Before that, there is a match against the Rhenish neighbours from Bonn. The BayArena and the Sportpark Nord in the former capital of West Germany are some 44 kilometres apart. With the exception of one season in the second division, the 'Rhine Lions’ have never made a permanent impression in professional football. At that time the Werkself were also in the second tier – after 2-2 draw at Leverkusen, the Bayer 04 team trained by Willibert Kremer lost 1-0 in the return match in Bonn. The Werkself ended the season 10th in the second division and were promoted to the Bundesliga two years later. Bonn ended the campaign in 16th position, enough to stay up, but the DFB withdrew their licence due to economic reasons leading to their relegation. They were the first club in German professional football to receive that punishment.
DFB Cup qualification crowns season
BSC with then mainly in the third or fourth divisions. Numerous attempts to return the club to professional football ended in failure. Insolvency proceedings in 2010 led to relegation to the seventh tier state league. Bonn, with its population of 300,000, is the biggest city in Germany never to have had a team in the top flight.
Bayer 04 and BSC are miles apart in terms of football. However, the Rhine Lions return to the Regional League. The club ended last term far above the drop zone with an impressive ninth-placed finish. The season was crowned with a 1-0 win in the Middle Rhine Cup final against Fortuna Köln. That qualifies BSC for this season's DFB Cup.
BSC Coach Zillken also trained Kampl and Castro
The prudent efforts of recent years gives Bonn hope that the club are headed higher up the pyramid. Since July 2014 the team has been managed by Daniel Zillken who is a familiar face from a Leverkusen point of view. The 49-year-old was a coach in the Bayer 04 youth section for eight years. He played a part in bringing through a number of current first team players including Kevin Kampl and Gonzalo Castro. Under Zillken, Bonner SC have returned to the fourth tier within two years.
For the boss and his players the match against the Werkself is an opportunity for fine tuning ahead of the start of the league in ten days. Zillken has had to integrate seven new signings in the pre-season and also compensate for thirteen departures. A particularly heavy blow came a few days ago when striker Lucas Musculus, with 20 league goals last season, signed for league rivals KFC Uerdingen.
Match tickets are available online at bonnticket.de (Full price: 13 euros, concessions: 10 euros) or at the ground on the night.
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 personalised 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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