In the end, 111 fans, most of them wearing Werkself shirts and pullovers, followed Vollborn's call to the Schwadbud in the heart of the BayArena. The words "I'll talk about…" were shown on the screens as the guests were admitted – until the former goalkeeper took to the microphone at exactly 19.04 CET. As in previous lectures, Vollborn started by talking about the time the club was founded and historical images were shown of the city of Leverkusen, the first teams and the playing venues. "It was another very enjoyable evening," said Werkself fan Marc. The 50-year-old lives in Leverkusen and once again he was keen to hear Vollborn's tales: "Rudi wholeheartedly embodies the history of our club!". That statement was confirmed by one anecdote.
As part of his thorough and time-consuming research, Vollborn spent three-week stints in the city archives from morning to night to discover the reasons for the change of shirt colours from the original black and red to orange and blue between 1929 and 1932. "I was able to identify the exact timescale with the help of newspaper articles but I wasn't able to find out the reasons for the change," explained Vollborn. After the lecture it’s back to the day-to-day work: The Berlin-born former keeper works for Bayer 04 in fan liaison and during and after work he likes to immerse himself in the subject of Werkself history.
Vollborn is all the more happy about the uniformly positive feedback: "Of course, you like to hear that. The club is very close to my heart. In two years I will celebrate my 40th anniversary at the club." Then there should be a lecture where Rudi talks exclusively about his experiences under the Bayer Cross. At the end of the two and a half hour lecture, the Bayer 04 legend provided a taster of the emotion he might well feel: The screens showed a video of the second leg of the UEFA Cup final of 1987/88. Bayer 04 lost the first leg against Espanyol 3-0 but in the return match the Werkself won 6-2 on penalties at the BayArena to lift the UEFA Cup for the first time with the speaker at the lecture in goal. "It's a very emotional film for me and even today I sometimes start crying," Vollborn said quietly as he completed the tour through the "history of our Werkself".
Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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Bayer 04 Leverkusen have extended the contract with U19 midfielder Jonah Berghoff ahead of schedule. The Germany U18 international has signed professional terms with the club to 30 June 2030.
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Two months of preparation, five friendlies and the return of a familiar training camp location: After finishing fifth in the Google Pixel Women's Bundesliga last season, the Werkself will return to training on Tuesday, 23 June. Bayer04.de outlines the key dates in the 2026 summer timetable.
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With sixth place at the end of the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign, Bayer 04 ended a season in the top third of the table for the ninth time in a row. While the Werkself were narrowly eliminated in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 by eventual finalists Arsenal, the Black and Reds reached the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal for the third season in succession. As in previous years, you once again have the opportunity to vote for your Player of the Season. Voting is exclusively for Bayer 04 Club members and only via the Bayer 04 app up to and including 11 June.
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