1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig

The club was formed as VfB Leipzig on 13 May, 1896, out of the football department of the gymnastics club Allgemeine Turnverein 1845 Leipzig. However, the club laid claim to an earlier date of origin by reaching back to a club that was merged with VfB Leipzig in 1898, the SC Sportbrüder Leipzig, which was one of four football clubs formed in Leipzig in 1893.

Following the merger with SC Sportbrüder Leipzig, the club competed under the name VfB Sportbrüder 1893 Leipzig. VfB Sportbrüder 1893 Leipzig was one of the original 86 teams that came together in the city on 28 January 1900 to form the German Football Association (DFB). On 2 May, 1900, the Sportbrüder 1893 part of the name was dropped, and the team became again known as VfB Leipzig.

The team that won the first German league championship in 1903.

Eintritts-Karte Fussballwettspiel um die Meisterschaft von Deutschland Pfingstsonntag, 31. Mai 1903 Nachm. 4 Uhr Exerzierplatz Altona

VfB Leipzig were immediately successful at their chosen sport and made their way to the first German national championship final held in 1903. Their opponents were DFC Prag, a German-Jewish side from Prague, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. The DFB had invited "German" clubs of this sort from other countries in order to boost numbers in their new national association.

DFC Prag had made their way to the final under circumstances that had allowed them to avoid playing a single playoff match, while VfB Leipzig had come through some hard-fought matches. Arriving in Hamburg for the match, the heavily favoured Pragers took themselves off on an ill-advised pub crawl the night before the contest and so arrived on the pitch in less than ideal match shape. The contest was delayed by half an hour as officials scrambled to find a football that was in good condition. The host, FC 93 Altona Hamburg, provided a new ball, and 11 minutes in, DFC Prag scored the first goal. At the end of the first half, the score stood at 1–1, but VfB Leipzig then pulled away to emerge as the first winners of the Viktoria Meisterschaftstrophäe ("Victoria Championship Trophy"), representative of German football supremacy, on the strength of a decisive 7–2 victory.

VfB Leipzig played themselves into another final appearance in 1904, but the match was never contested. A protest by FV Karlsruhe over their disputed semi-final with Britannia Berlin was never resolved, and the DFB called off the final only hours before its scheduled start. There would be no champion that year. The following season, VfB Leipzig found themselves unable to cover the expense of travelling to participate in their scheduled first-round playoff match and so were eliminated from that year's competition. However, they did go on to raise the Viktoria again in 1906 and 1913 and also played in the 1911 and 1914 finals.

In the period leading up to World War II, VfB Leipzig was unable to repeat its early success. Gyula Kertész coached the side from 1932-33.[2]

After the reorganization of German football leagues under the Third Reich in 1933, the club found itself in Gauliga Sachsen, one of the 16 upper-tier divisions. While they earned strong results within their own division, they were unable to advance in the playoff rounds. In 1937, they captured the Tschammerpokal, known today as the DFB-Pokal, in a match against Schalke 04, the dominant side of the era.

Historical chart of Lokomotive Leipzig league performance

1. Lok Leipzig team photo, 23 August 1983.

The club, like most other organizations in Germany, including sports and football clubs, was dissolved by the occupying Allied authorities in the aftermath of the war. Club members reconstituted the team in 1946 as SG Probstheida under the auspices of the occupying Soviets. After playing as BSG Erich Zeigner Probstheida and then BSG Einheit Ost, the club merged with sports club SC Rotation Leipzig in 1954 and played in the DDR-Oberliga, East Germany's top-flight league, but earned only mediocre results. In 1963, the city of Leipzig's two most important sports clubs, SC Rotation and SC Lokomotive Leipzig, were merged, resulting in the founding of two new sides: SC Leipzig and BSG Chemie Leipzig.

East German football went through a general reorganization in 1965, creating football clubs as centres of high-level football, during which the football department of SC Leipzig was separated from the sports club and reformed into football club 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, while rival Chemie Leipzig continued as a Betriebssportgemeinschaft (BSG), or corporate team. Like most East German clubs, it was assigned to a publicly owned enterprise as its "sponsor". In the case of Lokomotive, the providing enterprise was Deutsche Reichsbahn—the East German state railways—hence the name. The club's fortunes improved somewhat as they almost always finished well up the league table, but they were unable to capture the top honour in the DDR-Oberliga with losing final appearances in 1967, 1986, and 1988.

Lok earned a clutch of East German Cups (FDGB Pokal) with victories in 1976, 1981, 1986, and 1987, against failed appearances in the Cup final in 1970, 1973, and 1977. They also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1966 and made an appearance in the 1987 final of the European Cup Winners' Cup, falling 0-1 to Johan Cruyff's Ajax after a Marco van Basten goal.

The re-unification in 1990 was followed by the merger of the football leagues of the two Germanies[3] a year later. A poor season led to a seventh-place finish in the transitional league, but an unexpectedly strong playoff propelled the club into the 2. Bundesliga.

1. FC Lokomotive grasped at their former glory by reclaiming the name VfB Leipzig. A third-place finish in 1993 advanced the team to the top-flight Bundesliga, where they finished last in the 1994 season. The new VfB began a steady slide down through the 2. Bundesliga into the Regionalliga Nordost (III) by 1998 and then further still to the NOFV-Oberliga Süd (IV) by 2001. They were bankrupted in 2004, their results were annulled, and the club was dissolved.

In late 2003, the club was re-established by a group of fans as 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig. The renewed side had to start in the lowest league, eleventh-tier 3. Kreisklasse, Staffel 2, in 2004–05. Even so, they continued to receive solidly enthusiastic fan support: their match against Eintracht Großdeuben's second team in the Leipzig Zentralstadion on 9 October, 2004, broke the world record for lower-league attendance with 12,421 spectators. Thanks to a merger with SSV Torgau, the club could play in the seventh-tier Bezirksklasse Leipzig, Staffel 2, in 2005–06. Finishing this league as champions, the team qualified for the sixth-tier Bezirksliga. In 2006, 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig also played a friendly match against FC United of Manchester (4–4) and qualified for the 2006–07 Landespokal by winning the Bezirkspokal. 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig finished as champions of their group and were promoted to the fifth-tier Landesliga Sachsen Group for the 2007–08 season. The club finished second to Erzgebirge Aue and missed out on direct promotion to the NOFV-Oberliga Süd by two points in the 2007–08 season. It still had the chance to regain Oberliga status through a relegation play-off with Schönberg, winning the first leg 2–1 at Schönberg. In the return leg, in front of almost 10,000 spectators, the club lost 0–1 but still gained Oberliga promotion via the away goals rule.[4]

1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig finished the Oberliga in third place in 2008–09, 12th in 2009–10, and eighth in 2010–11. 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig was promoted to Regionalliga Nordost after finishing Oberliga sixth due to the reserve teams of FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt, Dynamo Dresden, and FC Carl Zeiss Jena being ineligible for promotion. Lokomotive finished in tenth place in the 2012–13 season but were relegated to Oberliga Nordost after finishing 15th in 2013–14.[5][6]

The club stayed in contention for promotion back up to the Regionalliga during the 2014–15 season, having hired former German international Mario Basler as director of sports in early 2015. In the final match of the season, Lok supporters stormed the field after their club had fallen behind 2–0, forcing the match to be abandoned and the club to finish outside of the promotion ranks.[7] The club finished in first place in the southern group of the NOFV-Oberliga and returned to the Regionalliga Nordost for the 2016–17 season.

• German Championship
  • Winners: 1903,[lower-alpha 1] 1906,[lower-alpha 1] 1913[lower-alpha 1]
  • Runners-up: 1904[lower-alpha 1](uncontested), 1911,[lower-alpha 1] 1914[lower-alpha 1]
• DDR-Oberliga
  • Runners-up: 1966–67, 1985–86, 1987–88

• DFB-Pokal
  • Winners: 1936[lower-alpha 1]
• FDGB-Pokal
  • Winners: 1975–76, 1980–81, 1985–86, 1986–87
  • Runners-up: 1958,[lower-alpha 2] 1963–64,[lower-alpha 3] 1969–70, 1972–73, 1976–77

• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
  • Runners-up: 1986–87 (Lost 0-1 to AFC Ajax)
• UEFA Cup
  • Semi-finalist: 1973–74
• International Football Cup (Intertoto Cup)
  • Winners (1): 1965–66
  • Runners-up: 1964–65[lower-alpha 1]

• Central German football championship (I)
  • Winners (11): 1903,[lower-alpha 1] 1904,[lower-alpha 1] 1906,[lower-alpha 1] 1907,[lower-alpha 1] 1910,[lower-alpha 1] 1911,[lower-alpha 1] 1913,[lower-alpha 1] 1918,[lower-alpha 1] 1920,[lower-alpha 1] 1925,[lower-alpha 1] 1927[lower-alpha 1]
  • Runners-up: 1914,[lower-alpha 1] 1923,[lower-alpha 1] 1930[lower-alpha 1]
• Gauliga Sachsen (I)
  • Runners-up: 1933–34,[lower-alpha 1] 1938–39[lower-alpha 1]
• Regionalliga Nordost (IV)
  • Winners: 2019–20
• NOFV-Oberliga Süd (V)
  • Winners: 2015–16
  • Runners-up: 1998–99,[lower-alpha 1] 1999–2000,[lower-alpha 2] 2000–01
• Sachsenliga (VI)
  • Winners: 1998[lower-alpha 2]
• Saxony Cup
  • Winners: 1995–96,[lower-alpha 2] 2020–21, 2022–23
  • Runners-up: 2016–17

• East German Junior Championship (de)[lower-alpha 1]
  • Winners: 1961,[lower-alpha 2] 1971, 1974, 1976, 1977
  • Runners-up: 1964,[lower-alpha 3] 1972, 1982
• East German Youth Championship (de)[lower-alpha 4]
  • Winners: 1969, 1971, 1979, 1981, 1984 (record)
  • Runners-up: 1966, 1970, 1978, 1980
• East German Junior Cup (Junge Welt-Pokal) (de)[lower-alpha 1]
  • Winners: 1971, 1974, 1975, 1988
• East German Youth Cup (Youth FDGB-Pokal) [lower-alpha 4]
  • Winners: 1959,[lower-alpha 2] 1968