The story of Bayern Munich's most improbable Bundesliga challenger begins in earnest behind the Berlin Wall.
. Even RB Leipzig — backed by Red Bull — and Dortmund — backed by 150,000 members and $400 million in annual revenue and decades of winning — have been unable to break Bayern's monopoly on success.
Its early success, though, was interrupted by war. All German soccer clubs were dissolved after the Allied victory in World War II. The subsequent Cold War years were equally turbulent. Some members of the re-formed club trekked to West Berlin in the '50s. Then the wall went up in 1961. And so it developed a reputation as a dissident club full of anti-Stasi sentiment. Narratives were fueled by government favoritism that funneled top players to BFC Dynamo and allegedly rigged results via threats and payments to referees. FC Union fans — who regularly clashed with counterparts at rival clubs and drew disproportionate blame for the disorder — would reportedly chant about the “scheisse Stasi!” and that “the wall must go.
Matches at the Alte Försterei stadium injected vibrancy into an existence that, for many, was somewhere between monotonous and oppressive. So Union, for tens of thousands of locals, became a forever love.
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