The Sportklub Rapid Wien (known in English as Rapid Vienna) is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid is the most popular club in Austria and also record title holder having won the Austrian national football title 32 times. It also prides itself as the only team from the former Ostmark, then part of the German Reich, to win the German war-time league in 1941 – as Austria was incorporated into Germany during World War II. The Rapid squad is often known as the "Green-Whites" for its team colours or as Hütteldorfer for the location of the Gerhard Hanappi Stadium, which is in Hütteldorf, part of the city's 14th district, Penzing.
The club was founded in 1898 as Erster Wiener Arbeiter-Fußball-Club (en:First Workers' Football Club of Vienna). The team's original colours were red and blue, which are still often used in away matches. On 8 January 1899 the club was renamed, taking on its present name of Sportklub Rapid Wien, following the example of Rapide Berlin. In 1904, the team colours were changed to green and white.
The 1. Arbeiter FC in 1898
One of the best teams in early European football, Rapid became a dominant force during the years between the world wars, when Austria was one of the leading football nations on the continent. After the Anschluss of Austria to Germany in 1938, Rapid was part of German football competition, playing in the regional first division Gauliga Ostmark along with clubs such as Wacker Wien and Admira Vienna. Rapid would be the most successful of these clubs. They won the Tschammerpokal, predecessor of today's German Cup, in 1938 with a 3–1 victory over FSV Frankfurt, and followed that with a German Championship in 1941 by defeating Schalke 04, the most dominant German club of the era. The team was able to overcome a 3–0 Schalke lead to win the match by a final score of 4–3 through strength and endurance – the traditional virtues of Rapid players known as the Rapidgeist or "Rapid Spirit".
Almost since the club's beginnings, Rapid fans have announced the last fifteen minutes of the game by way of the legendary "Rapidviertelstunde" – rhythmic clapping at home or away no matter what the score. The first mention of the practise goes back to 1913, and in 1919 a newspaper wrote about the fans clapping at the beginning of the "Rapidviertelstunde". Over the decades, there were many instances where the team managed to turn around a seemingly hopeless situation by not giving up and, with their fans' support, fighting their way to a win just before the final whistle.
Rapid is Austria's record titleholder, winning these a total of 32 times to date. The club won a German Championship and German Cup while part of that country's football competition from 1938–45, following the annexation of Austria by Germany on 12 March 1938.
- National Austrian Championship (32): 1912, 1913, 1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1946, 1948, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1995–96, 2004–05, 2007–08
- Austrian Cup (14): 1919, 1920, 1927, 1946, 1961, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1995
- Austrian Supercup: 1986, 1987, 1988, 2008 (Unofficial edition)
- German Championship: 1941
- Mitropa Cup: 1930, 1951
- Intertoto Cup: 1992, 1993
- Cup Winners' Cup Runners Up: 1985, 1996
