Berliner FC Dynamo is a semi-professional football club from the German capital of Berlin, who were originally formed in 1949 as Sportgemeinde Deutsche Volkspolizei Berlin. In 1953, they took the place of SC Volkspolizei Potsdam in the DDR-Liga, the old East German league, as the club was based in communist East Berlin.
Both clubs merged to
play as part of the Sportvereinigung Dynamo Sports Club as SG Dynamo Berlin,
which was changed to Sport Club Dynamo Berlin on the 1st October 1954. Politics back in those days, under communist rule, played a hugely significant part in sport, even sometimes deciding who would win.
Several players had been ordered a few years earlier to leave SC Volkspolizei
Potsdam to join Dynamo Dresden, to displace the popular club
of the bourgeois, SC Dresdner. In 1954, Dynamo Dresden players were ordered to move once again, this time to Dynamo
Berlin after the team had been relegated to the third tier.
The team then ended
as DDR-Liga II champions in 1957 as Dieter Legler and Günter Schröter led the
scoring. In 1959, Dynamo lifted the FDGB-Pokal, the East German Cup, as they beat SC Wismut
Karl-Marx-Stadt after a replay. The side finished as league runners-up in 1959-60
with Emil Poklitar scoring goals.
The club had
played their home games at the Walter Ulbricht-Stadion, which would later
become the Stadion der Weltjugend, before moving to Sportforum
Hohenschönhausen, which had facilities for several sports as well as a stadium
for Dynamo. The team
lost out to SC Chemie Halle in the Pokal final in 1961-62.
In 1966-67, the team
were relegated to the second tier, a year after the club had been reorganised
and renamed as Berliner Fußballclub Dynamo, or BFC Dynamo. Within a
year, Dynamo were back in the top flight with the highly disliked boss of the
Stasi secret police, Erich Mielke, as a supporter, which didn’t aid the club’s
popularity.
The team lost the 1970-71 Pokal final 2-1 after extra time to SG
Dynamo Dresden before ending as league runners-up the following season. In the 1972-73 campaign, the team defeated Angers SCO and Levski Sofia in the UEFA Cup before going out to Liverpool in the third round. A further season of finishing as DDR-Fußball-Oberliga runners-up followed in 1975-76, with Hans-Jürgen Riediger the top scorer.
Coach Jürgen
Bogs took Dynamo to the first of ten consecutive titles in 1978-79. 1. FC
Magdeburg denied the team the double when they proved too strong in the Pokal
final. In 1979-80, the team went on a run to the quarter-final of the European
Cup, where they were defeated by Nottingham Forest.
Wolf-Rüdiger
Netz joined in the goals tally along with Hartmut Pelka in the title wins of
1979-80 and 1980-81. Bodo Rudwaleit, Norbert Trieloff, Rainer Troppa and Ralf
Sträßer were mainstays of the team that carried on their dominant run in
1981-82, which ended in defeat in the FDGB-Pokal to SG Dynamo Dresden.
Bogs’ team
continued to see off all comers as the 1982-83 and 1983-84 titles were
delivered as Rainer Ernst netted regularly. In the latter of those seasons, Dynamo went to another European Cup quarter final before being knocked out by
AS Roma. The rivals from Dresden would deny the Berliners in further Pokal
finals in 1983-84 and 1984-85.
Frank Pastor
and the emerging Andreas Thom came to the fore up front in 1985-86 in a season that
would be marred by controversy. It is said that much of the team's success was
achieved with the assistance of some obedient refereeing and helpful transfers
from other clubs! The ruling
Politburo were alleged to be unhappy with the situation as the dislike of
Dynamo grew across the state.
A championship deciding 1-1 draw against
Lokomotive Leipzig in 1986 led to nationwide protests and sanctions against
referee Bernd Stumpf. Lok had led
the infamous match 1-0, having had a player sent off harshly, until the 94th
minute when Dynamo were awarded a questionable penalty to level.
It was later
learned that Stumpf had worked for the Stasi under the cover name "Peter
Richter" since the end of his army service. Their
reputation was hardly aided when the team lost a game 1-0 away to SV
Lichtenberg 47. Their Hans-Zoschke-Stadion was overlooked by the headquarters
of the Stasi. Erich Meilke watched on from his office window.
He ordered that
the stadium be torn down, but it was saved as Zosche’s widow, Elfried, appealed
to Communist party boss Erich Honecker. Further league
titles were amassed in 1986-87, in which Bodo Rudwaleit, Christian Backs, Thomas
Doll and Pastor were ever-present and then in 1987-88, before a runners-up spot
ensued to deny eleven in a row.
Dynamo also added
FDGB-Pokal triumphs in 1987-88 with a 2-0 victory over FC Carl Zeiss Jena at
the old Stadion der Weltjugend, with Doll netting one of the goals. The trophy
was retained in 1988-89, this time with an Andreas Thom goal defeating FC
Karl-Marx-Stadt. After
Germany was reunified in 1990, the club renamed itself as FC Berlin to try
to distance itself from the past.
The club were admitted into the third
tier of German football for the 1991-92 season, where they won the
NOFV-Oberliga Nord at the first attempt. In 1999, they
returned to their BFC Dynamo title as the team won the Berliner Landespokal
with a 1-0 victory over Türkspor Berlin at Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark in
front of just 1,888 fans.
The club no
longer had their powerful patrons, and its best players were snapped up by
Bundesliga clubs. The team were relegated on a couple of occasions to find
themselves playing in the fifth tier and were declared bankrupt before
reforming in 2001. This brought
further issues as the club tried to retain its famous emblem.
It had been
bought as everything was sold off by the buyer to André Sommer and Rayk Bernt
and their marketing firm Ra-Be GmbH, who took a percentage of all merchandise
sales. The pair had
served as directors during the club’s bankruptcy and added further concern to
the authorities with their connection to violent fan groups and gangs.
Another
Oberliga title followed, but immediately ‘Die Wein Reds’ went back to the fifth
tier, before fighting back to lift the Verbandsliga Berlin crown in 2004, as
upgrade works were carried out at Hohenschönhausen, in readiness for more
Oberliga football. Controversy
returned to the club that year as the Deutscher Fussball Bund introduced the
Verdiente Meistervereine.
This was a system to honour successful clubs. It was
decided to award clubs one star for three titles, two stars for five, and three
stars for ten. The stars could then be displayed on crests and team shirts. Dynamo
petitioned to have their East German titles acknowledged, but they received no
reply. The club decided to act and added three stars to their jerseys.
However,
the DFB decided that the stars would only count since the 1963 formation of the
Bundesliga. The DFB later accepted all title wins from 1903 in both East and
West Germany.
The crest
saga continued until 2009, when the club decided to design a new one featuring
the Berlin bear.
Another Berliner Landespokal was added in 2011 as SFC Stern
1900 were defeated 2-0. A further Pokal win came in June 2013 as BFC Dynamo defeated SV Lichtenberg 47 1-0, to gain a place in the following season's DFB-Pokal. The visit of VfB Stuttgart drew a crowd of 9,227 to Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark.
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| Stadion im Sportforum |
The 2013-14
campaign saw Dynamo waltz away with the Oberliga title. Players' contracts were
extended, and a deal was signed to move full-time to
Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark, which was used for a couple of seasons in the
glory years, as well as for all European ties.
Thomas
Stratos replaced Volkan Uluc as Head Coach in the 2014-15 season as Dynamo
ended in a fifth position in the fourth-tier Regionalliga Nordost. The team
went on to lift the Berliner Landespokal 1-0 against Tasmania Berlin on home
territory in front of 6,914 fans. The team finished in fourth place in 2015-16, followed by a disappointing campaign despite the goals of Dennis Srbeny.
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| Stadion im Sportforum |
A big improvement saw Dynamo finish fourth
in 2017-18 before another poor season, which saw coach René Rydlewicz replaced
by Matthias Maucksch. The 2019-20
campaign saw Dynamo play some games at the redeveloped Sportforum
Hohenschönhausen ahead of the demolition and rebuilding of Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark.
They finished in sixth place when the season ended, owing to the Coronavirus
outbreak under coach Christian Benbennek. Lucas Brumme scored the goals the following season, which saw Berliner AK 07 beaten 2-1 in the final of the Berliner Landespokal. The team also won the Regionalliga title, but were defeated by VfB Oldenburg in the playoffs to kill off promotion hopes.
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| Stadion im Sportforum |
Heiner Backhaus was appointed trainer in June 2022, lasting in the post until September 2023 when he was replaced by Dirk Kunert. Andreas Heraf was his successor in July 2024 after the team finished fourth in the league. The change didn't work, leading to the arrival of new team boss Dennis Kutrieb.
A 2-0 win in the Landespokal covered over a poor 2024-25 league season, as goals from Henry Jon Crosthwaite and Kevin Lankford did the job at Mommsenstadion.
Berliner
FC Dynamo will play in the Regionalliga Nordost in the 2020-21 season.
My
visit
Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark
Saturday
10th October 2015
Having
landed at Tegel Airport on a beautifully sunny Saturday lunchtime on a German
Wings flight from Heathrow, I now had to get my skates on, as my schedule was very
tight, as we landed twenty minutes late. My
destination was the match in the second round of the Berliner Landespokal
between SV Lichtenberg 47 and VfL Neukölln.
My forward planning had estimated I
could just about fit in a visit to Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark on route,
but it was now going to be tight. The bus ride was quick, helped by the fact that Tegel Airport was located close to the centre compared to many other cities.
Before long, I was at Jungfernheide S
Bahn station. Once I worked out which platform I required, an S 42 train soon turned
up for the fifteen-minute journey to Schönhauser Allee. I’d decided not to print maps and rely on my memory and signs for the trip. While this could be risky, it also made it a challenge. Surely the enormous floodlights would be a giveaway?
As it transpired, the signs for Max-Schmeling-Halle were plentiful, and I was approaching the stadium in around ten minutes. The hall was named in honour of the former German heavyweight boxing world champion.
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, after whom
the stadium was named after was a nationalist of former gymnastics educator in
the 1800s. Apart
from the two arenas above, there were also plentiful facilities on artificial
surfaces for football and hockey around the complex. This meant the gates were
open as competitors walked around.
I was slightly sceptical as to whether I’d gain access inside the stadium. Although Dynamo were drawn at home in the Pokal against FSV Hansa 07, the game at been moved to their Sportforum base. It was only that change that made me plump for the Lichtenberg game.
Once I saw a man at the top of the terracing setting up a stall, I was very hopeful, and sure enough, a gate was open.
I climbed the steps to get a great view from
behind one end. Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark
really was a fine arena. A single tier of multi coloured seating ran around the
athletics track, with only breaks for vehicle and competitor access. The far
side had a cantilever roof with reached the bends at each end.
The far end had
the distinctive Berliner Fernsehturm TV Tower as an imposing backdrop, a couple
of miles away at Alexanderplatz. The crowning glory was the magnificent
cantilevered Main Stand raised above the eastern side. A few more people were walking around the concourse at the top of the seating tier, setting up for what was obviously a forthcoming event.
Security was in
place at the vehicle entrance to the park as I followed the signs to the U
Bahn.
Within
a few minutes, I reached Eberswalder Straße and its raised track above Schönhauser
Allee to catch the train to Alexanderplatz, to change and reach my afternoon’s
live entertainment. When
I eventually reached my accommodation at the Ibis Hotel opposite the main
railway station, I flicked through the TV channels.
There on Eurosport was live
action from the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark in the shape of the German
Bowl, the country’s grand final of American Football. The match was between the New Yorker
Lions of Braunschweig and Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns. It appeared after research
that the arena was used regularly to stage the games of Berlin Adler in the
same competition.
The images on this page are of Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark, unless labelled Stadion im Sportforum, which have been sourced online through Google.