Altonaer FC von 1893, commonly known as Altona 93 and abbreviated to AFC, is a
German association football club based in the
Altona district of the city of
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
. The football team is a department of a larger sports club which also offers
handball,
karate,
table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
, and
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...
.
__TOC__
History
Late in the nineteenth century, a number of sports having their origins in England – including
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
,
rugby, and football – were introduced to continental Europe where they enjoyed considerable popularity. This club was founded on 29 July 1893 as ''Altonaer Cricketclub'' by a group of students who also demonstrated an early interest in football. In 1894, the club was renamed ''Altonaer Fussball und Cricket Club'' and then ''Altonaer Fussball Club'' in quick succession.
''Altona'' is one of Germany's oldest football clubs: they were part of the Altona-Hamburg football league formed in 1894, as well as one of the
founding clubs of the
German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) at
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
in 1900. In 1903 at their home ground, they hosted the first-ever German national championship final played between ''