History of football in the Ruhr | OneFootball

Schalke, Borussia Dortmund and the remarkable history of football in the Ruhr

Few countries can match Germany's footballing history and tradition, and the Ruhr is central to that. From Dortmund to Duisburg, the old mining heartland has a remarkable story to tell all of its own, as bundesliga.com explains…

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Often referred to as the sport of the working class, football was always going to strike a chord with the people of Germany’s industrial hub. The Ruhr, called “the beating heart of German football” by Nationalelf and Bayern Munich legend Franz Beckenbauer, is the largest urban area in Germany and has a population of five million, many of whom can trace their roots to the coal and steel mines. The region has never had the wealth to rival that of powerhouse regions such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, yet they have enjoyed plenty of success on the pitch down the years.

Football first found Germany in the early 1870s, while BFC Germania are the oldest active club, formed in 1888. Ultimately, the beautiful game did not make its way to the Ruhr until the start of the 20th century, but once the locals embraced it, it never left.

Bayern legend Franz Beckenbauer (r.) enjoyed many battles with Borussia Dortmund and other clubs from the Ruhr. (Imago)

Peter Neururer, who coached several of the Ruhr’s biggest outfits, best described the people’s love of the game: “Anyone who was born here, in the Ruhr region, and grew up here, is automatically hooked on football.”

MSV Duisburg became the area’s first major club in 1902, before Schalke and Rot-Weiß Essen followed two and five years later respectively. 1909 was particularly busy, with Borussia Dortmund and Wattenscheid 09 joining the party before Bochum completed the sextet in 1911. These are the leading teams, who have all played top-tier football down the years, yet they are supported by a whole network of institutions who play in the German football pyramids lower leagues.

Life has often been tough for people in the Ruhr, and football quickly became an escape from the hard reality of the punishing work and poor living conditions, even if the population increased significantly in the 1900s as people arrived searching for employment. Duisburger SpV – now Eintracht Duisburg, who play their football in the ninth tier – were the first Ruhr representatives to enjoy success, lifting several West German championships and even finishing as runners-up in 1913.

MSV Duisburg are one of the Ruhr's oldest active football clubs. (IMAGO/Herbertz / Nico Herbertz)

Just 12 months later, though, World War I profoundly impacted the region. The area’s mines and steel plants became increasingly crucial to the war effort, but conscription meant working conditions for those who stayed behind decreased to an even lower standard. Once the fighting finished in 1918, the Ruhr was economically on its knees, like the rest of the country.

Unsurprisingly, organised football was sparse throughout the conflict, but it played a massive role as the Ruhr and Germany looked to recover. Out of the mass unemployment, hyperinflation and disruption to the local coal industry that cities like Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen depended on so much rose Schalke, one of German football’s first dominant sides.

Long before Pep Guardiola’s tiki-taka style took the Bundesliga by storm, the Royal Blues were bamboozling defenders with their 'Schalker Kreise' ('spinning top' in English) system. In some ways, it was a predecessor of the short, passing game that has become prevalent in the modern era.

Schalke, here pictured in 1932, were one of German football's dominant forces in the 1930s. (MartinxM)

A first West German championship came their way in 1929 before national Championships arrived in 1934, 1935 and 1937. Not even a half-year ban in 1930 for exceeding salary limits – legally against the rules of the time and morally against the then-overriding principles of amateur sport, as well as being at odds with the region’s poverty and deprivation – could stop them from reigning supreme.

The Nazi party and the Second World War in 1939 didn’t put an end to their trophy-hogging – they climbed onto Germany’s top step of the podium three times between then and 1945 – but it once again destabilized the Ruhr.

Much like during the First World War, the area was tasked with producing weapons and tanks, as well as keeping the country running through its mines. As such, it was a significant target for the Allies, with Essen, Dortmund and Duisburg amongst the cities most devastated by consistent aerial bombardment.

Essen's Krupp factory, here pictured, was amongst many buildings that were heavily damaged in the Ruhr during World War II. (IMAGO/Photo12)

Initially, Schalke's success allowed them to hold on to their star players, who avoided conscription, but the intensified fighting modified the situation. By 1945, football in the Ruhr and across Germany had effectively been abandoned as the Reich regime approached its end.

By the time the War had finished, the Ruhr had been affected more than most. The industrial sector, so crucial to the survival of the local population, had been reduced by up to 30%, while countless civilians had lost their lives. However, the aftermath ultimately transformed the region.

Although the Ruhr was demilitarised and closely controlled by the Allies, the Marshall Plan soon helped integrate it into the European framework as a steel and coal hub, producing tons of both for the whole continent.

Coal mines, as pictured here, were once the lifeblood of the Ruhr. (IMAGO/United Archives / Erich Andres)

That series of events gave the Ruhr a significant boost, and its football clubs were no exception – only now, there was a changing of the guard. Schalke were able to add another German championship to their trophy cabinet in 1958, but by that point, Rot-Weiss Essen had already enjoyed what would prove to be the greatest period of their history, winning a national title and the DFB Cup within the space of three years between 1952 and 1955 – the latter German championship victory saw them become the first side from the country to participate in the European Cup.

However, while Essen’s glory days ultimately did not lead them to becoming one of German football’s giants, Dortmund's rise was far more meteoric. Never a participant in the latter stages of national championships before the war, they reached their first final in 1949 before lifting the cup for the first time in 1956. They made it back-to-back victories the following year, while they were also the final German champions prior to the inaugural Bundesliga.

Rot-Weiß Essen were the first German team to compete in the European Cup. (imago sportfotodienst)

Dortmund’s ascension to the peak of the country’s football scene was bitter for Schalke, not only because it pushed them further down the pecking order, but also because the two clubs were already major rivals by that point. Meetings between the two are called Revierderbies, and it remains one of the biggest rivalries in German football due to the proximity of the cities – they are separated by just 35 kilometres – and their status as the Ruhr’s most prominent industrial centres.

Twice a Bundesliga champion with Dortmund, former Germany international Patrick Owomoyela summed up the derby's importance. “It's unparalleled, at least in Germany, probably in Europe. There are a few South American derbies where I wouldn't necessarily want to be in the wrong end either. But as far as we're concerned, this is the mother of all derbies.”

Watch: The top 5 Revierderby moments

Bochum were promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in 1971/72. (imago sportfotodienst)

The first match-up was in 1925, which Schalke won 4-2. Of the following 18 clashes, the Gelsenkirchen side won 16, keeping bragging rights very much in their part of the world. By the halfway point of the century, BVB had recorded a further six victories, losing just once. They were never quite as dominant as Schalke initially had been, but they were one of the biggest winners of the post-war period.

Their inclusion in the inaugural Bundesliga season was hardly a surprise, and they were joined from the Ruhr by Miedricher SV, who would later become MSV Duisburg. They were maiden winners Cologne’s biggest challengers, finishing in second, six points adrift.

Their inclusion in the league was controversial given the club’s lack of comparative prestige. Still, it does show the importance of Ruhr football that even a team from a smaller city could find itself amongst the elite in large thanks to their popularity in a well-inhabited area.

Watch: The top 5 Revierderby goals

Borussia Dortmund's 1966 European Cup Winners' Cup win was the first continental trophy for a German club. (imago sportfotodienst)

The 1960s and early 1970s proved to be the golden age for the Ruhr’s clubs. Dortmund continued to establish themselves as one of German football’s most stable and largest institutions, winning the DFB Cup in 1965 before following it up with the European Cup Winners’ Cup a year later – Germany’s first continental trophy at club level.

Schalke, meanwhile, almost completed a league and cup double in 1971/72, winning the latter while finishing as runners-up in the former - albeit just a year after they and several other Ruhr clubs were amongst those implicated in the 1971 Bundesliga scandal, where several games were found to have been fixed. Bochum earned their first promotion to the Bundesliga at the end of that campaign. They stayed there for 21 years, too – the third-longest run of any Ruhr side in the top flight.

If Dortmund and Schalke are the region's older siblings, Bochum are the little brother, as current Bochum boss Dieter Hecking explains. “Bochum are always sort of laughed at compared to Schalke and Dortmund. However, the way they keep holding their own against such big competition, I think that's something that really sets this club apart."

Rot-Weiß Oberhausen spent four years in the Bundesliga in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (Imago)

“When you go out onto the streets, Bochum polarise opinion. Bochum are a topic of discussion in the city. You’re spoken to about it everywhere. Whether young or old, everyone roots for the club. And that’s exactly what characterises the Ruhr region. When you’ve decided on something close to your heart, you stick with it through thick and thin.”

Elsewhere, Essen were also regulars in the early days of the Bundesliga. Add in Duisburg, and the Ruhr had five representatives amongst the elite in 1973/74, and it would have made up a third of the 18 teams in the division had Rot-Weiß Oberhausen been able to extend their stay for another 12 months.

Nothing lasts forever, though, and before long, economic change and evolution would impact the Ruhr once more. German society was rocked by the 1973 oil crisis and the energy crisis six years later, which ultimately accelerated the shift from coal to other natural resources. Again, the Ruhr’s industrial backbone was under threat.

The Veltins-Arena's player tunnel, which imitates the entrance to a coal mine. (IMAGO/Markus Endberg)

In 1957, the Ruhr had over 140 coal mines, yet by the end of the 1980s, only 15 remained. The steel industry was also affected, as the biggest companies either ceased operating or merged with each other, leading to tens of thousands of workers losing their jobs.

All of this was detrimental to the area's outfits. As Germany’s richer areas prospered, with Bayern and Stuttgart in the south and Hamburg and Werder Bremen in the north sweeping up all of the 1980s’ West German Bundesliga titles, the Ruhr struggled to keep up. Schalke spent the decade jumping between the top two divisions, while Dortmund finished no higher than fourth, although they did win the DFB Cup in 1989.

Bochum remained in the top tier and also went close to a trophy, losing the 1988 Cup final, but never challenged in the league. Duisburg were relegated in 1982 and did not return for almost 10 years. Financial difficulties hit Essen particularly hard – they dropped down to the second step of the pyramid in 1977 and have never been back since – and Oberhausen, too, have become a lower-league side with little hope of reliving their apogee.

Dortmund became the third German club to win the Champions League in 1997. (imago sportfotodienst via www.imago-images.de)

Of all the clubs in the region, Schalke have the mining industry closest to their heart. Their stadium, the Veltins-Arena, includes a tunnel onto the pitch that imitates an entrance to a coal mine. Gerald Asamoah, a local legend who spent 13 years at Schalke, said, “If you join Schalke the club and don’t know what mining means, then you're in the wrong place. I think that's what people have tried to do: explain to the people who came to Schalke what Schalke actually means.”

The change in energy priorities could have been a hammer blow to the Ruhr, but the resilience the area had previously shown shone through again. SG Wattenscheid became the Ruhr’s seventh club to compete in the Bundesliga, and by 1991/92, there was again a quintet of teams amongst newly-reunified Germany’s best.

Mesut Özil (l.) and Gerald Asamoah (r.), two ex-Schalke stars who came from immigrant backgrounds. (Imago)

Before long, they were winning, too. Dortmund were the undoubted top dogs, winning back-to-back Bundesliga titles between 1994 and 1996, before joining Hamburg and Bayern as UEFA Champions League champions in 1997 – a success sweetened by the fact it usurped Schalke’s UEFA Cup triumph in the same season.

Duisburg almost got their hands on the Cup in 1998, eventually succumbing to Bayern in Berlin, before Schalke showed them how to get the job done, reigning supreme in the competition in both 2000/01 and 2001/02. Not to be outdone, Dortmund clinched the 2001/02 Bundesliga, edging out Bayer Leverkusen on the final day.

There have been more moments of glory in recent years, often enjoyed by Dortmund, who won successive titles in 2011 and 2012 and two DFB Cups, while also reaching two Champions League finals. Schalke have suffered their fair share of close shaves with silverware, finishing second in five different Bundesliga seasons in the 21st century, but they too won the Cup in 2011.

Now, though, Schalke ply their trade in Bundesliga 2, while Dortmund have challenged at the summit of the Bundesliga increasingly sporadically in recent years. It is not so much that the Ruhr has undergone more turmoil, but more that they have been unable to match the growth of others.

Football in the new millennium has, at least, helped with integration. Immigrants from across Europe and beyond flooded to the Ruhr during the industrial peak, and many with mixed heritage and roots have written themselves into the region’s footballing history.

Born in Ghana, Asamoah made over 350 appearances for Schalke and returned to coach the second string in 2016. Gelsenkirchen, meanwhile, is the birthplace 2014 World Cup winner Mesut Özil and ex-Germany captain İlkay Gündoğan, both of whom have Turkish parents.

The coal industry is now nothing but a memory, with the final mine closing in December 2018. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the importance of football to the Ruhr people. Only Bayern can boast more members in Germany than Dortmund and Schalke, and they are both in the top 10 of members per sports club globally. Even now, in the second division, Schalke regularly attract over 60,000 fans for home games, while Dortmund had the highest average attendance in Europe in 2024/25, selling out all 17 Bundesliga home games.

Kevin Großkreutz, a Dortmund fan from birth and club cult hero, explains precisely what football means to him and his contemporaries. “I think football is the biggest thing in the Ruhr region for everyone. You live only for your club, whether in Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Essen or wherever. Football means everything to people in the Ruhr. You grow up with it. You learn it from your father. He learned it from his father. It's hard to describe. It's simply a love like you have for your children or your wife. I don't think there's anything greater.”

Quite simply, football and the Ruhr are inseparable, with one giving the other identity and meaning. While the fortunes of its individual clubs have taken varied courses, the region is sure to remain a focal point of the German game for many years to come.

By Jon Radcliffe

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