"Rudi recounts…"
...the tales of yesteryear. Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, is Bayer 04’s record appearance holder in the Bundesliga with 401 games, and is the only Leverkusen 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 encyclopaedia takes Werkself fans on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month with our series ‘Rudi recounts…’.
Topics
History: Founding of the gymnastics and sports club of the Farbenfabriken Friederich Bayer & Co.
Carl Leverkus was born in Wermelskirchen on 5 November 1804. After many years of study, primarily in chemistry, he set up a dyestuff factory with its own laboratory in 1834 despite being under great financial pressure. While the 'Chemische Fabrik Dr. Carl Leverkus" produced chemicals for different fields of application, Carl Leverkus developed a process for the artificial production of ultramarine pigment. That made his factory the second in the world and the first in Germany able to artificially produce ultramarine blue. Leverkus succeeded in obtaining a ten-year patent in the Kingdom of Prussia in 1838.
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A tribute to an incredible team
The date is 26 October 2022. Xabi Alonso has been the coach at Leverkusen for three weeks and the Werkself are fifteenth in the Bundesliga with nine points. Fear of relegation looms.
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Birthday boy of the month I: Arne Larsen Økland turns 70
Arne Larsen Økland was born on 31 May 1954 in Bømlo, Norway. As a boy, he was interested in football and fishing. He’d spend his days in the fjords fishing for cod. At some point, he joined the local football club SK Vard Heugesund. Later, at the age of 23, he joined Bryne IL. The club was playing in the first division at the time and Økland became its top striker. But there was relatively little money to be made in Norwegian football, and he received no more than the equivalent of €1500 a year. Football was nothing more than a hobby. Arne Larsen's main job was as a tax auditor.
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Birthday boy of the month II: Hans Jörg Butt turns 50
Hans Jörg Butt was born on 28 May 1974 in Oldenburg. Jörg, or Butti as he was known to his teammates, played for TSV Großenkneten in his youth. In 1991, he transferred to VfB Oldenburg, for whom he played his first games in the senior team in 1994/95. In the Regionalliga Nord, he played 33 times in the first season and 34 times in the second season for the North Germans, with whom he was also promoted to Bundesliga 2. He made a name for himself for the first time in the promotion season with his speciality of scoring penalties. He netted four times for Oldenburg.
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From the archives: 75 years ago – the first derbies
The 1948/49 season saw the first major clash with 1. FC Köln. Both teams become champions of their respective Rhine district leagues and would compete against each other for promotion to the Oberliga West. Sportvereinigung Bayer 04 Leverkusen, as our club had been known since December 1948, went for a short training camp at the Bayer recreation centre in Dabringhausen/Große Ledder for the first time and focused on its preparations in the idyllic rural setting.
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