HAMBURG, Germany — Workplaces often display a particular type of signage: “This Department Has Worked __ Days Without An Accident.” These notices, with their hopefully ascending numbers, are meant to remind employees of institutional standards, of individual responsibilities, of the importance of mindfulness and consistency.

The Hamburger S.V. clock is sort of like that.

Displayed prominently in the northwest corner of Hamburg’s cavernous home, the Volksparkstadion, the clock marks the total time, down to the second, that the team has spent in the Bundesliga, the top tier of German soccer. Last Friday, the digital numbers, glowing in white, ticked relentlessly upward when the club hosted Bayer Leverkusen: 53 years, 163 days, 3 hours, 31 minutes, 28 seconds at kickoff, all without an accident. As you read this sentence, they continue to mark the days, the hours, the seconds.

In Hamburg, the simple act of keeping time commemorates an essential fact of the club’s identity. A founding member, it has played continuously in the Bundesliga since the league’s first competitive moments, on Aug. 24, 1963, at 5 p.m. It is a distinction no other German club can boast. Not the former European champion Borussia Dortmund. Not Hamburg’s Nordderby rival, and fellow founding member, Werder Bremen. Not even mighty Bayern Munich.

All this helps explain the complicated angst once again shadowing this city’s biggest team. Pride outstripped performance here long ago. After decades of producing quality soccer — Hamburg has three Bundesliga titles on its résumé, and it reigned as the champion of Europe at the end of the 1982-83 season — the club is currently mired in a yearslong rut. Hamburg narrowly avoided its first relegation in 2012, and has survived two even closer calls since then.