Borussia Dortmund (Germany)

Borussia Dortmund

Ground: Signal Iduna Park - Westfalenstadion

Capacity: 81,365

Club Founded: 1909

League: Bundesliga (current level)

Known for their iconic Yellow Wall and passionate supporters, Borussia Dortmund are one of Germany's most famous football clubs. Their rich history, attacking style and electric atmosphere make them a favourite with football fans around the world.

Borussia Dortmund Club History

The Early Years

BVB, as they are often known, was founded by a group of youths, disenchanted with being given stern looks while playing football at Trinity Youth. They held a meeting in a pub and banned the priest, Father Dewald, from attending. 

A brush with bankruptcy in 1929 was avoided when a local supporter helped them when paying players backfired while competing in local football. World War II and the Third Reich rule caused issues, as those in positions at the club were anti-Nazi. A couple of members producing anti-Nazi pamphlets were executed in the last days of the war.

Westfalenstadion in 1974

National Champions

Borussia played in one of the few top divisions, the Oberliga West, once peace was restored, and soon won its first title. They ended the 1949 national runners-up after losing to VfR Mannheim before reclaiming the Oberliga West title. On this occasion, the team went on to become the 1956 national champions after defeating Karlsruher SC.

BVB retained their German title the following year when Hamburger SV were defeated 4-1, as both Alfred Niepieklo and Alfred Kelbassa netted a brace. Defeat followed in the national championship of 1960-61, where 1. FC Nürnberg won 3-0.

Bundesliga and Europe

Dortmund defeated 1. FC Köln 3-1 to lift their third German title with Dieter Kurrat, Reinhold Wosab and Alfred Schmidt scoring the goals, also reaching the DFB-Pokal final, where Hamburger SV prevailed 3-0. This was the final season of the format before the advent of the Bundesliga.

Goals from Lothar Emmerich and Schmidt were enough to defeat Alemannia Aachen in the 1964-65 Pokal (German Cup) final under head coach Willi Multhaup. The victory set up a run in the European Cup Winners' Cup the following season. Liverpool were defeated 2-1 at Hampden Park with goals from Sigfried Held and Reinhard Libuda.

The club was ambitious and wanted their new Westfalenstadion to host games in the 1974 World Cup. Financial implications during construction led to Borussia being relegated a couple of years before it was completed. A playoff win against 1. FC Nürnberg in 1975-76 took the club back to the top-tier of German football.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Hans-Werner Hartl and then Manfred Burgsmüller scored regularly for the team in the following years, as the club slowly gathered momentum after seeing off Fortuna Köln in a relegation playoff. Norbert Dickel and Frank Mill scored goals to cheer the home fans and lift the Pokal in 1988-89 under head coach Horst Köppel, as Werder Bremen were defeated.

BVB reached the UEFA Cup Final in 1992-93, where Juventus proved too strong. However, the money raised from the run set the club up in the years to come, with Eike Immel a mainstay in goal and Stéphane Chapuisat supplying the goals.

The Italian giants also ended hopes of European glory in the 1994-95 UEFA Cup semi-finals. Despite the setback, ‘Die Schwarzgelben’ (The Black Yellows), from lifting their fourth league championship under coach Ottmar Hitzfeld, with Michael Zorc and Andreas Möller weighing in with the goals, with the title being retained a year later.

Champions of Europe - at a Cost

The greatest triumph came in 1996-97 when a Karl-Heinz Riedle brace and another goal from Lars Ricken were enough to defeat Juventus 3-1 at the Olympiastadion in Munich, as Dortmund were crowned Champions League winners.

BVB became the first German club to be traded on the stock market, causing more financial problems, rather than solving them. The Westfalenstadion had to be sold and then re-leased. However, it didn’t prevent the team from being crowned German champions in 2001-02, with goals scored by Márcio Amoroso under team boss Matthias Sammer.

Jens Lehmann, Jürgen Kohler, Dedê, Stefan Reuter and Jan Koller all starred in the success, before several were sold as serious mismanagement took the club to the verge of bankruptcy in 2003. Gradually, BVB clawed their way back, after cutbacks, with the stadium being repurchased in 2006.

Several coaches came and went, such as Bert van Marwijk, Jürgen Röber and Thomas Doll, who took the team to the 2007-08 DFB Pokal final, which ended in a 2-1 extra-time defeat to Bayern München. Stability was found through the appointment of Jürgen Klopp in July 2008, who would assemble a wonderful, young, exciting team.

The Klopp Years

Lucas Barrios and Mario Götze shone as the 2010-11 Bundesliga title was lifted by a squad also including Mats Hummels, Łukasz Piszczek, Kevin Großkreutz, Robert Lewandowski and Shinji Kagawa. The league crown was retained a year later. The double was completed with a 5-2 Pokal win as Lewandowski scored a hat trick against Bayern München. 

Borussia reached the 2013 Champions League final at Wembley. In an all-German affair, BVB went down 2-1 to their old rivals Bayern München. İlkay Gündoğan scored the consolation goal before star player Götze departed for Bayern. Lewandowski would follow suit a year later.

Kagawa returned as Klopp once again looked to weave his magic with a relatively budget squad. The team reached the final of the DFB Pokal, where they went down 3-1 to VfL Wolfsburg before the head coach resigned. Thomas Tuchel arrived to lead the side, which ended as league runners-up and beaten cup finalists in 2015-16.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang took over the scoring mantle as the Pokal was won the following season with a 2-1 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt. Peter Bosz took over from Tuchel in June 2017 before being replaced by Peter Stöger within a few months. Lucien Favre was appointed head coach in May 2018, as his side finished Bundesliga runners-up. 

Recent Years

Young English winger Jadon Sancho impressed the following season, before the club found a new goalscoring hero in Erling Haaland under interim team boss Edin Terzić as RB Leipzig were defeated 4-1 in the final of the DFB-Pokal in 2020-21. Marco Reus continued to weave his magic in midfield as more runners-up Bundesliga places followed.

Terzić was later given the job permanently as midfielders Jude Bellingham and Emre Can starred. Bellingham was sold to Real Madrid for €103 million in the summer of 2023. His new club defeated his old one in the 2023-24 Champions League final at Wembley. Terzić was replaced by Nuri Şahin, and then Niko Kovač.

My visits

Borussia Dortmund 1 Hamburg SV 0 

Bundesliga - Saturday 23 January 2010  

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 80,500 🎟️ €38.40

The trip to Dortmund came about after many years of stalling at the planning stage. I had been on a very enjoyable week’s trip to Spain with my London-based Irish mate Colm. We had often threatened to get around to doing something similar again, especially after a few beers! Eventually, the chance came when I had a free weekend.

I phoned Crusher and Carl, both Scarborough fans whom I'd shared many trips and memories with and enlisted them and told them of the trip I'd put together at what seemed like superb value. The plane with Easyjet was ridiculously cheap, and I found a budget B&B. The most expensive outlay was for the match tickets, which was a bit of an adventure all on its own. 

Thank goodness for Google Translate! If owning a season ticket at Dortmund, you could stand behind the goal for only €10. Unfortunately, we had to pay more for our seats on the top tier at the other end. I met the intrepid Seadogs off the train at King's Cross, where we had a gargle as I told them of what they had in store. 

We then headed to the pretty town of Harpenden for an excellent Thai lunch, in an impressive pub that served the same round of drinks as before for a pound less. From here, it was only a few minutes to Luton Airport Parkway, where Colm met up with us after work.

Before long, we appeared to be touching down in Dortmund, where it was all systems go. Our residence for the stay, the excellent value and amply sufficient Prodomo Hotel, was quickly found by our taxi driver. After a quick rinse, we were ready to explore what a Friday night in the city had to offer.

Although our hotel was well located for transport links, having four of us together meant taxis offered good value. Our helpful driver dropped us in the Market Square, and after eventually finding a cashpoint and seeing two identical-looking cathedrals, of which I sincerely hope that there were two of! 

It was pub crawl time around the very neat and modern city. I had done my pre-planning, including making out a map with pubs we must visit marked on it, which would be the source of much mirth amongst my companions.

The pubs and bars we visited were very German, with hops hanging over the bar and dark wood being a big feature. Nearly everywhere had TVs showing that evening's live match with highlights afterwards.  Owing to our aversion to Leeds United, Colm wanted us to visit The Leeds Pub. He anticipated this would be full of Leeds memorabilia. 

Well, it wasn’t. It was far worse than that. Our immediate reaction was that it appeared to be on fire as there was so much smoke coming out of the door. If that had been the case, it would have improved the decor. It was, in fact, customers smoking. In Germany, it appeared smoking was still allowed in pubs and bars, as long as they didn’t serve food. 

The “creatures” using the bar were in a class of their own. Think the Golden Last in Scarborough, without sectarianism. Please bear this pub in mind if you ever hear of anyone that you aren’t too fond of who happens to be visiting Dortmund. Send them to the Leeds Pub!

Another highlight was when a local asked if we were in the army in a smashing place on the square. As Crusher said, maybe the Sally Army! I can only guess our local friend was either extremely ironic or he was heavily drunk. We all had a welcome lie-in the following day, before Carl used his limited German to ensure we bought an all-day travel card. 

The tram stop was only a couple of minutes from our digs. The network ran under the city centre to avoid congestion, and it was clean and ran on time. We headed straight to the main railway station to book our train tickets for the following day. €37 covered up to five people for an all-day pass in the area. The assistant was word-perfect in his English and even printed out all the details we required.

We managed to get a table in Wenkers in the square for lunch before it started filling quickly with shoppers and fans of both sides. The locals were going at the beer like it was last orders, despite kick off not being until 6.30pm. After a splendid bite to eat of goulash soup and apple strudel, three of us left Crusher for a couple of hours, while we had a brief siesta back at the hotel. 

We rejoined him in an excellent bar showing a very clever version of Soccer Saturday. To get around the rule about not showing full live Saturday afternoon kick-offs, they went around each game, showing five minutes at a time. 

There were obvious pitfalls, like it could pick an awfully dull five minutes while it was pandemonium elsewhere, but it kept our attention. The big fella had also done some hard yards for us and discovered some new bars for after the match. We headed for Signal Iduna Park, or Westfalenstadion to give it its pre-sponsorship name, by getting a tram going a couple of stops away so we could walk up and take in the atmosphere.

As we got past the indoor concert hall and ice rink, beer and sausage stands were in plentiful supply. The crowds were packed on the roads, and I had to find our ticket collection point. Someone must have liked me, as I saw an information stall and our tickets were waiting for us. We had a beer, but in truth, it was too cold to enjoy it.

Getting in was a complicated business and not very well organised. Everyone was frisked before they got to the automatic turnstile, which slowed up the process. We had lost Carl in the crowds, and the other three of us got passed the stewards, only for our tickets not to activate the turnstiles. 

We were in the wrong section, so we had to go through it all over again. Eventually, we got through and climbed to the fourth tier. We were in the second row from the very back, and the view was astonishing. Crusher said it was higher than the away section at Newcastle. The visiting Hamburg HSV fans were at our end, while many mingled with home fans. 

I reckon there could have been around seven or eight thousand of them. The far end was a large mass of flags, scarves and banners on a huge terracing, which can be converted for internationals and European games. Everyone has a place to stand on a particular row, with each row having crush barriers. 

Their pre-match version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was as good as anything Anfield or Celtic Park had to offer. The Westfalenstadion was an incredible place. When Germany won the bid to host the 2006 World Cup in 2000, the corners were filled in. 

It is one of the greatest dedicated football stadiums in the world. I was astonished to find fans smoking and drinking in the seats. Fans of both sides mixed, and although there were heated discussions at times, there was no hint of violence. Taking away the fences tends to restrain cowards.

The game started slowly with the visitors on top, until the Paraguayan Nelson Valdez fired BVB ahead after thirty-six minutes to send the majority of the 80,500 capacity crowd wild. HSV pressured in the second half while BVB hit them on the break. 

It was entertaining stuff. The hosts hung on to overtake the northerners and go fourth in the Bundesliga. Crusher and I had a brief altercation with a dummy-throwing-away fan who decided he’d push himself down the steep steps. 

The home fans seemed impressed with our stance. We took the tram to a stop where I thought I knew Crusher had been earlier, and luckily I was bang on, much to the groans from the others! The small BVB fan bar was euphoric, playing the club songs on the jukebox as everyone sang along. 

By the look of some of the clientele, they’d watched the game in the pub on the TV. We went to a couple more excellent places, but everywhere was mobbed. Dortmunders take their football, food, beer and music very seriously, especially on a Saturday night after a home win. 

We all commented how we wished we’d have partied there after their 1997 Champions League victory. We decided to take the tram near home for food and a sit-down. The local fans' pub we found obviously had a few customers in from opening time. Two were asleep with their heads slumped on the bar, while the music and fun continued. 

The TVs were showing the match highlights from the other games on a loop, and the jukebox was booming out, which led to a great pop quiz of the '70s and '80s among us. We needed food, so we went in search of a restaurant, not realising it was nearing midnight. Crusher pulled rank, and we went to another pub instead, where young Colm, to his eternal credit, kept us going longer than we intended. 

If we hadn’t booked the trains for the following day, it could have got very messy! Punters were still walking in as we left at 2am. The beers were excellent value. Our glasses were the same size as a bottle of Pils and the round cost only €4.80. It was €10 for a similar round in the city square! We vowed to be back!

Borussia Dortmund 2 St Pauli 0 

Bundesliga - Saturday 19th February 2011

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 80,720 🎟️ €41

After the success of the previous year, we were indeed back! This time we planned our trip to fit in three matches, setting off on the Friday morning plane from Luton. Unfortunately, Crusher was missing, but Colm and Carl were back. Saturday was put aside for Borussia Dortmund v St Pauli, the smaller of Hamburg’s two big clubs. 

The only problem we had was that the website stated that no tickets were available. As soon as the game was listed, the sign said the game was sold out, well, at least the Google Translate tool did!. I had emailed the hotel, which proudly announced that it offered deals for football fans, to no joy. Other websites wanted ridiculous handling fees. 

We all agreed to wait until we arrived to assess the state of play. We dropped our bags off at the Senator Hotel, which was closer to the city centre than the previous year’s selection, and headed for the Westfalenstadion as a matter of urgency.

After stopping off at the station to enquire about tickets to Hannover on the quick service, which were far too expensive, we wandered down to the huge locked arena. It really was a sight in daylight with an unobstructed view. There were no signs of any ticket booths, so we decided to go and ask in the superb, but quite expensive, club megastore.

I was greeted with a smile by staff who could speak perfect English. I asked tentatively about match tickets, and they nodded, smiled and sent me downstairs. I gathered my two mates, and we went to where the bloke behind the counter got a map of the stadium out. I pointed out where we wanted to be. 

I knew there was little chance of a place on the Sudtribune, but I thought it was worth a try. He laughed and quickly announced that the only tickets were at the opposite end. We were only too happy to pay. We went on our way to look at the Stadion Rote Erde next door, as well as the home of regional club Eintracht Dortmund. 

We then enjoyed lunchtime beers before heading to the early evening clash between VfL Bochum and Fortuna Düsseldorf. The following morning, we headed to the main square and Wenkers, which had a good pre-match atmosphere the previous year. It was full of fans of both sides eating and drinking while watching the second division live lunchtime games.

We got a table and were soon joined by some Dutch fans of the Bundesliga. They regularly headed over the border for their Saturday fix when their own club, RKC Waalwijk, didn’t have a game. Colm got chatting as they heard his Irish accent and they associated with him being a Celtic fan and their connections with St Pauli. 

We had one more beer at the fans' bar before catching a tram to the stadium. The gates to Stadion Rote Erde were open, and the courtyard was a beer garden. We stopped for a quick drink just to be sociable before heading inside. As in the year before, there was a huge scrum to the point where the stewards frisked everyone before we scanned our tickets on the gates to gain entry. 

We headed upstairs to our block just as the BVB version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was booming out. Every single fan in the stadium seemed to be joining in. It really did bring a lump to the back of my throat. We went along to our seats and then the realisation of where we were hit home. Colm had been told to take his scarf off on the way in. 

We were in the middle of the 8,000 away fans. There were Dortmunders amongst us as well as Hamburgers in the home blocks. The tickets we had obtained were the few that had been returned from St Pauli. They were living up to their reputation in dress sense and creating noise as the rebel punk club of Germany, with many wearing hoodies with their famous skull and crossbones logo on them. 

They were a magnificent set of fans. The far kop containing nearly 25,000 home fans was also adding to the noise in the sell-out crowd of 80,720. The visitors in two shades of brown, which looked far better than it sounds, were not bad and on a bit of a high after winning the midweek derby 1-0 at SV Hamburg. However, Dortmund were excellent as they were spearheaded by the superb Paraguayan Lucas Barrios. 

He scored the goal to send Borussia one ahead. At halftime, I saw the definition of a frustrated man. Carl had kindly gone to do the honours of getting the refreshments in. To do this, he had to queue to buy a BVB card and put money on it before being able to buy anything. 

This clever move by the club ensures no cash changes hands, so that no errors, deliberate or otherwise, are made. They also know that many cards will be discarded with unused credit on them. The scheme is OK for regulars but awful for away fans or one-off supporters.

Thankfully, the staff were extremely efficient once you got to the serving counter, and I was settled in my seat with a bratwurst and a cup of warming glühwein, hot mulled red wine, before the teams reappeared. There was time for a scan through the €2 match magazine. Soon after the interval, Barrios caused more havoc, leading Ralph Gunesch to clumsily put the ball into his own net. 

It was a bit awkward for me. St Pauli really is the domain of their own fans, which I really like, but I really like BVB as well. All that really mattered was that I enjoyed the game. The match ended in another 2-0 home win. We waited back while the away fans gave their team a decent ovation. 

I reasoned that St Pauli should have brought on forward Gerald Asamoah, who’d impressed me while watching a game on ESPN, but Carl disagreed in no uncertain terms. He definitely didn’t rate him. If Carl had been frustrated with the card system at the interval, he definitely was now. The cups had a deposit on them, so that people do their own cleaning up. 

To get the money back, you have to join the queue once again. It was long, and the service was slow. Some fans had obviously done some mine-sweeping as they were queuing with big piles of cups to fund their Saturday night out. We headed for the tram station with Carl still chuntering when I pointed to the size of the queue waiting to get in. 

We went around the side to see how long it was so we could make some choices, and I’m so glad we did. The queue was actually to get into the Westfallenhalle concert venue to go and see Chris De Burgh play live. My popularity would have dipped rapidly if we had ended up in there!

It was a bitterly cold Saturday evening when we went to the fan bar in the city. Then, a venue we had found the previous year, which looked lively. There was a DJ playing music, but with a similar age group to our own. We managed to get some seats next to some Borussia fans, and Carl exchanged email addresses for future reference. 

There were a lot of very drunk people out and about, all having a great time and celebrating. Even the away fans were joining in. I liked the fact that, despite the place being mobbed, we could remain in our seats and still get waitress service. Dortmund were ten points clear at the top of the table, yet their fans were still not confident they would lift the title at the end of the season. 

They feared that Bayern Munich could catch them, and their clash next week at the Allianz Arena would seal their fate either way. We went around to Wenkers and had a good chat with a St Pauli fan and his mates. He was also a big fan of English football and very knowledgeable. 

He was very pragmatic about the day. He didn’t expect his team to have won, and he was still celebrating the victory against Hamburg. I asked why Asamoah hadn’t played and if the fans rated him. 

I was delighted when he said he had only missed because of injury, but he was much revered by all St Pauli fans! We had a few more beers before calling it a night after another great day out.

Borussia Dortmund 3 TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 1

Bundesliga - Sunday 28th February 2016

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 81,359 🎟️ €16.70

With a Sunday off work and a late start the following day in London, I decided to head over to one of my favourite areas anywhere for a couple of games of football and some socialising. I'd flown into Cologne/Bonn airport and then headed to my first game, kicking off at lunchtime.

My train from the match between MSV Duisburg and St Pauli arrived at Dortmund station ten minutes late, but all was good. I was in Germany for a couple of games and an overnight stop in Düsseldorf, grabbing every opportunity before my new work roster kicked in. Rather than go downstairs for a packed U-Bahn train, I walked around to catch an S-Bahn. 

I noticed that the German Football Museum had opened opposite since my last visit to the city. That was duly noted to fit into another visit! The train took just six minutes to the Signal Iduna Park station, just behind the south end of the stadium. I’d never been that way before, but it made sense. I walked around the old Stadion Rote Erde to use the stalls. 

My first beer of the day washed down a fine bratwurst. To beat the last-minute rush, I decided to have another beer inside the stadium. My ticket was for the away fans section, where the token system was not in operation. It was a climb up to the third tier. I’d forgotten just how big the stands were.

Hoffenheim were never going to sell out their full allocation, and as a consequence, there were many other ‘tourist’ fans in the section, along with plenty of BVB fans. Some turned up in scarves and carrying banners. A visiting official was not best pleased and quite rightly so. A bit of respect was called for. 

A compromise was reached when home colours were tied to the concourse railings, where stewards could keep an eye on them until full time. While it was mainly Dortmund fans around me, I got talking to a friendly visiting fan and his pal. He mainly followed Kickers Offenbach, although Hoffenheim were his ‘big’ club. 

He was delighted someone would chat about English football with him, and the days when it was possible to stand at big games. The standing ‘Yellow Wall’ behind the south goal really was an impressive sight. The away fans were doing their best to be heard, with several guest fans joining in.

Hoffenheim were struggling in the relegation zone, while Dortmund were doing their best to chase down Bayern Munich at the top of the table. The away side were not fazed early on in the game. Borussia were missing a few players and couldn’t get going. Halfway through the first half, it was Hoffenheim who went ahead when Kevin Volland had his shot saved by Roman Burki, only for Sebastian Rudy to slot home. 

Rudy was celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday, and he certainly made me smile. It shut up the home fans around us. Burki made a fine save from Volland when the away player looked sure to make it 2-0. The home fans were not massively happy at the break. Head Coach Thomas Tuchel replaced Shinji Kagawa with Ilkay Gundogan for the second half. 

The new man hit the foot of Oliver Baumann's post shortly after his introduction. The match was to change on the hour mark. Borussia broke away with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He had two teammates with him, but Hoffenheim had players level. Rudy cynically brought down the forward and was shown a red card by referee Peter Sippel.

I thought the decision was very harsh. Pressure had been building, and the fans had become more vocal and appealing and booing at every turn. I think that the referee buckled under the pressure.

The game was then one-way traffic. Hoffenheim held out heroically against wave after wave of home forays. I thought that they may have held out, but with ten minutes to go, Henrikh Mkhitaryan fired into the bottom corner. I thought the roof was going to fall in with the noise.

Five minutes later, Dortmund went ahead as Adrian Ramos headed home a cross from Lukasz Piszczek. 

That was enough for me. The fans around me were getting on my nerves rapidly. I didn’t like the way the referee had given them a helping hand. By beating the crowds, I was getting on a train just a minute after Aubameyang had added a third. I was back at the main station to grab a snack and drink and jump on board the earlier train back to Düsseldorf.

Following a nap on the train and a shower and change at my hotel, I was in the Altstadt enjoying some beautiful Alt beer at the Hausbrauerei Zum Schlüssel. I was served by a quality waiter who was a frustrated Fortuna Düsseldorf fan. The bar was quiet, but the service was superb.

For nightcaps, I went to Bei Fatty Irish Pub, where the music was fantastic. It ended a long and superb day once more in a truly brilliant country. I arrived back at Heathrow the following lunchtime, tired but extremely content.