...the first German soccer championship was played. Don't tell it to German fans today, who reject the American system, but also in Germany playoffs were the traditional mode from 1903-1962. The first final in 1903: VfB Leipzig vs DFC Prague (DFC = German Football Club). Leipzig won 7-2 The curiosities: - Prague played there without any qualifying game (6 team playoffs; there were 28 local association, but most of them did not have the money to send a team to nationwide playoffs). Reason: they faked a DFB telegram and sent it to opponents Karlsruher FV - content: game is cancelled and will be played at a later date. KFV naturally did not travel and Prague was ruled to be the winner as DFB oddly said that Karlsruhe should have done a controlling phone call to DFB after the arrival of the telegram. - Leipzig's team had an average age of 20.5. The 11 who travelled there had to earn the money themselves for the journey. It was enough to travel 3rd class in a night train from Leipzig to Hamburg. The train was crowded. - the game was played in Hamburg-Altona in front of a 500 attendance. - the pitch had ropes as side limits - to stop passengers from crossing a path that ran across the pitch. - organiser of the final was Franz Behr - he also collected the ticket money and was referee. Unfortunately he forgot to bring a ball. They had to loan one from a local club, but the game started with half an hour delay as they had to pump up the ball with the mouth.
Actually, I don`t believe anything of this story. According to my book, there has been a 2000 audience.
My source is a kicker article. kicker has the information from the books: - Ein Jahrhundert Leipziger Fußball, Teil 1 - Ein Jahrhundert VfB Leipzig - Deutsches Fußballjahrbuch 1904/05 - 100 Jahre DFB