The club played quietly as a local side until briefly coming to notice in the war-ravagedGauliga Westfalen, then a division of top flight German football, in the abbreviated 1944–45 season. In 1958, Wattenscheid joined the Verbandsliga Westfalen and a title there in 1969 saw the club promoted to the Regionalliga West. Despite a Regionalliga title in 1974 they did not move up due the restructuring of the German competition, but instead continued to play second-division football in the newly formed 2. Bundesliga Nord. Through a period from the late 70s on to the late 80s the team struggled somewhat, earning uneven results and having several close brushes with relegation. They played well enough to earn a 10th-place finish in 1981 and stay up when the 2. Bundesliga Nord and 2. Bundesliga Süd were combined into a single division, but the next year they escaped being sent down in the bottom four only because TSV 1860 Munich was denied a license and was instead forced down to tier III play. From that point the club slowly turned itself around and in 1990 earned promotion to the top-flight by way of a second-place result in their division. However, their Bundesliga stay was a brief four years with their best result being an 11th-place finish in their debut season. The most memorable matches in this period are the victory in the derby against VfL Bochum in 1992 and the two victories against German record champion Bayern Munich in 1991 and 1993. After relegation in 1994, Wattenscheid spent two campaigns in the 2. Bundesliga, before slipping to Regionalliga in 1996 for one season and returned for two campaigns back in the 2. Bundesliga. In 1999, Wattenscheid was slipping to Regionalliga and Oberliga in 2004. The next season, in 2005, they could advance to the Regionalliga again. Two consecutive relegations brought them to the Verbandsliga Westfalen in 2007, where they played for one season before qualifying for the new Oberliga Nordrhein-Westfalen. Wattenscheid played Oberliga for 2 seasons and relegated again to Verbandsliga after finishing 18th in 2009–10 season. After winning the regional Westfalenpokal in 1996, Wattenscheid qualified for the first round of DFB-Pokal in 1996–97 where they faced Borussia Dortmund, at that time the reigning German champions. They won the match 4–3 but were eliminated by Karlsruher SC II in the following round, losing 4–2 in a penalty shootout. After being relegated from the NRW-Liga in 2009–10, they dropped to the six-tier Verbandsliga Westfalen II, but climbed to the fourth-tier Regionalliga West three years later, in 2013, where they play today.
