| Teamname: | Berliner SV 92 Rugby |
| Fullname: | Berliner Sport-Verein 1892 e.V. |
| Countryflag: | Germany |
| Founded: | 1892 (club) 1936 (rugby department) |
| Ground: | Forcke |
| Chairman: | Matthias Scheuerlein Frank Adam Tina Urbach |
| Coach: | Marek Sniowski Branimir Niko Colic |
| League: | Rugby 2. Bundesliga Ost |
| Season: | 2018–2021 |
| Position: | League Champinions, 1st |
| Url: | www.bsv92rugby.de/ |
The Berliner SV 92 Rugby is a German rugby union club from Berlin, currently playing in the 2. Rugby Bundesliga Ost. It is part of a larger club, the Berliner SV 92, which also offers other sports like association football, baseball and basketball.
Rugby union within the BSV 92 club begun in 1936, the year of the Olympic games in Berlin and the tournament there. The rugby department of Tennis Borussia Berlin, having existed for just eight years and won five Berlin championships in this time, collectively left the club to join BSV. The reasons for the move were the lack of support the rugby players got at Tennis Borussia and the fact that most players lived closer to BSV, which was based in Wilmersdorf, while Tennis Borussia had their playing fields in Niederschönhausen.[1]
The club provided a conveniently located playing field at Lochowdamm for the rugby players, who were led by Paul König. The new department continued its dominance in the Berlin championship, winning it once more in 1937 and providing the core to Berlin selection teams out of the eight rugby clubs in the city in the years before the war.[1]
With Erwin Thiesies and "Jonny" Richter, the club provided two players to the team that achieved Germany's last rugby victory over France, a 3-0 on 27 March 1938 in Frankfurt am Main.[2]
The Second World War brought an end to Berlin as a centre of German rugby and BSV 92 lost many of its players during the war. It nevertheless resumed play, temporarily under the name of SG Wilmersdorf, after the war, winning two more Berlin championships, in 1947 and 1948 before being restored to its old name in 1949.[1]
The club's greatest moment came in 1948, when it reached the first post-Second World War final of the German rugby union championship, which it lost 0-30 to TSV Victoria Linden. It also marked the last appearance of a club from Berlin in the German final for over 40 years, until 1989, when the Berliner RC lost to the same club.[3]
Post-war rugby in Berlin mainly survived through the help of the allied occupation forces and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 made playing the sport in the city even harder, cutting off many players in the now separate parts of the city. BSV continued to be a successful side in Berlin until 1956, winning all but the 1955 championship during this time, but none after that.[1]
In 1965, the club suffered another blow when it lost many of its players associated with the local police to a new rugby department at the police sport club. The club managed to compensate for this loss in the early 1970s by developing a successful youth department.[1]
BSV 92 was not part of the new Rugby-Bundesliga, formed in 1971 and remained in local competitions instead. It reached national level however in 2007, when it earned promotion to the 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East, the second tier of German rugby. At this level, the club lasted for two seasons before returning to the tier-three Rugby-Regionalliga in 2009, where it played for two seasons. After a second place and the league champions, RK 03 Berlin II, declining promotion, BSV moved back up instead.
A league reform in 2012 allowed the club promotion to the Bundesliga as the league was expanded from ten to 24 teams. BSV 92 finished fourth in their group in the 2012-13 season and qualified for the north/east division of the championship round, where it came eighth. The club opted to not play their first round play-off match, citing player shortage, and was thereby knocked out of the championship with the game awarded 50-0 to the opposition.[4]
The club qualified for the championship round once more in 2013–14 but missed out on the play-offs after finishing seventh in its division. In the 2014–15 season the club finished fourth in the north-east DRV-Pokal group and was knocked out by RC Rottweil in the quarter-finals of the play-offs after a first round victory over TGS Hausen. For the 2015–16 season the club dropped back to the tier three Rugby-Regionalliga.
Recent seasons of the club:[5]
| Year | Division | Position | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997-98 | 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East (II) | 7th | |
| 1998-99 | 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East | 6th | |
| 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East relegation round | 4th - Relegated | ||
| 1999-2000 | |||
| 2000-01 | |||
| 2001-02 | |||
| 2002-03 | |||
| 2003-04 | Rugby-Regionalliga East (North) (III) | 5th | |
| Placings round 1 | 3rd | ||
| 2004-05 | Rugby-Regionalliga East A | 5th | |
| Placings round 1 | 1st | ||
| 2005-06 | Rugby-Regionalliga East A | 4th | |
| Placings round 1 | 1st | ||
| 2006-07 | Rugby-Regionalliga East A | 1st | |
| North/East championship round | 3rd - Promoted | ||
| 2007–08 | 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East (II) | 9th | |
| 2008–09 | 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East | 9th - Relegated | |
| 2009–10 | Rugby-Regionalliga East (III) | 2nd | |
| Rugby-Regionalliga East A | 1st | ||
| 2010–11 | Rugby-Regionalliga East | 2nd - Promoted | |
| 2011–12 | 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East | 7th - Promoted | |
| 2012–13 | Rugby-Bundesliga qualification round – East | 4th | |
| Rugby-Bundesliga championship round – North-East | 8th - Round of sixteen | ||
| 2013–14 | Rugby-Bundesliga qualification round – East | 3rd | |
| Rugby-Bundesliga championship round – North-East | 7th | ||
| 2014–15 | Rugby-Bundesliga qualification round – East | 5th | |
| DRV-Pokal – North-East | 4th — Quarter finals | ||
| 2015–16 | Rugby-Regionalliga East (III) | 4th | |
| 2016–17 | Rugby-Regionalliga East (III) | 2nd — Promoted | |
| 2017–18 | Rugby 2nd Bundesliga East | 1st — League Champion | |
| 2018–21 | Rugby 2nd Bundesliga East | 1st — League Champion |