the now divided country. Viktoria claimed the division championship in 1955 and 1956, but were unable to advance in the national playoff rounds in either year. The Oberliga Berlin was relatively weak and generally performed poorly against top-flight teams from other divisions in western Germany. When the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional league, was formed in 1963, only a single place was held open among the sixteen teams selected to the new circuit for a side from Berlin. While the city's teams were not as competitive as others in the country, it was felt to be an important gesture in the Cold War era to represent the divided capital in the newly established league: the selection went to Hertha BSC. Through the 60s, the club suffered through a series of financial problems caused in part by the division and isolation of Berlin after the construction of the Berlin Wall, and by simple mismanagement. Viktoria survived and later played in the fifth tier NOFV-Oberliga Nord. In 2013 the club merged with Lichterfelder FC to form a new club, FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin. Cricket Viktoria had a long cricket tradition and had been prominent in the growth and development of the game both in Germany and Europe. The club won its last city title in 2003 and advanced as far as the semi-final round of the national championship in 2005. Viktoria's cricketers played in the Cricket Bundesliga while a second side played in the 2. Cricket-Bundesliga. The club also fielded a team in the Women's Cricket Bundesliga. Trivia Thorball or Torball was a German word in use in the 1890s and early 1900s for the sport of cricket. Several early clubs playing the new "English" games of football, rugby, and cricket incorporated it into their name. The term never caught on and did not enter into common usage, soon being abandoned by sports clubs. Today torball may refer to a form of football played by the blind or vision-impaired. Honours In 1894, the Deutscher Fußball- und Cricketbund (German Football and Cricket League), a predecessor of the German Football Association, organized a national final. Viktoria and FC Hanau 93 were slated to contest the country's championship in Berlin, but Hanau could not afford to make the trip and thus forfeited the match, leaving Viktoria national football champions. In 2007 (113 years later) the match was finally played after enthusiastic support from the President of