History And Stadium Of FC Bayern Munich

Logo FC Bayern Munich

FC Bayern Munich (German: Fußball-Club Bayern München) is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional football team, which is the most successful club in German football, having won 21 German titles and 14 cups.

FC Bayern Munich costum home

The club was founded in 1900 by eleven football players led by Franz John. Although Bayern won its first national championship in 1932, the club was not selected for the Bundesliga at its inception in 1963.

FC Bayern Munich costum away

In the middle of the 1970s, the club had its period of greatest success, when the famous team led by Franz Beckenbauer won the European Cup three times in a row (1974–76). In recent years they have been by far the most successful team in German football, winning seven of the last ten championships. The club's last international title was the Intercontinental Cup in 2001.

Since the beginning of the 2005–06 season, Bayern plays its home games in the Allianz Arena. Previously the team had played for 33 years in the Olympic Stadium. The team colours are red and white, and the team crest shows the colours of Bavaria.

Bayern is a membership-based club with more than 152,000 members. There are also more than 2,500 officially-registered fan clubs with about 181,700 members. The club has other departments for chess, handball, basketball, gymnastics, bowling, table tennis, referees, and senior football with more than 1,100 active members.

allianz arena stadium

History Of FC Bayern Munich

Early years (1900–65)

FC Bayern München was founded by members of a Munich gymnastics club (MTV 1879). When a congregation of members of MTV 1879 decided on February 27, 1900 that the footballers of the club would not be allowed to join the German Football Association (DFB), eleven members of the football division left the congregation and on the same evening founded Fußball-Club Bayern München. Within a few months Bayern achieved high-scoring victories against all local rivals and reached the semifinals of the 1900–01 South German championship. In the following years the club won some local trophies and in 1910–11 Bayern joined the newly founded "Kreisliga", the first regional Bavarian league. They won this league in its first year, but did not win it again until the beginning of World War I in 1914, which halted all football activities in Germany.

In the years after the war, Bayern won several regional competitions, before winning their first South German championship in 1926, an achievement repeated two years later. Their first national title was gained in 1932, when coach Richard "Little Dombi" Kohn led the team to the German championship by defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 2–0 in the final.

The advent of the Hitler regime put an abrupt end to Bayern's development. The president and the coach, both of whom were Jewish, left the country. Many others in the club were also purged. Bayern was taunted as the "Jew's club" and as a semi-professional club Bayern was also affected by the ruling that football players had to be full amateurs again. In the following years Bayern could not sustain its role of contender for the national title, achieving mid-table results in its regional league instead.

Golden years (1965–79)

In their first Bundesliga season Bayern finished third and also won the German cup. This qualified them for the following year's European Cup Winners' Cup, which they won in a dramatic final against Scottish club Rangers, when Franz "the Bull" Roth scored the decider in a 1–0 extra time victory. In 1967 Bayern retained the cup, but slow overall progress saw a new coach, Branko Zebec take over. He replaced Bayern's offensive style of play with a more disciplined approach, and in doing so achieved the first league and cup double in Bundesliga history, using only 13 players throughout the season.

Udo Lattek took charge in 1970. After winning the cup in his first season he led Bayern to their third German championship. The deciding match in the 1971–72 season against Schalke 04 was the first match in the new Olympic Stadium, and was also the first live televised match in Bundesliga history. Bayern beat Schalke 5–1 and thus claimed the title, also setting several records, including points gained and goals scored. Bayern also won the next two championships, but the zenith was their triumph in the European Cup final against Atlético Madrid, which Bayern won 4–0 after a replay. During the following years the team was unsuccessful domestically, but defended their European title by defeating Leeds United in the final when Roth and Müller secured victory with late goals. A year later in Glasgow, AS Saint-Étienne were defeated by another Roth goal and Bayern became the third club to win the trophy in three consecutive years. The final trophy won by Bayern in this era was the Intercontinental Cup, in which they defeated Brazilian club Cruzeiro over two legs. The rest of the decade was a time of change and saw no further titles for Bayern. In 1977 Franz Beckenbauer left for New York Cosmos and in 1979 Sepp Maier and Uli Hoeneß retired while Gerd Müller joined the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.