No one knows exactly when Europe’s largest grandstand earned its now-famous name, although it’s certain it happened later than most people imagine.
In 2018, German writer and author Uli Hesse described the yellow wall at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion as something that Bayern Munich, the country’s most successful and powerful club, does not have: “A huge The terrace looks like a return to the golden age of football.”
The architectural behemoth can accommodate 24,454 spectators for Bundesliga matches, more than twice the number of spectators in Celtic’s fabled “Jungle” in the 1960s and just shy of Anfield’s maximum capacity during Liverpool’s golden era of football. .
“Unlike jungle or popular science, the term yellow wall is not very old,” Hesse emphasizes, using Kicker, Germany’s most popular football magazine, as a reference point for its relevance. It wasn’t until May 2009 that the description of the “yellow wall” first appeared on its pages, after Dortmund’s then goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller discovered that 10,000 of the club’s fans had turned out to watch a game against Eintracht Frankfurt. reflect.
“It’s incredible; even if we’re playing on the road, the yellow wall will be there,” Weidenfeller said.
It would be another 21 months before Kicker began using the expression regularly, helping it become an established term in the language of global football.
At the time, Dortmund had won the Bundesliga title for two consecutive seasons under Jurgen Klopp, who had transformed the underachieving giants into a club competing for domestic and European glory.
In May 2013, his Dortmund team lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final at Wembley Stadium.
This weekend the club have the chance to win the same trophy at the same London venue for the first time since their only win in the competition in 1997. Finishing the season 27 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, they are a talented team but their health is not as bad as it was 11 years ago.
Klopp’s charisma and achievements have helped Dortmund become only the second club in Europe to have many football supporters. However, iconography is also an important feature of Dortmund’s appeal.
Their popular former manager, who left Liverpool in May after almost nine years at the club, described the experience of emerging from the inside of the Westfalenstadion and seeing the Yellow Wall as an almost out-of-body experience.
Dortmund fans bid farewell and express their gratitude to Klopp, who left in 2015 (Patrick Stolarz/AFP via Getty Images)
“This dark tunnel is only two meters high (just under 6ft 7in) and when you come out it’s like you were born,” said the 6ft 3in Klopp. “You come out and the whole place explodes – out of the darkness and into the light. You look to your left and there seems to be 150,000 people on the terrace going crazy.
Weidenfeller, leader of Klopp’s side: “If you are the enemy, it crushes you, but if you have the enemy behind you as a goalkeeper, it’s an amazing feeling.”
This view is supported by Bayern’s Champions League and World Cup-winning midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who later played for Manchester United and Major League Soccer side Chicago Fire. Asked whether he was more worried about Dortmund’s players or their manager Jurgen Klopp, he replied: “What scares me the most is the yellow wall.”
The structure’s monumental scale provides a series of vantage points. “Looking from the front on the lower level you can almost scratch the goalkeeper’s back, while high up under the roof the slope is at an angle of 37 degrees, like a ski jump,” concluded German news magazine Der Der Spiegel.
According to Hesse, Daniel Lorcher, born in 1985, was “more or less responsible” for coining the term “yellow wall.” In 2004, as Dortmund faced doom on and off the pitch and its financial situation grew bleaker, the club’s largest group of superfans created a mosaic paraphrasing Oscar Wilde’s aphorism: “Many have passed down dark alleys; But only a few people are looking at the stars.
Locher was a key member of the United team, standing in the center of what was then simply known as the Southern Tribune, just behind the goal. Their job is to make as much noise as possible, but Locher believes Dortmund have greater possibilities due to the size of the stand. If super fans can get other fans involved and convince them to wear bright yellow while carrying flags and banners of the same color, the effect would be amazing, helping Dortmund’s players and potentially creating more for their opponents. atmosphere of intimidation.
Not only does this require a lot of fabric, but all of it has to be the right shade of yellow.
Locher and other extremists contacted a Danish retail chain that has stores across Germany. “They sold us over three miles of fabric and we produced four thousand flags,” Locher told Hesse. “We rented sewing machines for weeks and had to learn how to use them. It was hard work, but we had a lot of fun.
Hesse wrote in his book “Building the Yellow Wall” that as the 2004-05 season entered its final stages and Dortmund avoided oblivion, before a home game against Hansa Rostock, “the entire stand was bathed in flags. Among the yellows.”
One of the banners read: “Yellow wall shines at the end of the dark alley” and another read: “Yellow wall, Dortmund South Stand.”
Since 2005, the Westfalenstadion has been known as Signal Iduna Park and the club decided to use a sponsorship deal to reduce debt, which was eventually paid off to Morgan Stanley three years later.
There were many factors that contributed to Dortmund’s financial instability during this period, one of which was the need to convert the stadium into an all-seater venue following the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in England.
In the summer of 1992, the north stand terrace of the Westfalenstadion was converted into a seating area, reducing the total capacity from 54,000 to less than 43,000. The club’s directors realized they could charge more money for a more comfortable experience but were unwilling to subject Sudtribune (as old Dortmund were still called) in the south to the same treatment after discussions with fans, who let them Realize that the terrace is the club’s only real marketing tool.
In May 1997, after Dortmund defeated Juventus 3-1 in Munich to win the Champions League, the area of the South Stand was doubled. With stadiums getting bigger and safer, Dortmund are investing more in players than ever before. But more success did not follow, and by 2005 the club was likely to fold.
Today, Dortmund’s stadium is the largest in Germany, and they average higher attendances than any other Bundesliga club – including Bayern: Dortmund are averaging over 81,000 per game this season, while Bayern are in the futuristic The Allianz Arena has an attendance of 75,000. There are almost 26,000 fewer people between Dortmund and the teams in third and fourth place (Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart), which is only slightly more than the capacity of the Yellow Wall itself, a platform that can accommodate a sizable population.
The Yellow Wall paid tribute to Marco Reus during his final home game of the month (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
Although the stadium’s capacity has been reduced to make it an all-seater stand for European nights, the three clubs with the lowest average attendances in the Bundesliga (Union Berlin, Darmstadt and Heidenheim) can still put all Spectators flocked to the Southern Tribune and there was plenty of space; yet the club didn’t really seek to exploit it financially in a direct way.
Hesse even believes that the yellow wall “hurts” Dortmund in this sense, because ticket prices have remained very low.
On average, season ticket holders pay €14 (£11.90/$15.10) per game, but according to Hesse the club would lose its soul if Dortmund put seats there and charged more.
The fact that Dortmund are not even among the top 20 clubs in Europe in terms of matchday revenue (despite having one of the continent’s biggest stadiums) reflects attitudes, according to financial experts at Forbes and Deloitte existed in their region, the industrial heart of Germany. Instead, the Yellow Wall has delivered residual monetary benefits, with companies including chemicals company Evonik, brewer Brinkhoff’s and pump maker Wilo keen to join forces with the country. Authentic creations link working-class areas.
The Westfalenstadion has become a tourist attraction, but the yellow wall remains unaffected for the time being.
Hesse said the biggest decision for visitors is whether to join a party on the terrace or watch its glow from a distance.
(Above: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
