VfR Kaiserslautern
Ground: Waldstadion am Erbsenberg
Capacity: 5,000
Club Founded: 1906
League: Kreisliga A Westpfalz - 9th Tier (current level)
While overshadowed by its famous neighbour FC Kaiserslautern, VfR Kaiserslautern continue to play an important role in the local football community with a proud history of developing grassroots football in the region.
Club History
Early Years and Mergers
VfR Kaiserslautern is a football club, formed through a complicated series of mergers of other local clubs.
Three other clubs, VfB 1906, FC Barbarossa 08 and FC Viktoria 05, merged to become Kaiserslauterer Fußball-Vereinigung 1910. The new club would rename itself SpVgg 1910, which amalgamated with FC Bayern 1906 Kaiserslautern in March 1920, to form the club that became known as VfR Kaiserslautern.
The Fritz Walter Years
In 1925, the club opened its Waldstadion am Erbsenberg stadium. During the Second World War, the club joined forces temporarily with 1. FC Kaiserlautern to compete in Gauliga Westmark, one of sixteen top-flight regional divisions, established by the ruling Third Reich. When peace was restored, the club wasn’t included in the Oberliga Saarpfalz.
Instead, they competed in Amateurliga Westphalia. Under head coach and local hero Fritz Walter, the team reached Oberliga Südwest for the 1949-50 season. German international Ernst Otto Willimowski played for VfR for five years as the club continued to play in one of the several top-level leagues.
Second-Tier VfR
VfR were relegated twice, but on both occasions the team regrouped and won promotion to the Oberliga at the first attempt. Following the advent of the Bundesliga from the 1963-64 season, VfR were given a place in Regionalliga Südwest, one of five second-tier divisions.
The club was relegated to Amateurliga Südwest, winning the league title in 1965-66 but failing to secure promotion through the play-off rounds. VfR finished as runners-up behind FC Phönix Bellheim in the first season of the new decade.
Decline
Within a few years, the club descended to the Bezirksliga, where the team remained over the next few decades, with one or two ups and downs, including a spell in the Bezirksklasse Westpfalz Nord, one of 450 ninth-level divisions around Germany.
VfR finished as runners-up four times from 2011-12 before winning promotion back to the eighth-tier Bezirksliga Westpfalz. Timo Mangold's goals helped VfR finish runners-up and promotion in 2017-18 to the Landesliga West.
VfR were relegated in 2023-24 to the Bezirksliga Westpfalz with Babak Anisi at the helm. He was replaced as trainer by Moritz Nicolay for the 2024-25 campaign. The slide continued with the team going down again twelve months later.
My visit
I’d awoken in my Frankfurt hotel in not the best condition, which I put down to the local applewein. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to let a bit of a hangover stop me from enjoying the third day of my latest German adventure.
Stadium Visit - Sunday 22nd October 2017
Hangover Cure Required
I’d awoken in my Frankfurt hotel in not the best condition, which I put down to the local applewein. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to let a bit of a hangover stop me from enjoying the third day of my latest German adventure.
A bit of bread and cheese, along with a coffee and water, began to bring me round as I boarded my train, before changing onto a more local service at Mannheim. The ride to Kaiserslautern took in some fine scenery as we went along through some steep-sided valleys.
Positive Time to Kill
There were over three hours before the kick-off of my match in the city; the second-tier Bundesliga clash between 1. FC Kaiserslautern and MSV Duisburg, so a walk up the hill to visit VfR Kaiserslautern fitted perfectly into my plans.
From the main station, I walked along Kohlenhofstraße and then the start of the hill of Kantstraße, before taking the narrow lane of Erbsenberg, where a flight of steps took me straight to the entrance of Waldstadion am Erbsenberg.
Wonderful Surprise
The clubhouse was due to open twenty minutes later, and the gates to the ground were open, allowing me to have a good look inside and take some photos. I was glad I made the effort to see a historic old venue.
The centrepiece was an old wooden raised grandstand with the clubhouse behind it. Some overgrown open terracing stood on either side. Both ends had curves, without a track. The Süd curve had more terracing and a scoreboard, and a red clay pitch behind.
The far touchline had further overgrown open steps; as I suspect did the Nord curve, albeit now masked by trees and greenery. I could hear youthful voices coming from the small pitch behind that end. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the ground teaming with 15,000 fans cheering on their heroes in local derbies in years gone by.
It still maintained a special aura and charm that modern-built grounds couldn't match. Once done, I headed back down the hill and into town, before heading back up it to the 1. FC Kaiserslautern game.