On 30 November, FC Bayern once again face Borussia Dortmund in Der Klassiker. Both clubs and cities share a great history and numerous dramatic encounters. How do fans of the Reds experience this in the land of the Black and Yellows? A portrait of the Hellweg Bazis Unna (Hellweg Unna Rascals), who cheer on Bayern not far from Borsigplatz.
Leoni Neumann was 13 years old and carried a little secret around with her. She had long suspected that she was somehow different, that she didn't share the values that her father, her brother and her entire family believed in. That the authority that determined everyday family life and decided whether the sun shone or dark clouds gathered in the family home had little meaning for her. "I really didn't know whether and how I should tell my family," recalls the now 22-year-old. In the end, she didn't have a direct conversation with her brother and father, but simply changed the wallpaper on her mobile phone.
The screen now showed a blue background and a red FC Bayern crest. It was a clear signal. Leoni lives in Schwerte, 20 kilometres from Signal Iduna Park, and she's a fan of FC Bayern Munich. "I sensed that FCB was my club," she says.
What you need to know is that everyone in her family is a Dortmund fan. All of them. Her father "used to go to the Rote Erde Stadion all the time" and played for the Borussia reserves. Her brother's room was wallpapered with Dortmund posters, and her uncles and cousins were also die-hard BVB fans. "My father constantly has to listen to people telling him what he did wrong in bringing me up," Leoni says with a laugh. In many families, it could have been a real problem. It was like the kind of provocation that teenagers love to shock their parents with: a rat as a pet, shaving off their eyebrows or going off on tour as the bass player in a punk band. The Neumanns were quite relaxed about it. Leoni's father later even gave her an FC Bayern jersey. She says: "I like the fact that FC Bayern has helped other clubs so often. That fits in with my values. But of course I also like to win."
Hellweg Bazis Unna: A red island in a sea of yellow
Leoni had to watch Bayern games "mostly alone in my room". But in April 2023, her father, who does love his daughter more than Borussia, surprised her with a ticket for the match against RB Leipzig at the Allianz Arena. He had organised it through friends. The game ended in a 3-1 defeat, which made for an unnecessarily nail-biting climax to the title race, but for Leoni the trip to Munich proved to be a decisive moment: "Unforgettable. The emotions!" There she also met the FCB fan club "Hellweg Bazis Unna" from her region - a red island in a sea of yellow, a second family.
410 FC Bayern fan clubs in North Rhine-Westphalia
With 124 members, the Bazis are one of the most active and largest fan clubs in the region. In total, FCB has 410 fan clubs in North Rhine-Westphalia with more than 20,000 members. If you want to understand why someone would become a Red in the middle of NRW, you should talk to Michael Struwe, the founder and chairman of the fan club. He's been a Bayern fan since the early 1970s - even though his friends at school loved Düsseldorf, Köln and Essen, his father supported BVB and his mother Borussia Mönchengladbach. These patchwork football families are not uncommon in NRW, as eight of the top 20 clubs in the all-time Bundesliga table come from the state. In some families, the football identity is passed down from one generation to the next, other fans admire a player or a team's style of play. And then there are people like Michael Struwe, who can only say: "Suddenly there was love. Suddenly there was nothing but that."
„When I go to the bakery, people tease me and say: Here comes Mr FC Bayern. It used to be an insult. But isn't it the greatest compliment?”
Michael Struwe
The Centro Oberhausen as a signal
"I believe that many people here have always liked FCB," says Struwe. "They just didn't dare admit it." That slowly changed in the 1990s, when red flags could be seen fluttering here and there in allotments. The football business changed: there were more TV stations broadcasting football, new media, new opportunities. In 1996, FC Bayern opened a fan shop in the Centro shopping centre in Oberhausen, which was unexpectedly successful. "That was a real milestone," recalls Struwe, "after that, more people dared to express their love for FCB." In 2012, he founded the Hellweg Bazis Unna.
How openly can you express your love for FC Bayern in Unna, Dortmund and the surrounding area, the home of the biggest rivals of the past 30 years? Bayern fans are reluctant to talk about this topic. "We're just an enemy to some people," says Struwe. That's why he prefers to travel to the stadium by car when Bayern visit Dortmund. "Walking around Dortmund wearing a Bayern jersey wouldn't be advisable in certain districts." Leoni Neumann also wears her Bayern kit in everyday life and at the gym, "but in Dortmund, I tend to wear nondescript clothes".
In the second half of 2024, regional fan club meetings were once again held, focusing on direct dialogue with FC Bayern's official fan clubs:
Social commitment for children's hospice
Bayern fans don't want to provoke, but they don't want to hide either. Michael Struwe firmly believes that the community of football fans can make a difference. That's why the Hellweg Bazis regularly organise a Leberkäs sale, the proceeds of which go to the children's hospice in Unna. The Bavarian speciality is prepared by a local REWE store - and is so popular that it can now be ordered all year round in Unna.
The commitment in the community doesn't go unnoticed. Struwe is a regular guest on local radio, for example. Perhaps the wind is changing. "We used to just be tolerated. Today I sense a certain acceptance," he said.
Perhaps you could put it this way: the Hellweg Bazis have achieved on a small scale what characterises FC Bayern on a large scale. Thanks to their clear stance, firm sense of solidarity and social commitment, they command the respect and sometimes even genuine recognition of those with a more negative attitude. "When I go to the bakery, people tease me," says Struwe, "and they say: Here comes Mr FC Bayern. It used to be an insult. But isn't it the greatest compliment?"
This is an extract from the November issue of the members' magazine 51.
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