The Yellow Wall is Dortmund’s only real (glorious) tourist attraction | OneFootball

Uli Hesse writes a paean to Dortmund, which really only has three things that anybody wants to see and there’s no doubt about the first…

Independent football and travel magazine Glory has launched a crowdfunding campaign for The Global Guide to Football Culture, a landmark publication celebrating 10 years of chronicling the game’s authentic heart across the world.

Open to public access on Volume, the campaign offers supporters exclusive access to a limited anniversary edition, available only during the crowdfunding window.

The Global Guide to Football Culture traces the people, places and traditions that give the game its soul. Produced by a collective of leading football writers and photographers in collaboration with world-class contributors, including some of the most respected voices in football history such as Philippe Auclair, Guillem Balague, COPA90, James Montague and more, this 320-page book journeys beyond the familiar superclubs to explore places where football is still rooted in community.

Organised by destination, the book pairs evocative essays and bold photography with local insights – where to go and what delicacies to seek out – creating the definitive account of football and its people across the world.

The Anniversary edition – available exclusively through the crowdfunding campaign – is housed in a magnetic-closure box finished in minimalist black-on-black foil design, extending the Glory logo in a confident, understated design.

Inside, the book sits opposite a mounted print pocket containing a specially selected photographic print chosen by the Glory team.

To give you a taste of what you could enjoy, here’s Uli Hesse on Dortmund:

When you’re from Paris, people will often ask you about art, fashion and food. When you’re from Rome, you will regularly have to answer questions about landmarks, history or architecture. When you’re from London, conversations might turn to music, films or museums. But when you’re from Dortmund, there is only ever one thing non-locals are interested in – football.

More precisely, you will be asked about the city’s club, Borussia Dortmund. Still more precisely, strangers normally want to hear about that club’s support. In September, for instance, the Spanish – sorry, Basque – newspaper El Correo de Bilbao sent me a list of questions ahead of the Champions League game between Borussia and Athletic that began: ‘How do you explain that BVB has the highest average attendance in the world?’

It’s a good question, as it does seem somewhat incongruous that Dortmund – not Barcelona, not Real or Juventus – draw more than 81,000 people per game. Or that Dortmund – not Boca Juniors, not Napoli or Liverpool – have the most stunning terrace in the world. This, of course, is the South Stand, which holds 25,000 fans and is known to foreigners as the Yellow Wall.

How indeed can you explain such fervent and loyal support? For starters, Dortmund’s popularity isn’t quite as perplexing anymore once you travel down the road a bit. Schalke, who are based less than 20 miles west of Dortmund, boasted an average attendance of 61,000 last season, even though they were one of the worst teams in the second division. Essen, a city less than 8 miles from Schalke, had an average attendance of 17,000, even though they competed in the third division. And Duisburg, whose ground is less than 12 miles west of Essen’s, drew 16,900 per home match last year in, get this, the fourth division.

Which tells you that the entire urban sprawl in the western part of Germany, a region generally known as the Ruhr Area, is utterly football-crazy. Historically, this can be explained by the same factors that make North East England such a footballing hotbed – the working man’s game appealed to people toiling away in the steel mills and coal mines which used to dominate and define the Ruhr Area. Later, when the mines and mills closed and a rapid economic decline gripped the region, football grew even more important because it became the last source of pride for people from places of little natural beauty or significance.

There, I’ve said it. My hometown is not pretty, partly because it was heavily bombed in the war and then hastily rebuilt in the 1950s to provide living spaces. And as regards sights, landmarks or locations of interest, well, there is a joke that says the three buildings really worth visiting in Dortmund are the new football ground, the old football ground and the national football museum.

That’s a tad unfair because there is also a large public park with an iconic TV tower, there is a visually arresting arts centre located in a former brewery building, there is a man-made lake which was created by flooding the premises of a dismantled steel mill. But it’s true that football defines modern-day Dortmund to such a degree that it is perfectly okay for you to ignore all sights not related to the game during a visit.

For most tourists, this will start near the town centre. The German Football Museum, which opened in 2015, is conveniently located opposite the central station (if you travel by train, schedule generously, as all stories you’ve heard about German punctuality and efficiency are untrue). The museum is quite large, and since it’s closed only on Mondays, you should probably plan your visit for the day before or after a game. And after a few happy hours taking in fußball history, you can travel less than two miles to the south to marvel at how the new ground now towers above the old one.

It was a very different Westfalenstadion that was built as a municipal ground for the 1974 World Cup, because back then, all four stands were single-tiered and the corners were open to accommodate four iconic red floodlight pylons. At the time, Borussia were in the second division and on the verge of bankruptcy, which is why some people say the Westfalenstadion saved the club. They have a point because the stadium was an instant hit due to what was referred to as its ‘Britishness’ – no running track, two large terraces. It was the beginning of a long love affair, because to this day, Dortmund fans have an almost irrational affinity for their ground.

I say irrational because you could argue that something was lost when the successes of the 1990s prompted the club to add second tiers to all four stands and later close the corners to create one of the biggest football stadiums on the continent. Let’s call it intimacy. Yet something was gained, too, namely the largest terrace in the game.

Its now famous nickname – the Yellow Wall – originated with a 2005 tifo, but it is rarely used by the people who actually form it, as we simply call it the South Stand. It’s not an exaggeration to call it the heart of the club, and perhaps even the entire city, because it’s now more than just a stand.

When Borussia defied UEFA’s all-seater rule in the 1990s and kept it a terrace, the South Stand became a symbol for people’s right to watch football at a reasonable cost. As we speak, an adult ticket is 18.50 euros. (Provided you can get one, of course.) Then again, I know plenty of people who gladly pay much more for a ticket for the seated area as this allows them to watch the South Stand in all its yellow and black glory. It is, after all, my town’s number one tourist attraction.