Gladbach's early footballers quarrelled with churchmen over shorts and Sunday matches
Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Foals who ruled German football in the 1970s, began as thirteen restless young men in a pub in 1899. They sheltered for a while inside a Catholic youth congregation, until players wearing shorts and training on Sundays proved too much for the churchmen.
On 17 November 1899, thirteen members who had quit the sports club TC Germania Gladbach met at the Zum Jägerhof pub to form a club devoted purely to football. They chose Borussia, a Latin form of Prussia and a popular name in the old kingdom, and the club dates its official founding to 1900. It was the city's second football club, and the established FC Mönchengladbach, founded in 1894, became its first rival.
Lacking reliable pitches and kit, the young team joined a Marian youth congregation in the Eicken district, which helped it arrange proper fixtures. As early as 1902 it crossed into the Netherlands, losing 0-2 at Helmond. But football's worldly habits clashed with the congregation's conservatism, and Borussia left on 24 May 1903, having already applied to the regional Rhenish-Westphalian federation.
The next decade was a scramble for ground and status. A promising 1905 season ended with the club barred from competition because its pitch was judged inadequate, so it bought land on Reyerhütterstraße, escaping police crackdowns on noisy street football, only to move again in 1907 when a factory went up there. Swapping black and white for blue and yellow stripes in 1909, the club reached its tenth anniversary with 143 members, and in 1911 to 1912 enjoyed its first real triumph, winning its district with twelve wins in fourteen games before falling in the play-offs.
The golden age came much later. Joining the Bundesliga in 1965, Gladbach built a young, fast, aggressive side under Hennes Weisweiler and then Udo Lattek, winning five league titles in the 1970s along with UEFA Cup triumphs. The club left its Bökelbergstadion, home since 1919, for Borussia-Park in 2004, counted 93,000 members by 2021, and still contests the Rhine derby against 1. FC Köln.
Source: Borussia Mönchengladbach
