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Hertha BSC enjoying their strong start to the Bundesliga season

By on September 24, 2015

 

Hertha BSC are blessed to be calling the Olympiastadion their home.  Many years ago, Jesse Owens won Gold ahead of his German competitors in the 100m sprint in front of an openly outraged Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics; then he won the 200m, long jump, and 4x100m relay.  Seventy years later, Zinedine Zidane walked down the stadium’s storied tunnel after head-butting Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final.  It was also one of the first venues to host NFL games in Europe and in 2009, Usain Bolt set alight the stadium’s famous blue track, painted in the honor of Hertha BSC, posting world records in the 100m and 200m sprints that remain untouched.
These days, Berlin’s flagship club regularly fill Germany’s largest stadium in terms of seating capacity with more than 50,000 spectators and their average attendance ranks thirteenth in the football world. For the sake of comparison, in England, only Manchester United, Arsenal, and Newcastle United had a higher average attendance last year.
 
Yet it hasn’t always been this way. Established in July 1892 as a founding member of the German Football Association not ten years after Otto Von Bismark unified Germany, the club have lived the ups and downs of the Bundesliga and football in Germany for over a century. After merging in 1920 with Berliner Sport Club, the new Hertha Berliner hit an extended era of success that included back-to-back titles in 1930/1931. 
 
Yet the club couldn’t escape the impact of the Nazi rule and the government declared Hans Pfeifer as the club’s new president, as well as altering the league system. Ultimately however, the club managed to come away from the war with their identity intact.
 
Not surprisingly, tensions between East and West Germany continued to make football life difficult once again for Hertha as the club had to navigate the divide. Then the Berlin wall went up and players who lived in the East could no longer play for the club.
 
“In the first days, we would hide right next to the fence. We could still see the stadium,” Hertha supporter Helmut Klopfleisch, who told The Independent. “There were maybe sixty of us. We had a small radio so we could listen to the game. They announced the score, but they didn’t need to. We could hear the cheers.” At the time, he was thirteen. Back then, Hertha were still playing in the Station am Gesundbrunnen.
 
When the Bundesliga ultimately formed in 1963, the club became an inaugural member as the reigning champions of Germany. They left the Stadion am Gesundrunnen but returned shortly thereafter after being demoted from the Bundesliga for bribing players to move to West Berlin.
 
Though they found their way back into the Bundesliga in 1969, the club was tainted with a match fixing scandal two years later and only the sale of their former stadium could pay off their debt. Apartment blocks were built over the ground and still stand there today.
 
Renewed success had to wait until the mid seventies, which included a second place league finish in 1975 and the UEFA Cup semis in 1979. Next came another dark period in the club’s history, with the club playing in the 2nd tier or lower for nearly two decades. During this time, they played many games in the smaller Poststadion.
 
More recently, Hertha has bounced between the Bundesliga and the second tier, with the most recent promotion having been achieved in 2013 and narrowly sustained last season with the club’s fifteenth place result. It is thus with precious few memories of Bundesliga success that the Hertha supporters find their team sitting in fifth place, just one point behind a Wolfsburg club that is poised to meet Manchester United next week in the Champions League.  
 
With four of the club’s next five league matches set to be played away from home, Hertha’s newfound success could be tested, but with former Chelsea forward Salomon Kalou currently in form, and a solid defense that is conceding about a goal per match, Berlin’s top club has its eyes set on earnings its first European berth in a generation.
 newfound success could be tested, but with former Chelsea forward Salomon Kalou currently in form, and a solid defense that is conceding about a goal per match, Berlin’s top club has its eyes set on earning its first European berth in a generation this season.

Photo credit: By Biberbaer, via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.