Sports
How Borussia Dortmund's Yellow Wall became the envy of European football
Nobody is quite sure about when the largest grandstand in Europe earned the name it is now famous for, though it is certain it happened more recently than most people think.
The Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion was described by German author and writer Uli Hesse in 2018 as the thing that Bayern Munich, the most successful and powerful club in that country, did not have: “a massive terrace that seemed like a throwback to football’s golden age”.
This architectural beast can hold 24,454 spectators for Bundesliga games — more than twice as many as Celtic’s fabled ‘Jungle’ did in the 1960s, and only slightly less than the maximum capacity of the Kop at Anfield during the same period, a golden age in Liverpool’s history.
“Unlike the Jungle or the Kop, the term Yellow Wall is not very old,” Hesse stressed, using Kicker, the most popular football magazine in Germany, as a reference point for its relevance. Only in May 2009 did the description ‘Yellow Wall’ appear in its pages for the first time and that was because of the reflections of Dortmund’s then goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller when he found out 10,000 of the club’s fans had travelled to a game against Eintracht Frankfurt.
“It’s incredible; even when we are playing away from home, the yellow wall will be there,” Weidenfeller said.
Yet another 21 months would pass before Kicker started to use the expression regularly, helping it become an established term in the global football language.
This was around the time Dortmund won the Bundesliga two seasons in a row under the management of Jurgen Klopp, who had transformed underachieving giants into a club competing for domestic and also European honours.
His Dortmund side would lose the Champions League final to Bayern at Wembley in May 2013.
This weekend, the club have the opportunity to win, at the same London venue, the same trophy for the first time since their only triumph in the competition in 1997. On this occasion, Real Madrid are the opponents and Dortmund, who finished fifth in the Bundesliga this season, 27 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen, are a talented side but not quite in the same state of rude health as 11 years ago.
Klopp’s charisma and achievements helped Dortmund become the second club for lots of football supporters across Europe. Yet iconology was also a significant feature of Dortmund’s attraction.
Their popular former manager, who left Liverpool in May after almost nine years, described the experience of seeing the Yellow Wall as you emerge from the Westfalenstadion’s bowels as an almost out-of-body experience.
Dortmund fans say farewell and thank you to a departing Klopp in 2015 (Patrik Stollarz/AFP via Getty Images)
“This dark tunnel, it’s exactly two metres high (just under 6ft 7in), and when you come out it’s like being born,” the 6ft 3in Klopp said. “You come out and the place explodes — out of the darkness, into the light. You look to your left and it seems like there are 150,000 people up on the terrace all going completely nuts.”
Weidenfeller was a leader in Klopp’s team: “If you are the enemy, it crushes you, but if you have it at your back as a goalkeeper, it’s a fantastic feeling.”
This view was supported by Bayern’s Champions League and World Cup-winning midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who later played for Manchester United and MLS team Chicago Fire. When he was asked whether he was more worried by Dortmund’s players or their manager, Klopp, he responded: “It’s the Yellow Wall that scares me the most.”
The sheer scale of the structure offers an array of vantage points. “From the front of the lower tier you can almost scratch the goalkeeper on the back — while way up high below the roof, where there is an inclined angle of 37 degrees, it’s like a ski jump,” concluded the German news magazine, Der Spiegel.
According to Hesse, Daniel Lorcher, born in 1985, was “more or less responsible” for creating the Yellow Wall term. In 2004, when Dortmund were facing doom on and off the pitch and as their financial position became bleaker, the club’s largest ultras group produced a mosaic that paraphrased an Oscar Wilde aphorism, “Many walk through dark alleys, but only a few are looking at the stars.”
Lorcher was a leading member of The Unity, who stood in the centre of what was then known simply as the Sudtribune, right behind the goal. It was their job to make as much noise as possible but Lorcher felt there were greater possibilities at Dortmund, due to the size of that stand. If the ultras could involve other fans, persuading them to dress in bright yellow while holding flags and banners of the same colour, say, the effect would be startling, helping Dortmund’s players, as well as potentially creating more of an intimidating atmosphere for opponents.
This not only required a huge amount of fabric, but it all had to be in the right shade of yellow.
Lorcher and other ultras contacted a Danish retail chain which had stores all over Germany. “They sold us more than three miles of cloth and we produced four thousand flags,” Lorcher told Hesse. “We rented sewing machines for weeks on end and then had to learn how to use them. It was hard work, but we had lots of fun.”
As the 2004-05 season reached its finale and Dortmund avoided oblivion, “the flags bathed the entire stand in yellow” before a home game with Hansa Rostock, Hesse wrote in his book, Building The Yellow Wall.
One of the banners read: “At the end of the dark alley shines the yellow wall,” and another said: “Yellow Wall, South Stand Dortmund.”
Since 2005, the Westfalenstadion has been known as Signal Iduna Park after the club decided to use a sponsorship deal to reduce a debt, which was eventually paid off to bank Morgan Stanley three years later.
There were lots of contributing factors towards Dortmund’s precarious financial state during that period and one of them was the demand for stadiums to be converted into all-seater venues in the wake of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in England.
In the summer of 1992, the Westfalenstadion’s north stand terracing was converted into a seated area, reducing the overall capacity from 54,000 to less than 43,000. The club’s directors realised they could charge more money for a comfier experience but there was a reluctance to subject the southern Sudtribune (as it is still referred to by older Dortmunders) to the same treatment after discussions with fans, who made them realise the terrace was the club’s only real marketing tool.
After Dortmund beat 3-1 Juventus in Munich, securing the Champions League title in May 1997, the south stand was doubled in size. As the stadium became bigger and safer, Dortmund spent more money than ever on players. But more success did not follow and, by 2005, there was a real chance the club might go out of business.
Today, Dortmund’s ground is the biggest in Germany, while their mean attendance in the Bundesliga is greater than any other Bundesliga club — including Bayern: this season, Dortmund averaged over 81,000 and Bayern, at their futuristic Allianz Arena, were at 75,000. Between Dortmund and the third- and fourth-placed teams (Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart), the drop was nearly 26,000, which is only slightly more than the capacity of the Yellow Wall alone, a terrace that could accommodate the population of a reasonably-sized town.
The Yellow Wall salutes Marco Reus at his final home game this month (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
Though the stadium’s capacity is reduced to make it an all-seater stand on European nights, the three clubs with the lowest average attendances in the Bundesliga (Union Berlin, Darmstadt and Heidenheim) could get their entire crowds onto the Sudtribune with room to spare; yet the club have not really sought to capitalise on it economically in a direct way.
Hesse even suggests the Yellow Wall “hurts” Dortmund in this sense, because ticket prices have been kept so low.
On average, season-ticket holders pay €14 (£11.90/$15.10) per match, but if Dortmund put seats there and charged more, the club, according to Hesse, would lose a sense of their soul.
The fact that, according to the financial experts at Forbes and Deloitte, Dortmund are not even in the top 20 clubs in Europe when it comes to matchday revenue (when they have one of the biggest stadiums on the continent) is a reflection of the attitude that exists in their region, the industrial heartland of Germany. Instead, there is a residual monetary benefit from the Yellow Wall, with businesses including chemical company Evonik, brewer Brinkhoff’s and pump manufacturer Wilo keen to be associated with a creation that is authentic to a working-class region of the country.
The Westfalenstadion has become a tourist destination but the Yellow Wall remains unaffected for the time being.
The biggest decision for visitors, says Hesse, is whether to join the party on the terrace, or watch its radiance from afar.
(Top photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Legendary college football coach Lou Holtz made his stance on transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports very clear on Sunday.
Holtz fired off a post on X on the anniversary of Title IX.
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit on July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I was happy when Title IX came out,” the former Notre Dame coach wrote. “But here we are, many years later, and now we can’t even ensure women competing against women.
“It’s crazy!”
Title IX was originally published on June 23, 1972. The law prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and other education programs that receive funding from the federal government.
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” Title IX stated.
Lou Holtz of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during an NCAA football game. (Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
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Recently, the Biden administration unveiled new Title IX rules zeroing in on safeguarding LGBTQ+ students and changing the ways in which sexual harassment and assault claims are adjudicated on campus.
The new rules stopped short on barring transgender athletes from competing against females in women’s sports.
Last week, a U.S. district court in Kentucky ordered the implementation of the Biden administration’s new Title IX protections halted after a West Virginia girl and a Christian Educators Association International sued over a transgender teen competing on a middle school team. The new injunction applies to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia.
President Biden delivers remarks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A federal judge blocked Biden’s Title IX rule in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho a week prior.
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He was struggling to walk, battling to talk, fighting to think.
But he never forgot the Dodgers. He couldn’t forget the Dodgers.
In the first days following surgery to remove two brain tumors, Dodgers team historian Mark Langill was having trouble recalling everything but the legacy that lives permanently in the deepest blue part of his soul.
“The strangest thing,” Langill said. “Ninety percent of my brain was temporarily affected, but the Dodger part never went away.”
During a walk around the Huntington Hospital hallway, an orderly asked him his room number and, thanks to the Dodgers, he remembered.
It was Ted Sizemore’s Dodger rookie number, combined with Sizemore’s number when he returned to the Dodgers seven seasons later.
4105
As he continued his recovery, every day melting into the next, nurses would try to keep him alert by writing each new date on a grease board.
Thanks to the Dodgers, he never lost track.
Somebody wrote, May 1, and Langill immediately said, “Brooklyn Robins against the Boston Braves, 26 innings in 1920, longest game in major league history.”
On May 5 he said, “Russell Martin’s debut in 2006.”
Dodgers historian Mark Langill was rushed to the hospital and had surgery to remove two brain tumors in late April after appearing unsteady at Dodger Stadium. He returned to work last week.
(Brian DeCloux / Spectrum SportsNet LA)
On May 7 he said, “Russell Martin’s first home run against the Milwaukee Brewers in 2006.”
Nearly two months later, Langill is out of the hospital and fighting to beat brain cancer with the staunchest of allies.
His sword is Dodger memories. His shield is Dodger highlights. He knows more about Dodger history than any living human, and that history is carrying him through the rocky ground where everything else is uncertain.
“All this obscure Dodger stuff stayed in my head,” said Langill, 59. “Whatever they cut out, they didn’t cut that.”
This reliance on Dodger landmarks actually began on April 25, the day he was rushed to the hospital after behaving unsteadily at Dodger Stadium.
As he lay in the speeding ambulance, all he could think about was, it was flag day!
“Who can forget that?” he said. “April 25, 1976, the most famous play in the history of Dodger Stadium was made by an opposing player, Rick Monday saving the American flag.”
Later that day, while being inserted into the MRI machine, he assured the technicians that he was being calmed by the memory of … Andy Etchebarren?
“The 1966 World Series, he played for the Baltimore Orioles, he was the last man to bat against Sandy Koufax, and…he won the starting job in the spring because Dick Brown had a brain tumor,” Langill explained. “I survived the MRI by playing baseball brain tumor trivia.”
And when he learned that his surgeon would be Dr. Celene Mulholland? He never again forgot that name because, of course, Terry Mulholland pitched for the Dodgers in 2001 and 2002.
Only Langill, it seems, would remember a celebrated neurosurgeon because of a pitcher who graced the Dodgers with a 1-1 record and 6.60 ERA.
“I can’t help it,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s who I am.”
It’s what he’s been for the last 30 years, a delightful human trove of information that constantly shares with players and fans alike. A former sports writer, Langill began working in the team’s publications department before spending the last 22 years as baseball’s first official team historian, a role which puts him at the forefront of the team’s powerful connection between its present and past.
“Mark can talk about something that happened in 1965 as easily as something that happened yesterday,” said Lon Rosen, Dodgers executive vice president and chief operating officer. “He brings great comfort to everyone because you can ask him anything and he always has the right answer.”
If a former player wants to relive glory days, he calls Langill, who derives joy from assisting Dodgers both famous and anonymous, from the day of their retirement until their death. He has provided memories and memorabilia for many memorial services and even served as an impromptu eulogizer at Willie Davis’ funeral.
“Mark has always been my number-one asset to continue to understand the greatness of the Dodgers,” said Orel Hershiser, former pitcher and current broadcaster. “He brings another level of expertise and passion with the details he remembers at a moment’s notice.”
If a fan wants to embrace a special memory, they are also directed to Langill, who loves to print out ancient remnants to remind folks of their happiest Dodger moments.
“He is everybody’s brother, father, cousin, a trusted family member who remembers everything and is happy to share this knowledge with everyone,” said Rosen.
In fact, in his last game at Dodger Stadium before falling ill, Langill hosted an 80-year-old woman whose first game was at Ebbets Field in 1954 when Don Newcombe was pitching.
Langill surprised her by printing out the box score from that actual game, handing it to her, then they both basked in her wonder at reliving her childhood.
“Suddenly she’s 10 years old again and sitting with her grandfather,” Langill recalled. “She said it was raining that day, and she talked about what it was like to be a 10-year-old at her first game and … to actually see her relive all that was priceless.”
A few days later Langill was spinning more great tales for new Dodger employees during a stadium tour when he became unsteady. He ended up at Huntington Hospital, where several days later Mulholland pitched a perfect game in removing two tumors the combined size of a lemon.
Before the surgery, Langill prepared himself by watching a laptop video of Game 2 of the 1974 World Series between the Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics.
“That’s the one game in that series that the Dodgers won, and it was won by my first favorite Dodgers team with my all-time favorite Dodger Jimmy Wynn,” Langill said. “I figured, if I’m going to go out, I’m going to go out my way.”
He also remembered that it was the World Series where manager Tom Lasorda wore two different cleats because he had two different shoe contracts.
“Those are the little stories that make Dodger history so special,” Langill said.
Eric Karros, left, with Steve Sax throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 1 of the 2022 NLDS at Dodger Stadium, considers Mark Langill “the caretaker of Dodger history.”
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
As the surgery approached and it came time to seek peace, Langill kept thinking about Gary Cooper’s quote while portraying Lou Gehrig, “All the arguing in the world can’t change the decision of the umpire.”
He explained, “Some people in that situation rely on Scripture. I also rely on ‘Pride of the Yankees’.”
Throughout the ordeal, his recovery buoyed by his longtime partner, Patty Hirata, and registered nurse nephew Michael Rayala, Langill quickly bonded with various hospital workers through the Dodgers. He doesn’t remember much about the physical details of his stay, but he remembers discussing Shohei Ohtani with one orderly and then traveling back down memory lane with his first physical therapist.
“Mark has always been my No. 1 asset to continue to understand the greatness of the Dodgers.”
— Orel Hershiser
“He said his earliest Dodger memory was when he was 4 years old and his mom took him to LAX and I knew exactly what he was talking about,” Langill said. “Oct. 23, 1957, Red Patterson arranged for a pep rally to welcome the team to Los Angeles.”
During his rehabilitation, while initially struggling with everything but his Dodger knowledge, Langill was strengthened by the way it connected him with his uncomfortable surroundings.
“It’s like knowing 100 languages,” he said. “You can talk to anybody at any age if it involves the Dodgers.”
During his many years with the Dodgers, he had made many of those unique connections, his constant outreach making him arguably the franchise’s most important public representative.
There was the longtime Brooklyn Dodgers fan who was on his deathbed and wanted to hear one more Dodger story before he passed. His daughter handed the phone to Langill, who proceeded to take the man on an audio tour of all the Brooklyn Dodger memorabilia spread around the stadium.
“I told him, ‘We’re here for you,’” Langill recalled.
Then there is his annual reminder to Eric Karros every May 23.
“Happy Stan Belinda Day,” he will tell him because, on that day in 1992, Karros established himself as a future star by hitting a three-run walk-off homer against the Pirates’ Stan Belinda.
You can look it up. Langill’s memory of Dodger history is bulletproof.
“With him, we never need a fact checker,” said Rosen. “He’s right every time.”
“He’s basically become the caretaker of Dodger history,” said Karros of Langill. “Anything you want to know, he’s your guy.”
Then there was the story of Roy Gleason, a former outfielder who doubled in his only major-league plate appearance for the Dodgers in 1963. After that season Gleason was sent to Vietnam and never played major league baseball again, ending his career with that one at-bat, always wondering if anybody on the Dodgers remembered.
Langill remembered. Langill always remembers. And when he heard that Gleason was feeling disconnected from an organization that indeed had seemingly forgotten him, Langill invited Gleason to Dodger Stadium in the summer of 2003.
Once there, Langill accompanied Gleason to a wall that contains most of the names on the Dodgers’ all-time roster. In a scene that brought both men to the verge of tears, Gleason’s name was there.
“I was surprised that anyone in the organization even remembered my name,” said Gleason recently. “But Mark took the time to go into the Dodger archives and research my history.”
Later that season, Gleason threw out the first pitch and was surprised with a 1963 World Series ring.
“The best night of my life…a night I will never forget,” said Gleason. ‘And it all happened because of Mark Langill.”
This season Dodger history will have a new entry, a new landmark, a new hero, the date of June 17.
“That’s the anniversary of the first regular season ‘Freeway Series’ game between Dodgers and Angels,” Langill recalled. “Dodgers won on Todd Zeile’s walk-off home run against Troy Percival.”
Well, yes, but this is about something bigger.
June 17 should be forever known as the day Mark Langill not only recorded Dodger history, but made it.
It is the day he returned to work.
Sports
Bill Belichick's reported girlfriend's 64-year-old ex blasts critics: 'Let them live their lives'
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have competition – but it hasn’t come without criticism.
Last week, it was reported that former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, 72, is dating Jordon Hudson, a 24-year-old cheerleader.
The two have been spotted together since the reports swirled, all but confirming their relationship (as did Rob Gronkowski at the roast of Tom Brady).
Jordon Hudson is rumored to be dating Bill Belichick, who is nearly 50 years older than her. (Instagram)
But with the age gap has come lots of questions – many of which are unnecessary, says none other than Hudson’s ex-boyfriend, 64-year-old Joshua Zuckerman.
Zuckerman squashed any speculation that Hudson is dating Belichick simply for money and fame.
“She is wise beyond her years, much more than any 20-something I’ve ever met in my life,” Zuckerman told TMZ. “The narrative about her character is not fair to her.”
Bill Belichick, 72, is reportedly dating 24-year-old Jordon Hudson. (Instagram | Getty Images)
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“I’ve been getting calls left and right from news stations about my relationship with Jordon Hudson. I have been involved with Jordon platonically and romantically and I consider her a good friend. I feel bad that she’s caught up in this whirlwind,” Zuckerman added.
Zuckerman said he and Hudson “regularly discuss business and shared interest in psychology, philosophy and most important, our love of nature.” It’s rumored that Belichick signed Hudson’s college textbook when they first met, and they initially bonded over similar topics.
But at the end of the day, Zuckerman wants what’s best for Hudson, and that’s for her to live her best life with Belichick.
“To be honest, I wish these internet trolls and paparazzi would leave her alone – and everyone else alone – and let them live their lives.”
Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, during the trophy ceremony for Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium on Feb. 5, 2017, in Houston, Texas. (Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images)
Belichick will be off an NFL sideline for the first time since 1974 after he and the Pats, with whom he won six Super Bowls, parted ways after 24 seasons.
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