This BVB player turns 70 – once adviser to Matthias Sammer | OneFootball

Yesterday, a former Borussia Dortmund player turned 70 years old—a name that will likely only mean something to the older BVB fans. What he experienced during his total of five years with the Black and Yellows once again highlights that Borussia Dortmund’s current standing in German football is anything but a given.

On September 15, 1955, Wolfgang Vöge was born in Ahlen. This marked the start of his life right in the catchment area of Borussia Dortmund, which was then an up-and-coming club. In 1956, Dortmund became German champions for the first time, defended the title the following year, and in 1963 became the last champion before the introduction of the Bundesliga. As is well known, BVB was also a founding member of the new top division in Germany.

By the time Wolfgang Vöge had developed far enough as a footballer to make the leap to a professional club by joining BVB, he was 19 years old—and BVB was only a second-division team. Before that, Borussia Dortmund had already played two years in the then second-tier Regionalliga and one year in the newly established 2. Bundesliga. That season, in which Vöge already made 14 appearances, would be the last in the second tier: in 1976, BVB was promoted back to the Bundesliga.

Photo: IMAGO

Borussia Dortmund Congratulates Wolfgang Vöge

There, Wolfgang Vöge became a regular player for the Black and Yellows, at a time when BVB was still far from being a top club. The final league positions during Vöge’s time were 8th, 11th, 12th, and 6th. Afterwards, he moved on to Bayer Leverkusen, where he spent four more seasons in the Bundesliga. The last three stops of his professional football career were all in Switzerland, where he remains active today as a player agent in Winterthur.

Even in the early days of his work as an agent, his clientele was not limited to players from Switzerland. For example, Wolfgang Vöge was the agent for Matthias Sammer during the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Sammer played for several clubs in Western Europe. Even then, however, he stayed in the background, just as he did for most of his time as a Bundesliga professional. That’s why the media response to his recent 70th birthday was not particularly loud. At least BVB remembered their former player, who helped the club leave the 2. Bundesliga during the dark 1970s, and congratulated him publicly.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.