The Wiesbaden Phantoms are an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team from

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The team experienced its greatest success in 2010, earning promotion to the

German Football League The German Football League (GFL) is an American football league in Germany and was formed in 1979. Playing rules are based on those of the American National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA. In 1999, the league switched its name from ''Ameri ...

History

The club was formed in 1984, originally as a department of a local association football club and, from 1986, independent as the AFC Wiesbaden Phantoms e.V.. The Wiesbaden Phantoms first entered league football in 1985, when they joined the tier-three '' Regionalliga Mitte''. In this league, the club was instantaneously successful, winning it in 1985 and 1986. The ''Phantoms'' earned promotion to the central division of the ''2nd Bundesliga'' on the strength of these titles, a league the club would play in for the next six seasons. The team's best result in this era was a second place in 1991, but a sixth-place finish the following season saw the club relegated back to the ''Regionalliga''. The following four seasons saw the club in decline, so much so that it dropped all the way to the fifth tier ''Landesliga'' for 1998, having been unable to field a team in 1997, but it was able to recover and begun its climb back up with a title in this division. By 2000, the club was back in the third division, where it became a top side without quite achieving another promotion until 2003, when the ''Phantoms'' once more won their league and returned to the ''2nd Bundesliga''. Like in the ''Regionalliga'', the club was a strong side in the southern division of this league, finishing runners-up on five occasions in the next seven seasons. Another runners-up finish in 2010, in a league now renamed

German Football League 2 The German Football League 2 (GFL2) is the second tier of American football in Germany, below the German Football League. Until 2007, the league was known as the ''2. Bundesliga''. League structure The ''GFL2'', formerly the ''2. Bundesliga'', wh ...

, saw the team qualify for the promotion round because of an enlargement of the GFL from 12 to 14 teams. The ''Phantoms'' beat the

Weinheim Longhorns The Weinheim Longhorns are an American football team from Weinheim, Germany. The club's greatest success was promotion to the German Football League in 2006, where it spent four seasons. In this time the club reached the play-offs on three occas ...

convincingly in both promotion games and thereby achieved entry to Germany's elite league for the first time. The club came fifth in its first season in the GFL in 2011, well clear of the play-off ranks with only three wins and a draw to its name. In 2012, the club came sixth in the southern division of the GFL and thereby failed to qualify for the play-offs. The 2013 season saw the club come last in the southern division and having to enter the relegation round where it lost to

Allgäu Comets The Allgäu Comets are an American football team from Kempten, Germany. The club is named after the Allgäu region of Bavaria, of which Kempten is the largest town. The club was originally formed as the Kempten Comets and renamed Allgäu Comets i ...

and was relegated from the GFL to the GFL2, where it came second in 2014 and fifth in 2015. 2016 the Phantoms reached a 10–4 record under Head Coach Patrick Griesheimer and became third best team of the GFL2 but decreased to 4–7–1 in 2017. After finishing the season only on sixth place in 2016 the Phantoms changed their coaching staff. In 2017 Andy McMillan became Head Coach of the Phantoms to play two seasons with the team - McMillan had a 7–7 record in his first and a 5–7 record in his second season – worth a fifth and a sixth place in the GFL2. In 2020 the Phantoms did not play a season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tibor Gohmert – former coach of the GFL team Marburg Mercenaries – became new Head Coach in 2020, planning to play his first season in 2021.

Honours

* GFL ** League membership: (3) 2011–2013

Recent seasons

Recent seasons of the club:Football History
Historic American football tables from Germany, accessed: 21 January 2010GFL 2011
www.football-aktuell.de, accessed: 18 September 2011GFL 2 2010
www.football-aktuell.de, accessed: 21 January 2011 * RR = Relegation round * PR = Promotion round * In the 2011 season, the game against Plattling Black Hawks was not played.

References

External links

*
Official website
*
German Football League official website
*
Football History
Historic American football tables from Germany {{German Football League clubs American football teams in Germany German Football League teams American football teams established in 1984 Sport in Wiesbaden 1984 establishments in West Germany American football in Hesse