The board of Borussia Dortmund were not the most accommodating people in the early 1950’s, and they tried to pull off two stunts to suit their own agendas but their nefarious plans were thwarted by the players on both occasions. The board cunningly waited until moments before the 1956 German championship final against Karlsruher SC to inform striker Erich Schanko that his contract would not be renewed. Seconds before the game, a delegation of Dortmunds best players stormed the board room and matter-of-factly issued an ultimatum: “If Erich’s contract is not renewed, we will not be taking the field today!” If Dortmund were to win the match, it would be their first ever German championship title, but without their main players, it would have been an impossible task. Needless to say, Schanko had his contract extended. Borussia Dortmund hit the pitch and raised the German championship trophy for the first time in their history with a 4-2 win at Berlin’s Olympiastadion. The title also qualified the team for the following seasons European Cup.

 

Full of joy, the team travelled back to Dortmund by train, accompanied by their wives and girlfriends. The board got up to their old tricks again, and told the team that they expected to present the champions to the people of Dortmund without their loved ones. The players were not happy about this, so they rallied together and stood their ground. In response, the board tried to engineer it so that the players were all at the front of the train, with the wives and girlfriends at the back. The plan was, to secretly unhook the carriage carrying the wives and girlfriends off the back of the train before it reached Dortmund. Moments before the plan was put into motion, the players realised what was going on and cheekily spread themselves amongst the ladies in an act of defiance. 

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With the exact same lineup, Dortmund repeated the feat the following year by winning back-to-back German championship titles, this time by beating Hamburg SV, a team that included a young Uwe Seeler, with a resounding 4-1 victory. In the European Cup, they saw off Spora Luxembourg quite easily, before exiting at the quarter finals with a loss to Manchester United. In 1962, the DFB came together in Dortmund to discuss the establishment of a professional league in Germany. The new league, called the Bundesliga, kicked off in 1963, Borussia Dortmund earning it’s spot in the contest by winning the last pre-Bundesliga national championship. It was a Dortmund player, Friedhelm Konietzka, who scored the first ever Bundesliga goal, barely a minute into the first match against Werder Bremen.

 

More drama occurred in 1964, when, to everyone’s relief, the entire board resigned. They first tried to sack coach Hermann Eppenhoff for making some unflattering comments about board members, but when Eppenhoff’s lawyer worked out that the boards President was never properly elected, they had no leg to stand on due to a clear protocol infringement, and they were all left with no choice but to resign, while the much respected Eppenhoff stayed on. On a stormy Glasgow night in 1966, Dortmund made it’s first appearance in a final on the European stage against Liverpool in the European Cup Winners Cup. After extra time, Dortmund won 2-1 and became the first German team to win a European trophy. That same year, Dortmund’s top scorer Lothar Emmerich scored the goal of the tournament for West Germany at the 1966 World Cup – a goal which the assembled press called “The Goal of the Century.” On the books at Dortmund during this era were the three Alfreds – Preissler, Kelbassa and Niepieklo, who became club legends.

Achievements: German Football Championship – Champions x3 Runners up x1
                               German Cup – Winners x1 Runners up x1
                                Oberliga West – Champions x2 Runners up x2
                                UEFA Cup Winners Cup – Winners x1

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Star player: Lothar Emmerich DoB 21 November 1941, Dorstfeld, Germany

Playing as a tall, strongly-built outside forward, Lothar Emmerich is famous among supporters of Borussia Dortmund for scoring 115 goals in 138 Bundesliga matches. He spent 1960 to 1969 at the club, helping them to the European Cup Winners Cup final in 1966. He next played his club football in Belgium with K Beerschot and then Austria with Austria Klagenfurt before returning to Germany to play for 1 FC Schweinfurt 05. He made 5 appearances for the German national team in a short but significant national career. He played for West Germany in the 1966 World Cup including the final against England, where he had a role in creating their contentious last minute equaliser. Earlier, he had scored one of the best goals in the competition – a tremendous long range shot against Spain at Villa Park. He spent his later years as fan coordinator for Borussia Dortmund and died in 2003.