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Know your history: The foundation and early years

For everybody who doesn't know this glorius club (shame on you), here's a small introduction to everything you need to know about the first years of Borussia Dortmund.

18 friends, a local pub, some Borussia-beer and a pissed priest

What sounds like the beginning of a bad joke is actually everything you need to tell the foundation-story of Borussia Dortmund. It's the 19th december 1909 and about 50 people followed an invitation to meet in a room of the local pub, "Zum Wildschütz", to discuss the foundation of an independent club without the permission of the church. During a heated debate most people left to warn the local parish priest. When chaplain Dewald finally arrived at the pub only 18 men were left and stopped him from entering the "Wildschütz" and dissolving the meeting. Those 18 men, Franz and Paul Braun, Henry Cleve, Hans Debest, Paul Dziendzielle, Franz, Julius and Wilhelm Jacobi, Hans Kahn, Gustav Müller, Franz Risse, Fritz Schulte, Hans Siebold, August Tönnesmann, Heinrich and Robert Unger, Fritz Weber and Franz Wendt ended up being the founding-members of Borussia Dortmund.

Legend says that because of the hectic nature of said evening they weren't really prepared to found the club right on the spot so they didn't have any idea how to actually name the club, they spontaneously decided to do what every self-respecting man would do in that situation and named the newfound team after the beer they had been drinking, the Borussia beer. I mean it probably doesn't matter it's just a small football club right? Right. And that's the story of how a club with approximately 130.000 members (currently the fifth biggest sports-club in the world) was named after a local beer.

From the early years to the "Turnaround in the West" and the first "Deutsche Meisterschaft"

During the first 30 years of the club there were a lot of ups and downs for the club and the sport itself. It was a time when football was still a relatively young sport which saw a meteoric rise in popularity and acceptance in society. The rules and leagues constantly changed and obviously both World Wars certainly played a part in the early chaos of German football.

The rise of Borussia Dortmund began shortly after the second World War when they beat Schalke 04 3:2 in 1947 for the first time to become the "Westfalenmeister" (a Championship played in the west of Germany). Schalke was at that time the best and arguably most important club in Germany, but after that historic defeat, known as the "Turnaraound in the West", Dortmund quickly became the leading power in the west. Just like that the "Revierderby" and one of the biggest rivalries in football was born.

Some pretty succesful years followed, but it wasn't until the 1955/56 season that Dortmund could call themselves German champions. BVB lost their first final for the "Deutsche Meisterschaft" in 1949 but a few years later in 1956 they could celebrate the first championship in club history with a 4:2 win over Karlsruhe SC. A feat they repeated two more times, in 1956/57 and 1962/1963 before the creation of the Bundesliga in 1963/64.


I hope you guys enjoy this small intro of our club, if you do let me know in the comments. I'll try to do the same thing for the early Bundesliga years, the 90's and the Klopp years, as well as some small posts about the most important people in the history of our beloved team.

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