On February 4, the year 1899 FV Werder Bremgarten was established by students in the 16th grade who had won a football after they had won an tug-of-war event. The players took their name "Werder" as a reference to the German word meaning "river peninsula" and referred to the field by the river where they began their football journey. The first game of the club was played on September 10, 1899 in a match against the ASC of 1898 Bremen and won 1-0. In 1900 the team was included in the first meeting of the German Football Association (DFB) in Leipzig. They had a brief period of successes, winning several in local competitions. In 1903 the three Werder teams took home the local league championships. In those seasons, FV participated in qualification rounds to qualify for national championships, which were held in 1903 by the Norddeutscher Fussball Verband (NFV) which is one of seven main regional leagues following the 1903 championships.
at the turn of the century however, they were not able to progress. Because of the club's early success, Werder became the first club in Bremen to charge fans an admission fee for their games , and also to put up fences on their playing fields.
A steady increase in membership after the First World War led the club to take on different sports (athletics baseball, chess and cricket, as well as tennis).[4On the 19th of January 1920, the club adopted their current name: Sportverein Werder Bremen. Football was the team's primary sport but in 1922 it became the very first team in Bremen to have an experienced coach, Ferenc Konya. The team played regularly during the year-end play-offs for NFV through the 1920s and into the 1930s however, they didn't have much results. In the latter half of 1930 the striker Matthias Heidemann became the club's first international.
in 1933. German football changed under the Nazi's to 16 divisions of the first tier known by the name of Gauligen in 1933, when Werder was incorporated into Gauliga Niedersachsen. The team achieved their first major wins and won division championships in 1934, 1936 and 1937. They also took part at first in national play-offs. The form of the Gauligen changed over the period through the Second World War, and in 1939 the Gauliga Niedersachsen division was split in two sections. SV was part of the Gauliga Niedersachsen/Nord division, where they won a fourth title in 1942. In 1944 and 1945, German football was suspended after two games. Similar to other clubs across Germany The club was disbanded by the orders of the occupiers Allied authorities following the war. They were reconstituted on the 10th of November 1945 under the name Turnand Sportverein Werder 1945 Bremen The name then changed its name to Sport-Club Grun Weiss 99 Bremen on February 4, 1946. The team was part of Bremen's Stadtliga Bremen, and after winning the tournament, they took part at the Northern German championship, progressing to the quarterfinals. They were able to claim its brand name Werder on the 25th of March 1946. Werder on the 25th of March 1946 prior to participating of the playoffs.
In the past, professional players were not allowed for play Germany It was not uncommon for footballers to be employed in different capacities typically in conjunction with the club's patron. In Werder's case, Werder the majority of players worked for Brinkmann, the local Brinkmann tobacco factory, this led to the team taking on the name Texas 11. in honor of Brinkmann, one of their top cigarettes.
Between the close of the Second World War and the establishment of the Bundesliga in 1963 The club continued to succeed, being regarded for being one of the best two clubs in Northern Germany as well as Hamburger SV. From 1960-61, the years 1960 and 1961, Werder managed to achieve their first DFB-Pokal winning 1. FC Kaiserslautern. The team included the future international Sepp Piontek as well as ex-international Willi Schroder along with Arnold Schutz, among others.[6The team finished second in 1962-63 Oberliga Nord, behind Hamburger SV which was enough to make it an original member of the 1963-64 Bundesliga.[7 The first goal scored in the new Bundesliga came from Borussia Dortmund's Friedhelm Konietzka, who was playing Werder.[8 In the second season of the league, Werder won their first national title and finished three points clear of. FC Koln.[9 Another of their most prominent players were German player Horst Hottges.[1010 Werder finished second in the championship in 1967-68. However, they continued to be in the bottom third of table positions for more than a twelve years.
In April of 1971, during an away game against Borussia Monchengladbach, Bundesliga history was established. At the end of the 90th minute Gladbach forward Herbert Laumen fell in Werder's goal after an accident against Bremen goalie Gunter Bernard. The right goalpost then broke and brought the entire goal to the ground, and it was unable to be fixed nor substituted. The referee ended the game at 1-1. The DFB then awarded the game to Werder with the score of 2-0. The wooden goals were replaced with aluminum ones. A bid to boost the team's performance by signing expensive players resulted in the team being given the snarky the nickname "Millionenelf" (English: "Million squad") but turned out to be a costly failure. The season of 1979-80 the team was removed to the Bundesliga for the first time following an unbeaten 17th place finish.
The team took two titles in 1980 and 1981. Bundesliga Nord title and were promoted to the Bundesliga. The manager Otto Rehhagel was appointed in April of 1981. Under his leadership, Werder recovered themselves, after which Rehhagel later led the team to several successes.[13The team was promoted to the Bremen was Bundesliga champions in 1982 and 1983, 1984-85 , and 1985-86. Both in 1983 and 1986 the club was unable to win the title twice on the basis of goal difference. The year 1986 was the time Werder took on Bayern Munich in the final game of the season. Bremen required a win in order to win its first Bundesliga title. The 88th minutes of the game of the game, with the score being zero, the team was given the penalty kick which Michael Kutzop was the one to take. He was unsuccessful, and struck the right goalpost, and the match ended in a draw. Bayern had a win in their final match but Werder fell 1-1 in a 1-0 loss to VfB Stuttgart, and Bayern won the title.[14The title was won by Werder. Werder were awarded the league's second title two seasons later in 1987-88. They only conceded an all-time record 22 goals.[15They also made it to the semi-finals in 1988-87's UEFA Cup, in which they were knocked out by Bayer Leverkusen.[16 in the 3rd round of 1989-90's UEFA Cup, Bremen defeated the defending champions Napoli and their top Diego Maradona, their star player in aggregate, having won 5-1 at home.[1717
Werder made it to in the DFB-Pokal Final during the year 1989 in 1989 and 1990 winning at the final in the year 1991. It was followed by winning the European Cup winner's cup in 1991 and 1992 and beating AS Monaco 2-0 in the final.[18In 1992-93, Werder won its third Bundesliga title and then won their third DFB-Pokal in the year following. Werder was an early German club to progress to the group stage of the newly rebranded UEFA Champions League in 1993-94.[19This season was an unforgettable comeback victory in the final against Belgian club Anderlecht and was later described for being one of the exemplars of the "Wunder of the Weser" (English: "Wonder of the Weser ").[20"). Werder were trailing 3-0 at the end of sixty-six minutes, and were able to make the game a turnaround and prevail 5-3. The time was when Werder was home to a number of international players that included Mario Basler, Marco Bode, Andreas Herzog, Karl-Heinz Riedle, Wynton Rufer, and Rudi Voller, among others.[21The club also had a number of international players, including Andreas Herzog, Karl-
Bremen was runners-up in 1994-95 Bundesliga and at the conclusion in the campaign, Rehhagel quit the team to join Bayern Munich, after a fourteen-year tenure that was then a record for the club.[22 As the most successful manager at Werder, Rehhagel employed a "controlled offensive" style of play within a strict budget throughout his reign.[23The successors to Rehhagel (Aad de Mos Dixie Dorner, Wolfgang Sidka along with Felix Magath) could not bring silverware to the club. In May 1999, former Werder defender and youth coach Thomas Schaaf took over. The team remained in the Bundesliga and took home the DFB-Pokal just a few weeks later and defeated Bayern with penalties.
Werder's performance in the league improved over the subsequent seasons, when they were consistently in the top half of table. In 2003-2004 they scored their first dual in the very first time by winning both the Bundesliga as well as the DFB-Pokal which meant that Bremen was the only team to achieve this feat in Bundesliga history to accomplish such achievement. The team also frequently qualified to play in their place in the Champions League during the 2000s. In the final match in the 2005-06 Bundesliga campaign, Werder defeated Hamburger SV 2-1. their arch-rivals Hamburger SV to qualify for the Champions League as runners-up, instead of Hamburg.[26The team Bremen reached the semi-finals in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup, in which they were knocked out in the final by Spanish team RCD Espanyol.[27In 2008-09, Bremen suffered in their Bundesliga campaign, finishing 10th in the league, their worst performance in over 10 years. However, the club made it to finals in the UEFA Cup final as well as winning the DFB-Pokal Final. Werder were eliminated from to the UEFA Cup final against Ukrainian team Shakhtar Donetsk with a score of 2-2 following an extra period. The DFB-Pokal Final, Bremen was a better team, in defeating Bayer Leverkusen by a scoreline of 1-1. In the months of April and May 2009 Werder was in Hamburg four times over the course of 19 days. One time in the Bundesliga and in the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal as well as twice in the semi-final of UEFA Cup. Bremen defeated Hamburg by 2-0 in the Bundesliga and then was eliminated from DFB-Pokal as well as also from the UEFA Cup.
In the 2000s and the in the early part of 2010, Werder had numerous players who were traded for huge transfer fees, such as Diego, Torsten Frings, Miroslav Klose, Mesut Ozil, and Claudio Pizarro among others. In the month of October, 2010 Bremen's Pizarro was the record holder of the highest goal scorer from outside the country in Bundesliga history.[28Inexpensive league performances were the norm in 2010 and 2013 Schaaf was released by mutual agreement following an unsatisfactory 14th position in the Bundesliga.[29 The 2015-16 season was a time of great success for Werder, with Werder not being in being eliminated from the Bundesliga promotion-relegation play-offs. The team beat their direct opponents Eintracht Frankfurt by a scoreline of 1-0 in their final match of the season with a goal coming within the final minute.[30In 2019-20 the team beat 1. FC Koln 6-1 on the final day of play to finish 16th. their rivals Fortuna Dusseldorf lost their game, however, Bremen was required to participate in the promotion-relegation play-offs in the form of 1. FC Heidenheim to avoid relegation.[31][32The game was a draw at the end of the aggregate, but Werder were able to win using the away goal rule, and prevented relegation.[33The team were 17th next season, however they were sent to 2. Bundesliga to begin the second time in 1980-79 season. The team was second in the 2021-22 2. Bundesliga and was promoted back into the Bundesliga after just one season.