AUSTRIA: DSG Sele Zell

Stadion pod Košuto / Koschutastadion, Sele = Zell Sele-Šajda = Zell-Schaida (DSG Sele Zell)

Austria, state: Carinthia = Karinthië

15 VIII 2024 / DSG Sele Zell - DSG Ferlach 2-5 / Carinthia, Unterliga Ost (= AUT level 5)

Timeline

• 1960 / Foundation of a sports club in Sele, a Slovenian-speaking set of hamlets in the Karawanks mountains south of Ferlach, called Zell in German, with the initiative being taken by a local chaplain, Ivan Matko. Initially, the new club, which is given the long-winding name Diözesansportgemeinschaft (DSG) Kärnten-Union, Ortsgruppe Zell-Pfarre (in other words, a sub-group of a larger regional sports club), focuses on alpine sports exclusively. Later, table-tennis is also added to the spectre of activities. From the outset, the club is regarded as more than an opportunity to practice sports, with the maintaining of the Slovene language and local village culture being considered as equally important. 
• 1965 / DSG Kärnten-Union, Ortsgruppe Zell-Pfarre continues as an independent sports club under the name DSG Sele Zell. 
• 1972 / A group of youths from Sele expresses the desire to form a football team. Due to lack of a pitch in Sele itself, the team plays its home matches in the nearby village of St. Johann im Rosental – with no affiliation to any football association or participation in a league being searched yet. Meanwhile, a group of volunteers led by DSG Sele Zell’s chairman Florian Oraže undertakes laying out a football pitch at the foot of the Koschuta Mountain in Sele-Šajda (Zell-Schaida).
• 1975 / Inauguration of the pitch in Sele-Šajda, later baptised the Stadion pod Košuto (or Koschutastadion in German), on July 27th, 1975. Meanwhile, DSG Sele Zell’s football branch has joined the Carinthian Football Association (KFV), starting its existence at the very bottom of the regional league ladder.
• 1983 / DSG Sele Zell wins the title in Group F of Carinthia’s 2. Klasse, thus winning promotion to the 1. Klasse.
• 1984 / Clinching its second title in a row, DSG Sele Zell finishes in first place in Group D of Carinthia’s 1. Klasse, thus winning promotion to the Unterliga. It is unclear how long this spell in the Unterliga lasted – and neither how the club fared in the years until the turn of the century.
• 2000 / With an inn nearby having served as clubhouse so far, the year 2000 sees the inauguration of a clubhouse at the Stadion pod Košuto itself.
• 2003 / Champions in Group D of Carinthia’s 2. Klasse, DSG Sele Zell wins promotion to the 1. Klasse.
• 2006 / Champions in Group D of Carinthia’s 1. Klasse, DSG Sele Zell wins promotion to the Unterliga.
• 2007 / In a third promotion in five seasons, DSG Sele Zell manages to climb from the Unterliga to the Carinthia State League (Kärntner Liga), the fourth level of Austria’s league pyramid, for the first time. The match against Klagenfurter AC 1909, in which the decisive points are clinched, is attended by some 1,200 spectators.
• 2008 / In the Carinthia State League, DSG Sele Zell draws an average of 330 spectators in home games – all the more impressive, when one realises this amounts to half of the municipality’s number of inhabitants. In the end, the club finishes in fourteenth third-last place, 1 point short of SC Landskron, which stays up in the league – while the fourteenth place would have been enough to avoid relegation, were it not for the fact that an extra team from Carinthia dropped down from the third-tier Regional League that season. As such, DSG Sele Zell descends back into the Unterliga after one season, along with Klagenfurter AC 1909 and bottom club ASKÖ Gmünd.
• 2009 / Finishing in fourteenth place in the Unterliga Ost – with an equal number of points as three other teams, which all stay up thanks to a better goal difference – DSG Sele Zell drops back into the 1. Klasse along with SV Union Ruden and bottom club SC Globasnitz. 
• 2010 / Runners-up in Group D of Carinthia’s 1. Klasse, 1 point behind champions SV Union Ruden, DSG Sele Zell manages a return to the Unterliga, finishing in third position in 2011 and managing safe mid-table positions in subsequent seasons.
• 2019 / DSG Sele Zell narrowly avoids relegation from the Unterliga Ost, finishing in twelfth place and staying up only by virtue of its goal difference.
• 2023 / DSG Sele Zell narrowly avoids relegation from the Unterliga Ost, finishing in thirteenth place, 1 point above the relegation zone.

All photos: (c) W.B. Tukker / www.extremefootballtourism.blogspot.com. Publication of any of these images only after permission of author