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".
Tickets are on sale for the last two Bayer 04 Women's team home games in 2025. Fans can now purchase tickets for the matches at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against RB Leipzig and the final fixture of the year in the Rückrunde opener against German champions Bayern Munich. The latest information at a glance.
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Eliminated ahead of the offline round: On Tuesday, 18 November, the Leverkusen console pros played the two remaining matches in the online preliminary round of showdown two. After picking up six points from the first four games last week, the #B04eSports team bagged another three in the two final duels - but it wasn't enough. The Leverkusen team missed out on a place in the offline knockout round, which will take place in this second showdown on 23 November in Frankfurt am Main.
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The VBL Club Championship by WOW 2025/26 continues today, Tuesday 18 November, with the last two of the six online preliminary round matches in the second showdown. Starting at 18:00 CET, Bayer 04 face Karlsruher SC, followed by Borussia Mönchengladbach at 19:00 CET. The games will be streamed live on the Bayer 04 app and on the club Twitch channel. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Bayer 04 has presented the groups on the Monheim council with extensively revised proposals for the planned Campus. As part of constructive discussions, the club presented a plan to the CDU, SPD, Greens, FDP, PETO and the Left Party that envisages a one-third reduction in the area of the site on Alfred-Nobel-Strasse. The distance to neighbours will be increased by almost 60 percent. The green corridor will therefore be significantly larger than previously planned. Here are the main changes.
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A disappointing Sunday afternoon in the Hanseatic city: The Bayer 04 Women missed out on a place in the DFB Pokal quarter-finals after a penalty shoot-out at Hamburger SV. After more than 120 minutes of play, coach Roberto Pätzold's team lost 4-2 on penalties to the Bundesliga newcomers in front of 3,993 spectators at the Volksparkstadion. Julia Mickenhagen's brilliant strike to level at 1-1 on 73 minutes was not enough for the Werkself in this tie. The Bayer Leverkusen Women’s team reached quarter-finals in both of the previous two seasons.
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