VfL Bochum
German professional football club in Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as VfL Bochum (German pronunciation: [faʊ̯ʔɛfˌʔɛl ˈboːxʊm] ), is a German professional association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. They currently play in the 2. Bundesliga following relegation from the Bundesliga in the previous season.
History
Founding to World War II
VfL Bochum is one of the oldest sports organisations in the world, claiming an origin date of 26 July 1848 when an article in the Märkischer Sprecher – a local newspaper – called for the creation of a gymnastics club. The Turnverein zu Bochum was then formally established on 18 February 1849. In December 1851, however, the club was forcibly dissolved and banned by the Prussian provincial administration then reestablished on 19 June 1860 as the Bochum Gymnastics Club. The club was reorganised in May 1904 as Turnverein zu Bochum, gegründet 1848 and formed a football department on 31 January 1911. On 1 April 1919, the club merged with Spiel und Sport 08 Bochum to form Turn- und Sportverein Bochum 1848. On 1 February 1924, the two clubs from the earlier merger split into the Bochumer Turnverein 1848 (gymnastics department) and Turn- und Sportverein Bochum 1908 (football, track and field, handball, hockey and tennis departments).
The Nazi regime forced Bochumer Turnverein 1848 to merge with Turn- und Sport Bochum 1908 and Sportverein Germania Vorwärts Bochum 1906 into the current-day club VfL Bochum on 14 April 1938.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105861. VIAF identifies the subject as 2869156919251754970002. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1848, 1849, 1851 and 1860.
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This entry incorporates text from “VfL Bochum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.