Good to Know — Borussia Dortmund

No Longer All Quiet on the Western Front

No Longer All Quiet on the Western Front BVB as the clear number two in the Bundesliga behind Bayern Munich and, alongside the record champions from the Isar, the only real global player in German football?

BVB as the clear number two in the Bundesliga behind Bayern Munich and, alongside the record champions from the Isar, the only real global player in German football? A fan magnet, a kind of black-and-yellow substitute religion with 80,000 pilgrims at Signal Iduna Park, or the Westfalenstadion, every other weekend? For a long time it was nothing like that.

To put it more precisely: for a long

To put it more precisely: for a long time such a rise seemed unthinkable, and it came about only through several, at times spectacular, twists in the club's history.

time such a rise seemed unthinkable, and it came about only through several, at times spectacular, twists in the club's history. And no, Borussia Dortmund were not for a long time a traditional power either. In the first ten years after the war, whenever people traded in Ruhr football cliches, Schalke 04 with immortal heroes Ernst Kuzorra and Fritz Szepan, Rot-Weiss Essen with World Cup hero Helmut Rahn, or MSV Duisburg with Riegel-Rudi Gutendorf were the names that defined the folklore.

They embodied a football culture of their own.

What few people know today is that a

What few people know today is that a noteworthy cult around Borussia Dortmund only emerged well after the turn of the millennium, when the team had, as the saying went, played a grand season.

noteworthy cult around Borussia Dortmund only emerged well after the turn of the millennium, when the team had, as the saying went, played a grand season. The first signs that something was changing in the football-breathing Ruhr district after the devastation of the war were correctly identified by the Rhein-Ruhr-Zeitung on May 18, 1947 in its West German football preview. Schalke - or perhaps Borussia? ran the headline, asking whether Borussia Dortmund really might have a chance in a deciding match.

The astonishment of the football public was understandable. Borussia who? Up to 1930 Dortmund had been a third-tier side, playing clubs such as SV Langendreer 04 and Sportfreunde Dortmund.

In the economically turbulent 1920s the club ran into major financial trouble for the first time, and Heinz Schwaben, director of the Dortmunder Union brewery, guaranteed the club with his private wealth. Only under the leadership of August Lenz, Dortmund's first Germany international, did the club finally reach the top-flight Gauliga in 1936. Even there, during the Nazi era, BVB carried the reputation of fellow traveler, because there was no getting past serial champions Schalke 04 and their modern short-passing football, the famous Schalker Kreisel. Two runner-up finishes, in 1938 and 1942, were the club's biggest achievements in that period.

Then came the turning point in the West.

As Hans Dieter Baroth wrote in his 1989 book Boys, Heaven Belongs to You - The History of the Oberliga West 1947 to 1963, on Monday there were no more newspapers because the Rhein-Ruhr-Zeitung had already reported on May 20, 1947: Schalke no longer champions of Westphalia. The great surprise in West German football was Schalke 04's 3:2 defeat in Herne before 30,000 spectators in the final for the Westphalian championship.

Schalke were so deeply shocked that they skipped the trophy presentation. In the years that followed, Borussia consolidated their newly won position at the top. Between 1947 and 1950 they won the West German championship four times in a row.

Their first attempt to grab the German title failed in the 1949 final against VfR Mannheim, but Borussia Dortmund were clearly on their way to becoming one of the country's leading teams. Before the Bundesliga was introduced in 1963 they would become West German champions three times, reach two further finals, and above all win the German title in 1956 and 1957 with exactly the same starting eleven - a first in German football. At the start of the 1960s Borussia had a hungry, well-drilled side featuring players such as Hans Tilkowski, Helmut Bracht, Reinhold Wosab, Wolfgang Paul, Alfred Schmidt, Dieter Kurrat, Timo Konietzka and Gerd Cyliax, and they continued on their successful path after the Bundesliga was founded. Dortmund won the DFB Cup in 1965 and a year later beat highly favored Liverpool 2:1 after extra time in Glasgow to become the first German club to win a European trophy. Yet the first Bundesliga championship was still thrown away on the home straight because of the celebrations after Glasgow, and the club finished second behind 1860 Munich. That was a key moment.

After their strong Bundesliga start, BVB initially became

After their strong Bundesliga start, BVB initially became more of a middle-of-the-road side after the European triumph.

more of a middle-of-the-road side after the European triumph. In the years following the win over Liverpool and the runner-up finish, Dortmund only seriously entered the title race once more, in 1967, when they finished third. The aging European heroes could no longer step up, and in 1969 star striker Lothar Emmerich had to be sold after yet another financial crisis.

By then the golden days in the Ruhr seemed to be fading anyway. As Baroth put it, the final season of the Oberliga West had symbolic character: the closing of the mines had begun and pithead towers were collapsing under demolition charges. Borussia Dortmund, too, suffered from this structural change, as politicians liked to euphemistically call the downward spiral.

Attendances fell from more than 26,000 in 1966/67 to 16,000 in 1971/72, partly because of the Bundesliga scandal, in which BVB were not even involved. In 1972 Dortmund were relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time and, short of cash, just about managed to scrape through in the Regionalliga and then the 2. Bundesliga. Particularly painful for hardened Borussia supporters: in 1974 Schalke came to town for a benefit match.

Another point often overlooked today is that Borussia

Another point often overlooked today is that Borussia had already become a managerial merry-go-round long before relegation.

had already become a managerial merry-go-round long before relegation. In essence, Dortmund lost continuity in the dugout after successful coach Willi Fischken Multhaup left in 1966. Up to the 1972 relegation, six coaches came and went in six years at the small stadium Rote Erde. From 1972 onward, eight more coaches tried to restore the past.

Only Essen native Otto Rehhagel enjoyed limited success, winning promotion back to the Bundesliga in 1976. After Rehhagel's dismissal on April 30, 1978, another 16 coaches came through in just eight years before the club's decisive turnaround in 1986. Famous names such as Udo Lattek, Karl-Heinz Feldkamp, Erich Ribbeck, Pal Csernai and Branko Zebec all got a crack at it. One low point came in 1983/84, when four coaches - Uli Maslo, Helmut Witte, Heinz-Dieter Tippenhauer and Horst Franz - greeted the press during the same season. Tippenhauer was pushed back into the manager's office after only two games, and supporters in the Westfalenstadion could only just be stopped from climbing the fence. The real turning point came in 1986, when the then only 34-year-old Reinhard Saftig kept the club up via the relegation playoff.

And yet the real reason the Borussia ship

And yet the real reason the Borussia ship finally entered calmer waters was a young lawyer who acted as a shadow man on the emergency board installed in 1984 under Dr.

finally entered calmer waters was a young lawyer who acted as a shadow man on the emergency board installed in 1984 under Dr. Reinhard Rauball, and who above all took care of the financial consolidation of the Ruhr club, then burdened with debts of 8.4 million marks. His name was Dr. Gerd Niebaum.

No other president at Borussia Dortmund stands as

No other president at Borussia Dortmund stands as much for both rise and fall as Dr.

much for both rise and fall as Dr. Gerd Niebaum, born in Luenen on October 23, 1948. He was elected president in 1986 as successor to Dr. Reinhard Rauball and was seen as a beacon of hope.

Bringing local sponsors aboard and leading the club into Europe as a fourth-place finisher only a year after the near-relegation of 1986 was just the beginning of a new black-and-yellow euphoria. The philosophy was simple: rise with players from the region. In 1986 Dortmund surprisingly signed star striker Frank Mill from namesake Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Together with Norbert Nobby Dickel, he would form a strike duo half the league envied. Frankie and Nobby fired BVB into the last sixteen of the UEFA Cup in 1987 and to the DFB Cup in 1989, the first title in 23 years. The reception for the heroes of Berlin at Dortmund's Friedensplatz became part of the city's history.

Another transfer masterstroke in the early years of Niebaum's presidency was the surprising signing of Andreas Moeller from Frankfurt.

Niebaum's biggest coup, however, was appointing a coach

Niebaum's biggest coup, however, was appointing a coach almost completely unknown in Germany at the time, Ottmar Hitzfeld from Loerrach, in the summer of 1991.

almost completely unknown in Germany at the time, Ottmar Hitzfeld from Loerrach, in the summer of 1991. Hitzfeld and Niebaum became German football's new dynamic duo. Their strategy was to bring back players from Italy's lira paradise. In that regard they were even a step ahead of Bayern Munich, who only managed to get their hands on the league title once between 1991 and 1996. Bundesliga matches and European nights in Dortmund became events from 1992 onward.

The Westfalenstadion, built for the 1974 World Cup, was christened the La Scala of German football by Franz Beckenbauer. Bayern, still playing in the draughty Olympic Stadium, looked on almost enviously at a Dortmund scene where glamour and the media circus of FC Hollywood had no place - not yet. Michael Meier, poached as manager from Bayer Leverkusen in 1989, turned Borussia Dortmund into a brand and, something rarely acknowledged today, was voted Manager of the Year by Kicker in both 1992 and 1993.

Niebaum and Meier turned Borussia Dortmund the club

Niebaum and Meier turned Borussia Dortmund the club into BVB AG, Borussia Dortmund the corporation, which did not please every traditionalist among the fans and inside the club.

into BVB AG, Borussia Dortmund the corporation, which did not please every traditionalist among the fans and inside the club. Real opposition, however, only took shape when it was almost too late, because people had been dazzled by the enormous successes of the 1990s and early 2000s: three league titles and, crowning it all, the Champions League. That Niebaum and Meier lost all sense of proportion and reality after forcing successful coach Ottmar Hitzfeld out in 1998 remained hidden for a long time.

In the new multi-story club headquarters they could operate as they pleased. Obsessed with turning Borussia into a money-printing machine, the BVB bosses kept pushing further: double-digit million-euro transfers, their own shirt label, a BVB travel agency, a mega-store the size of a shopping mall, their own TV show on DSF - at the start of the 2000s the motto at the newly rich club was simply: the sky is the limit. Many fans no longer recognized their club. But the intoxication came at a price.

Schalke and Dortmund were once actually friends. The

Schalke and Dortmund were once actually friends.

Ruhr derby lives above all from folklore, and from the mistaken belief that the two clubs have hated each other since the footballing Big Bang. They have not.

In their founding years Dortmund even played in blue and white until somebody came up with the idea of changing the colors. Before and during the Second World War, the masses in Dortmund also cheered Schalke, then the most successful club in Germany. When Schalke beat Nuernberg 2:1 in Berlin in 1934 to become German champions, they drove back to Gelsenkirchen through Dortmund in open cars and even signed the city's golden book.

A lorry parade for BVB around Borsigplatz would have been fantasy at the time. Dortmund were still stumbling around the lower district leagues, while Schalke were the dominant western club. There was deep sympathy between the two clubs, said former BVB spokesman and archivist Gerd Kolbe.

They even stuck together repeatedly. For example, from 1934 to 1943 Schalke needed a venue for some of their championship-round matches and found one in Dortmund's Stadion Rote Erde. Or in the early 1930s, when Borussia were without success and without a coach: striker August Lenz, the first BVB international, was sent to ask Schalke how Dortmund could finally become first-class again. The result was that first Schalke idol Ernst Kuzorra and then his brother-in-law and former Schalke striker Fritz Thelen became the first professional coaches in BVB history and led the friendly neighbors into the top division, the Gauliga Westfalen, in 1936. Schalke, then, were the ones who put Dortmund in the saddle. Only in November 1943, after a long series of heavy defeats, did Dortmund beat the previously dominant rivals for the first time, with Lenz scoring the winner. There was always competition between the two clubs, Kolbe said, but only in the 1970s did the fan scene begin to radicalize. Then came crowd trouble and abuse for players moving between the clubs. The term Judas seems to have been invented for the Ruhr derby. Since 1963 alone, more than 20 players have made the switch in one form or another.

Hard to believe as it is, despite the

Hard to believe as it is, despite the enormous rivalry, the Schalke-BVB combination is the most common pairing among players who have represented mult...

enormous rivalry, the Schalke-BVB combination is the most common pairing among players who have represented multiple Bundesliga clubs.

Decisive is what happens at the airport: even

Decisive is what happens at the airport: even ten years later Hans-Joachim Watzke still feels uneasy when he thinks back to March 14, 2005, the second birthday of Borussia Dortmund.

ten years later Hans-Joachim Watzke still feels uneasy when he thinks back to March 14, 2005, the second birthday of Borussia Dortmund. It was unbelievable, an extreme situation, he said of the decisive meeting at Duesseldorf Airport. After a long struggle, the main owners of the Westfalenstadion approved the rescue plan for the financially stricken club, allowing the looming insolvency of the giant of the game to be averted at the last possible moment.

Watzke still remembers the six-hour session in an event hall at the airport, followed anxiously by supporters on television. The first four hours were very negative. Some BVB sympathizers in the room had tears in their eyes.

They thought this was the end. Only a month earlier the club had officially announced an existential threat to earnings and liquidity. When manager Michael Meier was asked at a press conference whether BVB were still liquid, he passed the question to auditor Jochen Roelfs, whose answer shook the Bundesliga: if the creditors rejected the restructuring plan, that would be it. The horror balance sheet that followed exceeded even the worst fears. It suddenly became clear how badly Niebaum and Meier had maneuvered the club into trouble through sheer megalomania. Almost 80 percent of the 179.5 million euros invested by shareholders had been burned up in losses, and the club expected a yearly loss of around 68 million euros. A day later the creditors accepted an initial compromise, but approval from the 5,800 investors in the Molsiris real-estate fund was still missing. Two years earlier the club had sold 94 percent of its stadium to that fund and leased it back for 16 million euros a year, turning the stadium into a money pit. The rescue plan involved buying back part of the stadium and deferring rent payments for 2005 and 2006 by opening up access to a securities deposit of almost 52 million euros that had originally been earmarked for a full reacquisition in 2017. The plan worked. In sporting terms the crucial appointment in those lean years would be a coach who breathed new life into the leaking giant from the Ruhr: on July 1, 2008, Juergen Klopp took over from Thomas Doll. After fourth place in 2009/10, Kloppo led BVB to the German title in 2011, the first double in club history in 2012, and the Champions League final in 2013.