Fussball-Club Koln 01/07. V. is commonly referred to as FC Koln (German pronunciation: [ef 'tse "koeln(listen)] (listen)) (also known as FC Cologne in English, is an German professional football club that is based within Cologne within North Rhine-Westphalia. The club was established in 1948 after a result of a merger between the clubs Kolner Ballspiel Club 1901, and SpVgg Sulz 07. Koln plays in the Bundesliga following the club was promoted in 2018-19 after being relegated to 2. Bundesliga in the previous season. The team is two-time top-flight winners, having won the Bundesliga in 1964 and 1978. The team plays games at home in the RheinEnergieStadion.
The nickname of the club Die Geissbocke (The Billy Goats) refers to the mascot that the club has A male goat named Hennes after the legendary FC manager and player Hennes Weisweiler. In the beginning, Hennes was given by a circus owner to be used as an idea for a Cologne circus joke. The present mascot is Hennes IX at the time on 1 August 2019, following the fact that Hennes VIII was taken off the team because of age. Another name for the club which is more well-known in the local area due to its ambiguity is FC (often known as Effzeh) is a popular German abbreviation that is used to refer to football clubs. The dialect that is prevalent in the vicinity of Cologne the pronunciation is "EF-tsay" as opposed with"EF-tsay", which is the Standard German pronunciation of the abbreviation in which the second syllable of the word is emphasised ([?ef "tse"]). :]). Koln are home-based and play in red and white and red, both colors having been utilized as the primary shirt colours throughout the history of the club. Koln has long-running rivalries with the nearby clubs Borussia Monchengladbach, Fortuna Dusseldorf along with Bayer Leverkusen.
Like many of Germany's professional soccer clubs 1. FC Koln is part of the larger club of sports with teams in other sports , such as handball, table tennis, and gymnastics. 1. FC Koln has over 100,000 members which makes it the fourth-largest soccer club in Germany.
