 0-0. Not that it was short on incident. The Kray keeper made a couple of good stops while FSV hit the upright.

It was also a joy to see parents of all backgrounds mixing. Kray was obviously an area of high diversity. It was also becoming an area of high volume as one of the home team coaches was losing his rag.

His side were becoming increasingly frustrated and were starting to shoot when a pass was the better option. Meanwhile his keeper made a fine stop from a glancing header. The Kray number 15 was most guilty of shooting on sight. He got a proper salvo from his coach.

I thought it a little over the top. The young lad had a chunter to himself. He was faster and stronger than a lot of his opponents. Perhaps the coach was justified as the player broke down the wing on fifty-six minutes before rolling the ball square for Ali Bakri to slot home.

The lead was extended seven minutes later when Bakri was on the spot to bag his second after the FSV defence failed to clear a low cross after the visiting keeper had earlier pulled off a great stop.

The coach wasn’t done with his tirade just yet. It now the turn of referee Herr Grziwa to feel his wrath after he gave a free kick against Kray. The man in black simply help the game up and stared in silence for several seconds. A brilliant response.

It was shortly after this that I decided to head off. I had a bus I needed to catch to make the 2pm game at Stadion Essen between Rot Weiss and SC Verl. I felt cheated later in the day when I checked the fulltime score on the excellent Fussball.de website.

FSV had scored twice in the last two minutes. I had visions of the ref, sat in his favourite bar or restaurant, of which I’m sure he had several, spending his match fee in dedication to the shouty Kray coach. That’s certainly what I’d have been doing.

I’d checked my route at the break. The gate was open behind the youngster’s pitch and clubhouse. This led me back to where Krayer Straße crossed over the Autobahn and where an old colliery wheel stood as a memory to the areas former main industry.

I was impressed with Kray as a whole. It seemed a nice place, with plenty of bars and shops. The people appeared to be OK. I was glad I’d selected my particular game as I waited for the number 170 bus to take me across the city to its major club.