BV 04 Düsseldorf (Germany)

 

Ballspielverein 04 Düsseldorf or BV 04 Düsseldorf in short, is a sports club from the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital Düsseldorf. The club was founded in 1904 originally as a football and handball club, prior to merging with SC Teutonia Düsseldorf in 1938.

After many years of playing in the lower reaches of regional football, BV played in Bezirksliga Berg-Mark, one of many second tier league’s in the national set up alongside the likes of Fortuna Düsseldorf and TuRU Düsseldorf for the 1946-47 season.

After a sixth place the team dropped to the lower level Landesliga Niederrhein after restructuring where they were placed in Gruppe 3, finishing fourth in 1947-48. The league was streamlined to two sections for 1949-50. BV ended sixth in Gruppe 1.

The team ended bottom of the table in 1951-52 to be relegated down to Gruppe 1 of the Bezirksliga, where they finished in third in 1955-56. Easter 1963 saw the first of the annual international U19 junior soccer tournament, the U19 Champions Trophy, being held at the Sportzentrum Nord home of BV.

Perhaps it was this development that aided the team to climb to the fourth tier Landesliga, where a fifth place in Gruppe 1 was achieved in 1964-65. The club continued at that level for many years, finishing fourth in 1977-78.

The season saw BV qualify to play in the DFB Pokal where they defeated VfL Bad Schwartau 3-0 in the first round before going down 4-1 in front of 7,000 fans against Borussia Mönchengladbach at Bökelbergstadion.

Landesliga dropped down a level after the reintroduction of the third level Oberliga, leading to BV being winning a place in the fourth level Verbandsliga at the end of the 1978-79 campaign after winning the Landesliga title.

The team lasted a couple of seasons at that level before dropping back down a couple of levels to Bezirksliga football. Promotion to Landesliga Niederrhein was won in 1997-98 after a decade at the lower level.

BV 04 remained in the Landesliga for ten years, with sixth place in 2005-06 and 2006-07 being their best return. However, the 2007-08 campaign ended in relegation down to Gruppe 1 of the seventh tier Bezirksliga, where they ended as runners-up in 2009-10.

Frank Kober was coach until he was replaced by Michael Daehne during the 2011-12 season which ended in relegation to Kreisliga A. In 2012-13 Frank Moeser and then Aitzmani Youssef had spells as coach.

Youssef was in charge as the team lifted their Kreisliga title in 2013-14 with Samet Atulahi topping the scoring. The step up to the Bezirksliga proved too much. Dragan Dasovic came in as coach but couldn’t save BV from relegation.

Back in Kreisliga A the rot continued. Ari Lachanas arrived as the new coach in the 2015-16 season, which also ended in relegation down to the ninth level Gruppe 1 of Kreisliga B. Worse was to follow as BV were relegated under the control of Alper Kocaaslan in 2017-18.

Sven Flader was appointed as coach as the team was forced to play in shortened qualifying leagues in Kreisliga C. The goals of Daniel Winter and Marco Stengel were enough to send the side up to   Kreisliga C, A-2 in Spring 2019.

A poor finish meant BV again having to play in Kreisliga C Qualifying Gruppe 4 in the Autumn of 2019. Player-coach Tibor Seresi successfully guided the team to second place as Denis Cosovic led the scoring.

In the truncated Spring 2020 season BV finished fourth and moved up to Gruppe 1 of the ninth tier Kreisliga B for 2020-21 as Kevin Broix took charge of the team.

BV 04 Düsseldorf will play in Düsseldorf Kreisliga B Gruppe 1 in the 2020-21 season.

My visit

Thursday 27th August 2020

I’d arrived in Düsseldorf the previous day for a three night break in the region to complete a fine couple of weeks annual leave from work as I tried to brighten up the mood around the Coronavirus pandemic.

An enjoyable meet up with local friends the night before, ended with a friendly at SC Leverkusen before waking in good form to partake in the weekly Zoom chat with pals around the globe, while in the less than salubrious surroundings of my room at Hotel Mondial.

I stretched my legs with a walk through the city to Königsallee and had a productive cricket phone chat with my mate George Appleton in Chiang Mai. I enjoyed the quietness of being able to wander about and take photos without too many sightseers. I’m not sure the local businesses would agree.

Filled with an early excellent portion of currywurst and fries, I jumped aboard the U78 tram a few stops to Kennedydamm, from where it little more than five minutes walk along the main road before taking a right down Hans-Böckler-Straße, from where Sportzentrum Nord was signposted up a side road.

The sports facilities in the Golzheim district catered for around 800 members belong to the association which also embraced working with the local community. Fortunately, the gates were open so I could look inside the main arena.

This had a fine covered stand across the halfway line on one side with a couple of steps of open terracing either side. The enclosed venue had a strip of flat open standing round the other three sides, with the large clubhouse and modern multi-purpose sports hall standing behind the near goal.

Just across the car park was an artificial surface with dug outs and a couple of benches for spectators. All in all, BV 04 possessed a very well appointed facility close to the city centre.

Once done with taking photos I retraced my steps and jumped aboard the U79 tram going north towards Duisburg where I jumped out at Sittardsberg to take a walk and discover the Karl-Dölzig-Platz home of Tus Viktoria Buchholz.