David Rothschild and Alfred J. Meyers become Honorary Presidents

Frankfurt am Main, 23 April 2024 – To mark its 125th anniversary this year, FSV Frankfurt 1899 e.V. will posthumously honour two particularly deserving chairmen with the title of Honorary President: Dr David Rothschild and Alfred J. Meyers. The proposal by the Executive Committee led by Michael Görner, supported by a fan initiative among others, was unanimously approved by the club’s Board of Directors at its last meeting. Both honorary presidents came from Jewish families and made a significant contribution to FSV’s success in establishing itself among the top German football clubs between 1925 and 1933.

The renowned Frankfurt lung specialist Dr David Rothschild was elected FSV chairman shortly after the narrow loss of the 1925 German football championship final and remained so until 1928. He modernised and professionalised the structure of FSV in the long term. FSV founded new departments, including women’s sport and boxing. With Rothschild, Frankfurt’s most innovative and international club at the time also made media history: on 31 January 1926, FSV’s match against Hanau 93 for the Main Championship was one of the first football matches to be broadcast live on the radio. Following persecution by the National Socialists, Rothschild died on 7 August 1936 while visiting his daughter in Stockholm, who had already emigrated.

The US-born Frankfurt entrepreneur Alfred J. Meyers was elected Rothschild’s successor in 1928. Despite the global economic crisis, the successful manager achieved the ‘miracle of the Bornheimer Hang’: just three years after taking office, FSV moved into its new stadium on the Bornheimer Hang, which remains the club’s home to this day. At the time, the new 18,000-seater stadium was considered one of the most beautiful and modern football stadiums in Germany until it was destroyed in the bombing raids of 1944. The sporting highlight of the FSV Meyers era was winning the Southern German championship in April 1933, albeit just a few weeks after the successful president had been dismissed by the brown rulers as part of the Nazi synchronisation of sports clubs. Meyers had to emigrate to the USA in 1938, but he remained connected to ‘his club’ through several post-war visits and remained unforgotten within the club. In March 2019, FSV fans commemorated the ‘father of the stadium on the Bornheimer Hang’ with an impressive choreography.