Hanover 96

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The Hannoversche Sportverein of 1896 e.V., commonly known as Hannover 96, is a sports club in Hannover. Its sports offer includes the sports of badminton, bowling, darts, floorball, football, handicap sports, bowling, athletics, chess, swimming, dancing, tennis, table tennis, table football and triathlon, as well as the departments “Fit & Kids”, “Tradition” and the “Fan department”. The club currently has about 21,000 members, making it one of the 30 sports clubs with the largest number of members in Germany, about 2,200 are active or passive members of the individual sports, the remaining members have been recruited from the fan scene of the professional football team since the 2000s through a newly created support membership.

Hannover 96 is known mainly for its footballers, who became German champions in 1938 and 1954 and played mainly in the highest German league. In 1992, the professionals became second division DFB Cup winners, in the 2010s they twice reached the knockout phase of the Europa League. The License Players Division has been operating since the 20th century. December 1999 to Hannover 96 GmbH & Co. KGaA, whose limited partnership shares since autumn 2014 are fully held by Hannover 96 Sales & Service GmbH & Co. KG, the majority of which is owned by the long-standing club president Martin Kind. The managing director and fully liable general partner is Hannover 96 Management GmbH, whose shares are fully held by the association, thus respecting the 50+1 rule.

Although Hannover 96 has the club colors black and white green, the players of the football teams are called "the red" by the fans because of the traditional red home shirts. This is because at that time the clubs HSC Hannover, Arminia Hannover and Hannover 96 all had the club colors black and white green. The three clubs agreed that Arminia will play Hannover in blue jerseys, the HSC Hannover in black and white green and Hannover 96 in red. Since 1930 at the latest, the 96ers have been called “red shirts” in newspapers. Already the predecessor “Hanover Football Club of 1896” used red jerseys despite the black-white-green club colors. The club anthem is 96 – Old Love.

The team’s home stadium is the Lower Saxony Stadium, built in 1954, which today bears the sponsor name Heinz-von-Heiden-Arena. The amateur footballers of Hannover 96 played their home games in the club's own Eilenriedestadion until 2008, then they played first in today's Lower Saxony Stadium and since 2012 in the Beekestadion, to return there in 2016 after the conversion of the Eilenriedestadion. On January 17, 2011, the street where the stadium and office are located was renamed Robert Enke Street by the city of Hanover from Arthur-Menge-Ufer after the late 96-goalkeeper.

In May 2014 Hannover 96 decided to build a young talent centre on the grounds of the Eilenriedestadion. D