We recently introduced our Lost Champions series in which we take a look at the stories of the dozens of past national champion clubs from across Europe who no longer exist today. Our first national feature in the series was dedicated to Germany and its eight extinct former champions from both the unified national League and the former East German Oberliga.
As a follow-up to that post we’re pleased to announce a collaboration with Chris Oakley of Football Attic fame. Chris shares our fascination for retro football and finding creative ways to bring it to the attention of a contemporary audience. He’s also a fine illustrator and we’ve been long been fans of his football kit designs that you can see in all their glory on his Kitbliss site.
So we asked Chris to imagine how the contemporary strips of our Lost Champions might look today had these formerly successful clubs carried on in their original form rather than drifting out of existence. As is our way on BTLM, we sought to bring as high a degree of historical authenticity as possible to the project with strip colours and styles based closely upon historical precedent – plus a contemporary twist added to bring them bang up to date.
The shirt sponsors are imagined although each makes reference in some respect to the club’s past historical links, or at the very least its geography. We’re really happy with the results and we’re pleased that Chris will be supplying modern strip reimaginings for our entire Lost Champions series.
Click on any of the images below to view at a higher resolution:
Beyond The Last Man 
Hi, my name´s Martin, and I´m from Germany. I have to say that three of these clubs are still existing (Dresdner SC, BFC Viktoria and Karlsruher FV).
https://dresdner-sc.de/
http://www.viktoria-berlin.de/
http://www.karlsruher-fv1891.de/
But still a phantastic series about old champions. Sorry to take some nostalgic illusions 😉
Hi there Martin,
In the opening post of the Lost Champions series I explain the criteria I use to determine which clubs qualify. Dresdner SC disappeared post WW2 and although it returned in the early 1990s, I deemed it to be too long between iterations of the club for it to be seen as a genuine successor.
Similarly Viktoria Berlin has been through a number of mergers meaning there has been a number of stages of separation there and KFV went out of business in 2004. Had the club continued immediately then it would qualify as a successor, but there was a 3 year absence for the club.
Cheers,
Craig
Hi Craig,
thanks for your clarification. I hope you’ll keep woring about that series and i’m excited about what’s coming.
cheering back, Martin
Thanks for the nice comments and yes, quite a few other European countries will feature in the series.