Berliner FC Dynamo
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Full name | Berliner Fussball Club Dynamo e.V. | ||
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Nickname(s) | "The Wine Reds", "The Hohenschönhausners" | ||
Founded | 1953, 1966 | ||
Ground | Dynamo-Sportforum, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark | ||
Capacity | 10,000/ 20,000 | ||
Chairman | ![]() | ||
Manager | ![]() | ||
League | NOFV-Oberliga Nord (IV) | ||
2005-06 | 6th | ||
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Berliner FC Dynamo (commonly Dynamo Berlin) is a German football club and is the successor organization to the club that played in East Berlin as Dynamo Berlin from 1953 to 1966.
History
Founding and Stasi patronage
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A predecessor side to the current-day club was established as SpVgg Dynamo Berlin on March 27, 1953 and then re-christened as SC Dynamo Berlin on October 1, 1954. Initially a local side, the team was promoted to the DDR-Liga (II) in 1957 and captured the division championship that year to immediately advance to the DDR Oberliga. Dynamo enjoyed some success in the late 50s and early 60s with a number of top-three finishes and an East German Cup win in 1959. However, by 1963 their play had fallen off and they had become a lower table side leading to their relegation in 1967.
The club was re-established on January 15, 1966 as BFC Dynamo Berlin when the football department was spun off as part of a general re-organization of football in the country. The team members of Dynamo Dresden, one of the better teams in East Germany at the time, were ordered to leave for the capital to establish a competitive side in Berlin while the Dresden club was left to carry on using its second team players. Dynamo Berlin quickly returned to first division play after a single season absence and would soon become infamous under the patronage of Erich Mielke, head of East Germany's Stasi (the secret police), for the various means used to manipulate the outcome of the team's games and ensure its dominance.
Playing in the DDR-Oberliga BFC won ten consecutive titles from 1979 to 1988 assisted by crooked referees, unfair player transfers from other teams and assorted other unsportmanlike practices. Dynamo was reviled by many of the citizens of Berlin and the cheating was so blatant that it incurred the unofficially expressed displeasure of the country's ruling Politburo. Manipulation of the 1986 championship match between Dynamo and Lokomotive Leipzig which ended in a 1:1 draw that handed Dynamo its eighth title led to nationwide protests, but resulted only in sanctions against referee Bernd Stumpf.[1]
After German re-unification in 1990 the side was re-named FC Berlin in an attempt to re-package it and distance it from its unsavory past, but in 1999, they again took up the name BFC Dynamo. Without its powerful partron, the side quickly fell to tier III play and since the 2000-01 season has toiled in IV or V division leagues. The team went bankrupt in 2001-02 but was required by the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) to play out the balance of its games for the season as "mandatory friendlies", which did not count in league standings, using available third string players – not an uncommon practise in these types of circumstances. The farce was played out in a series of lopsided defeats.
Championship stars controversy
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In 2004, the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) introduced the Verdiente Meistervereine – a system to honor the most successful teams in Bundesliga history awarding one star for three titles, two stars for five, and three stars for ten – allowing qualifying teams to display on their jerseys the stars they have earned. Dynamo Berlin petitioned the league to have their East German titles recognized, but received no reply. They eventually took matters into their own hands and emblazoned their jerseys with three stars. This caused considerable debate given the tainted nature of their championships, and more generally, that the DFB did not recognize East German championships, only those championships won since the 1963 formation of the Bundesliga. The issue also affected other former East German teams including Dynamo Dresden (8 titles), Vorwärts Berlin (6), SC Wismut Karl Marx Stadt, FC Carl Zeiss Jena, 1. FC Magdeburg, and Lok Leipzig (3 titles each).
The DFB has since updated this practise by broadening recognition to include all national level men's competitions since 1903 (when the first recognized national championship was staged), including those of the former East Germany, as well as all women's competitions since 1974. In addition, new standards for how championship stars are to be displayed on a team's uniform have been established. The DFB governs the use of championship stars and a club must have that governing bodies approval before displaying any such badge.
Dynamo recently began use of the championship star in accordance with DFB graphic standards, displaying a star bearing the number 10 over the team logo in the current team photo and on the sponsorship page of their website. (March 2007).
Stadiums
The home of the club is the stadium at the Sportforum Hohenschönhausen built in 1970. It has a capacity of 10,000 spectators (~2,000 seats) and is part of a larger sports complex opened in 1986 with facilities for speed skating, athletics, and cycling. When opened it offered the world's first covered indoor speed skating oval. The football stadium was renovated in 2005-06 to include fences and player tunnels required to meet security standards. Dynamo will play more important games – European Cup matches for example – in the larger, more secure Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark which was known as the Stadion der Weltjugend (Stadium of the World Youth) until being re-named after German reunification in 1990.
Club culture
The BFC has rivalries with Dynamo Dresden, Türkiyemspor Berlin, 1. FC Magdeburg, FC Sachsen Leipzig, and Union Berlin while enjoying friendly relations with Hertha BSC Berlin and VFL Bochum.
Team trivia
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After German re-unification many former East German clubs rushed to drop the names they were often forced to bear during the Communist era and return to traditional names used prior to the end of World War II. Dynamo was among the clubs to do so, becoming FC Berlin. However, like many others of these clubs they found more value and fan recognition in the names they had played under in East Germany and so returned to the names they used while playing in the DDR.
Dynamo's situation was complicated when they neglected to copyright their old moniker and found that when they tried to recover it, that they no longer held exclusive rights to its use, having to share it with sports souvenir seller Peter "Pepe" Mager who laid claim to the orphaned name in 1997. Dynamo has since been working to recover exclusive rights.
Current squad (2006-07 season)
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Famous players
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A casualty of the Cold War was one time Dynamo player Lutz Eigendorf, who fled East Germany in 1979 to come to the west to play for 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Shortly after his transfer to Eintracht Braunschweig in 1983, he died from injuries suffered in a suspicious motor vehicle accident which investigation by journalists revealed to have been the assassination of a "traitor" arranged by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police.[3]
Trainers
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1954-1973 |
1977-2003 |
2003- |
Honours
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Dynamo Berlin was East Germany's most successful club capturing 10 national titles, and is second in the country only to Bayern Munich who have 20 national titles to their credit. Those 10 titles came consecutively - a feat no other team in Germany has matched at the top level of competition.
- East German champions (DDR-Oberliga): 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988
- East German Cup (FDGB Pokal): 1959, 1988, 1989
- Supercup: 1989
- Paul Rusch Cup: 1999
- Oberliga Nord (IV) champions: 2002
Dynamo club member and referee Lutz-Michael Fröhlich was awarded the 2007 Fair Play Trophy as selected by German journalists. Fröhlich has over 200 first division matches to his credit and was recognized for his even-handed treatment of Michael Ballack in a November 6, 2004 match between Bayern Munich and Hannover 96, withdrawing a yellow card that would have put the player out of the match after consulting with his assistant over the correctness of the call. He was also a leading figure in uncovering the match fixing scandal of 2005 involving referee Robert Hoytzer.[4]
BFC Dynamo in European competitions
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Season | Competition | Round | Land | Club | Score |
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1971/1972 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Cardiff City | 1:1, 1:1, 5:6 (a.p.) |
1/8 final | ![]() |
K. Beerschot V.A.C. | 3:1, 3:1 | ||
quarter-final | ![]() |
Åtvidabergs FF | 2:0, 2:2 | ||
semi-final | ![]() |
FC Dynamo Moscow | 1:1, 1:1, 4:1 (a.p.) | ||
1972/73 | UEFA Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Angers SCO | 1:1, 2:1 |
2nd round | ![]() |
PFC Levski Sofia | 3:0, 0:2 | ||
1/8 final | ![]() |
Liverpool FC | 0:0, 1:3 | ||
1976/77 | UEFA Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Shakhtar Donetsk | 0:3, 1:1 |
1978/79 | UEFA Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Red Star Belgrade | 5:2, 1:4 |
1979/80 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Ruch Chorzów | 4:1, 0:0 |
1/8 round | ![]() |
Servette FC | 2:1, 2:2 | ||
quarter-final | ![]() |
Nottingham Forest | 1:0, 1:3 | ||
1980/81 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
APOEL Nicosia | 3:0, 1:2 |
1/8 final | ![]() |
Baník Ostrava | 0:0, 1:1 | ||
1981/82 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
FC Zürich | 2:0, 1:3 |
1/8 final | ![]() |
Aston Villa | 1:2, 1:0 | ||
1982/83 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Hamburger SV | 1:1, 0:2 |
1983/84 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Jeunesse Esch | 4:1, 2:0 |
1/8 final | ![]() |
Partizan Belgrade | 2:0, 0:1 | ||
quarter-final | ![]() |
AS Roma | 0:3, 2:1 | ||
1984/85 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Aberdeen FC | 1:2, 2-1, 5:4 (a.p.) |
1/8 final | ![]() |
FK Austria Wien | 3:3, 1:2 | ||
1985/86 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
FK Austria Wien | 0:2, 1:2 |
1986/87 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Örgryte IS | 3:2, 4:1 |
1/8 final | ![]() |
Brøndby IF | 1-2, 1-1 | ||
1987/88 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Girondins de Bordeaux | 0:2, 0:2 |
1987/88 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Werder Bremen | 3:0, 0:5 |
1989/90 | European Clubs' Champions Cup | 1st round | ![]() |
Valur | 2:1, 2:1 |
1/8 final | ![]() |
AS Monaco | 0:0, 1:1 |
External links
- Official team site Template:De icon
- The Abseits Guide to German Soccer
- Facts and Figures Template:De icon
- das deutsche Fuβball-Archiv (Historical German league results archive) Template:De icon
See also
- Ultras (fan sub-culture)
- Verdiente Meistervereine (Recognition system for national football championships in Germany)
- Dynamo
References
- ^ Weinreich,Jens http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2005/0324/sport/0005/index.html title: Büttel an der Pfeife (Büttel at the whistle) publisher=Berliner Zeitung date: 2005-03-24 accessdate: 2007-02-02 Template:De icon
- ^ The current squad: http://www.berlinerfcdynamo.com/index.php?main=team
- ^ Leske, Hanns http://www.tagesspiegel.de/sport/archiv/22.03.2006/2424496.asp Foul von höchster Stelle {Foul at the highest level) publisher: Der Tagesspiegel date: 2006-03-26 accessdate: 2007-02-02}} Template:De icon
- ^ Web-Source: http://www.netzeitung.de/sport/bundesliga/335720.html Schiedsrichter Fröhlich erhält Fair-Play-Preis (Referee Fröhlich receives Fair Play prize)