 The club was founded 5 May 1895 as FC Victoria Hamburg out of the youth clubs Cito and Excelsior and was briefly affiliated with SV Hamburg before finally becoming a fully independent football club in the fall of 1897.It was one of the founding members of the DFB (Deutscher Fußball Bund or German Football Association) at Leipzig in 1901.Victoria joined the HAFV (Hamburg-Altonaer Fußball Verband or Hamburg-Altona Football Federation) a year later, capturing the league title in 1905.