FC St. Pauli is a German sports club based in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg.

The football department is part of a larger club that also has Rugby, American football, baseball, bowling, boxing, chess, cycling, handball, skittles, softball and table tennis teams. While the footballers have enjoyed only modest success on the field, the club is widely recognized for its unique culture and has a large popular following as one of the country's "Kult" clubs.[citation needed]. After dropping down to the Regionalliga, the then third football division in Germany, in 2002/2003 and remaining there for four years, in 2007 St.

Pauli promoted back to the 2. Bundesliga and managed to stay there for the current 2008/2009 season. The club began its existence in 1899 as a loose, informal group of football enthusiasts within the Hamburg-St.

Pauli Turn-Verein 1862. This group did not play its first match until 1907 against a similar side assembled out of the local Aegir swimming club. Officially established on May 15, 1910, the club played as St.

Pauli TV in the Kreisliga Groß-Hamburg (Alsterkreis) until 1924 when a separate football side called FC St. Pauli was formed. The team played as an undistinguished lower-to-mid table side until making their first appearance in 1934 in the top-flight Gauliga Nordmark, one of sixteen premier level divisions created in the re-organization of German football that took place under the Third Reich.

They were immediately relegated, but returned to the top flight in 1936. Relegated again in 1940, St. Pauli would re-appear in the Gauliga Hamburg in 1942 and play there through to the end of World War II.

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