No one is quite sure when Europe's largest grandstand got its now famous name, but it's certainly more recent than most people think.
The Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund's Westfalenstadion was described by German author and writer Uli Hesse in 2018 as “a giant terrace reminiscent of football's golden age” – something that Germany's most successful and strongest club, Bayern Munich, does not have.
The enormous structure can accommodate 24,454 spectators for Bundesliga matches, more than double the capacity of Celtic's legendary “Jungle” in the 1960s and just slightly less than Anfield's Kop maximum capacity during the same golden period in Liverpool's history.
“Unlike jungle or the Kop, the term Yellow Wall is not that old,” Hesse stressed, pointing to Germany's most popular football magazine Kicker as a reference for its relevance: the expression “Yellow Wall” first appeared in the magazine in May 2009, when Dortmund's then goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller commented that 10,000 fans had turned out for a match against Eintracht Frankfurt.
“It's unbelievable, even when we're playing away games the Yellow Wall is there,” Weidenfeller said.
Another 21 months passed, and Kicker magazine began using the expression regularly, helping to cement it into global football parlance.
This was around the time Dortmund won the Bundesliga for two consecutive seasons under manager Jurgen Klopp, who transformed a struggling powerhouse into a club competing for domestic and even European honours.
His Dortmund side lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final at Wembley Stadium in May 2013.
This weekend, the club will play at the same venue in London with a chance to lift the same trophy for the first time since their lone victory in the competition in 1997. This time, the opponents are Real Madrid and Dortmund, who finished fifth in the Bundesliga this season, 27 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen, have a talented team but are not in the top form they were in 11 years ago.
Klopp's charisma and achievements have made Dortmund the second club for many football fans across Europe, but symbolism has also been a big part of Dortmund's appeal.
The popular former manager, who left Liverpool after nine years in May, described the experience of coming out from the back of the Westfalenstadion and seeing the Yellow Wall as like an out-of-body experience.
Dortmund fans say farewell and thank Klopp before he steps down as manager in 2015. (Patrick Stolarz/AFP via Getty Images)
“You go into this dark tunnel, exactly two metres high (just under 6ft 7ins) and when you come out you feel like you've been born,” said Klopp, who is 6ft 3ins. “When you come out the place explodes – from darkness to light. You look to your left and there are 150,000 people on the terraces and they look like they're going completely mad.”
Weidenfeller was a leader in Klopp's team: “If it was the opposition you'd be devastated, but as a goalkeeper it's a great feeling when you have your teammates behind you.”
This view was supported by Bayern's Champions League and World Cup-winning midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who later played for Manchester United and MLS' Chicago Fire. Asked whether he was more worried about the Dortmund players or Klopp, he replied: “I'm most scared of the Yellow Wall.”
The building's sheer scale offers a variety of vantage points: “From the facade on the lower floor you could scratch a goalkeeper's back, and high under the roof, with its 37-degree incline, it's like a ski jump,” concludes German news magazine Der Spiegel.
According to Hesse, Daniel Lorcher, born in 1985, is “more or less responsible” for inventing the term “Yellow Wall.” In 2004, when Dortmund was facing ruin on and off the pitch and in a bad financial situation, the club's largest group of ultras created a mosaic paraphrasing Oscar Wilde's quote: “Many people walk down dark alleys, but only a few see the stars.”
Lorcher was a key member of Unity, standing in the middle of what was then simply called the Südtribune, just behind the goal. Their job was to make as much noise as possible, but given the size of Dortmund's stands, Lorcher felt there was potential for more. If the ultras could get other fans involved – persuading them to wear bright yellow clothes, for example, and hold flags or banners in the same colour – the effect could be incredible, not only helping Dortmund's players but also creating a more intimidating atmosphere for opponents.
Not only did this require a ton of fabric, but it all had to be the right shade of yellow.
Lorcher and the other ultras contacted a Danish retail chain with stores across Germany. “They sold us over three miles of fabric and we made 4,000 flags,” Lorcher told Hesse. “We borrowed a sewing machine for weeks and then had to learn how to use it. It was hard work, but a lot of fun.”
As the 2004-05 season drew to a close and Dortmund avoided oblivion, “the whole stand was painted yellow with flags” before a home game against Hansa Rostock, Hesse wrote in his book “Building the Yellow Wall.”
One banner read: “The Yellow Wall shines at the end of a dark alley,” while another said: “Yellow Wall, Dortmund South Stand.”
Since 2005, the Westfalenstadion has been known as Signal Iduna Park after the club decided to use sponsorship deals to reduce its debt, eventually paying off Morgan Stanley bank three years later.
There were many factors that led to Dortmund's precarious financial situation at the time, one of which was the call to convert their stadium into an all-seater venue following the Hillsborough disaster in England in 1989.
In the summer of 1992, the terraces in the North Stand of the Westfalenstadion were converted into seating areas, reducing the total capacity from 54,000 to less than 43,000. Club officials realized they could charge more for a more comfortable experience, but were resistant to giving the South Stand, the Sudtribune (as older Dortmund fans still call it), the same treatment, as fans realized the terraces were the club's only real marketing tool.
After Dortmund beat Juventus 3-1 in Munich to win the Champions League title in May 1997, the south stand was doubled in size. With a larger and safer stadium, Dortmund spent more money than ever on players, but further success did not ensue, and by 2005 the club was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Dortmund's stadium is now the largest in Germany and they average a larger attendance than any other Bundesliga club, including Bayern, who averaged more than 81,000 fans this season compared to 75,000 at their futuristic Allianz Arena. Between Dortmund and the third- and fourth-placed teams (Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart) combined, attendance was down by around 26,000, just above the capacity of the Yellow Walls, a terrace large enough to hold the population of a modest-sized city.
The Yellow Wall pays tribute to Marco Reus in the final home game of the month (Dean Moutaropoulos/Getty Images)
Although stadium capacity will be reduced to all-seater stands for European matches, the three Bundesliga clubs with the lowest average attendances – Union Berlin, Darmstadt and Heidenheim – can comfortably fit all their spectators into the Südtribune, but they are not seeking to benefit financially in any direct way.
Hesse even suggested that in this sense the “Yellow Wall” is “hurting” Dortmund because ticket prices have been kept so low.
On average, season-ticket holders pay 14 euros (£11.90/$15.10) per game, but if Dortmund were to build seats there and raise the price, Hesse said the club would lose its soul.
The fact that Dortmund isn't even in the top 20 European clubs for match-day revenue, according to financial experts at Forbes and Deloitte (despite having one of the continent's largest stadiums) reflects attitudes in this part of Germany's industrial heartland. Instead, financial interests remain vested in the Yellow Wall, and companies such as chemical company Evonik, brewer Blinkoffs and pump manufacturer Willo are keen to be associated with a creation befitting Germany's working-class region.
The Westfalenstadion has become a tourist attraction, but the Yellow Wall has so far remained unaffected.
Hesse said the biggest decision for visitors will be whether to join the party on the terrace or just admire the glow from afar.
(Top photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
