Lindner, Pfaff, merger, 1981 cup win | OneFootball

Four more milestones in the club’s history have been turned into bronze plaques at Deutsche Bank Park: champions Dieter Lindner and Alfred Pfaff, the club merger of 1911 and the 1981 DFB Cup win.

Eintracht Frankfurt has created a memorial area within Deutsche Bank Park where important people and milestones are being immortalised on bronze plaques. Four more plaques have now been added. “These milestones shaped the very foundation that we stand on today,” explained board member Philipp Reschke.The growth and strength of the club since its founding on 8 March 1899 are closely associated with sporting successes and strong personalities that have shaped the club throughout its long history, and still do to this day. That’s why Eintracht Frankfurt is honouring not only milestones, but personalities and teams from the club’s history with a bronze plaque outside the stadium. These bronze plaques, which will be installed in the area in front of the main stand, form a chronological path of memories, paved with milestones from the club’s history. This path will be expanded over time. 

1911 merger

In 1911, Frankfurter Fußball-Klub Victoria and Frankfurter Fußball-Klub Kickers merged to become Frankfurter Fußballverein. “It opened up lots of new possibilities for the club,” explains Matthias Thoma, director of the Eintracht Museum. The club was already the biggest sports club in the city and moved a year later to a modern sports facility at Rosegger-Platz, which had a stand with a capacity of 600 – a large scale for the time. This merger provided the foundation for further mergers, which led to the modern Eintracht. 

Alfred Pfaff

German champion, world champion and 139 goals in 336 competitive games for Eintracht. Alfred Pfaff was born in Bornheim in 1926 and played for Eintracht from 1936 to 1961, with an interruption of four years after the Second World War. Pfaff made a big contribution to Eintracht’s success in the years of the German championship. 

Dieter Lindner

Dieter Lindner never forsook his beloved Eintracht, spending his entire football career with the club. He started out in the U17s in 1954 and made his first-team debut three years later. Lindner made a total of 435 competitive appearances for Eintracht and scored 77 goals. Even when he’d actually retired, he helped out during the 1970/71 crisis season and did his bit to ensure top-flight survival. 

1981 DFB Cup win

Eintracht’s glory years culminated in the DFB Cup victory in 1981. The 3-1 win over 1. FC Kaiserslautern in Stuttgart clinched a fourth trophy in seven years for the club. The starting line-up in the final reads like an all-star team of the 70s and 80s: Karl-Heinz Körbel, Willi Neuberger, Ronny Borchers, Norbert Nachtweih, Bernd Nickel and Bernd Hölzenbein defined Eintracht’s game, in some cases, over decades; Bruno Pezzey and Cha Bum-kun added international class to the team, and there were Jürgen Pahl, Michael Sziedat and Werner Lorant as well.