In the end, 111 fans, most of them wearing Werkself shirts and pullovers, followed Vollborn's call to the Schwadbud in the heart of the BayArena. The words "I'll talk about…" were shown on the screens as the guests were admitted – until the former goalkeeper took to the microphone at exactly 19.04 CET. As in previous lectures, Vollborn started by talking about the time the club was founded and historical images were shown of the city of Leverkusen, the first teams and the playing venues. "It was another very enjoyable evening," said Werkself fan Marc. The 50-year-old lives in Leverkusen and once again he was keen to hear Vollborn's tales: "Rudi wholeheartedly embodies the history of our club!". That statement was confirmed by one anecdote.
As part of his thorough and time-consuming research, Vollborn spent three-week stints in the city archives from morning to night to discover the reasons for the change of shirt colours from the original black and red to orange and blue between 1929 and 1932. "I was able to identify the exact timescale with the help of newspaper articles but I wasn't able to find out the reasons for the change," explained Vollborn. After the lecture it’s back to the day-to-day work: The Berlin-born former keeper works for Bayer 04 in fan liaison and during and after work he likes to immerse himself in the subject of Werkself history.
Vollborn is all the more happy about the uniformly positive feedback: "Of course, you like to hear that. The club is very close to my heart. In two years I will celebrate my 40th anniversary at the club." Then there should be a lecture where Rudi talks exclusively about his experiences under the Bayer Cross. At the end of the two and a half hour lecture, the Bayer 04 legend provided a taster of the emotion he might well feel: The screens showed a video of the second leg of the UEFA Cup final of 1987/88. Bayer 04 lost the first leg against Espanyol 3-0 but in the return match the Werkself won 6-2 on penalties at the BayArena to lift the UEFA Cup for the first time with the speaker at the lecture in goal. "It's a very emotional film for me and even today I sometimes start crying," Vollborn said quietly as he completed the tour through the "history of our Werkself".
Despite a major personnel shake-up in the summer, RB Leipzig have performed impressively this term. Ahead of matchday 15, coach Ole Werner's team are second in the Bundesliga with a three-point lead over their upcoming opponents Bayer 04. This Saturday, 20 December (kick-off: 18:30 CET), the Werkself are away to RBL who are strong at home. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Bayer 04's final game of the year at RB Leipzig on Saturday night, 20 December (kick-off: 18:30 CET), will also see Robert Andrich and David Raum go head-to-head. In an interview with bayer04.de and rbleipzig.com, the two team captains spoke about the importance of this match, their friendship and a WhatsApp group with Joshua Kimmich.
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Bayer 04, currently fourth in the table, end the year with a top match away to second-placed RB Leipzig on Saturday, 20 December (kick-off: 18:30 CET). Head coach Kasper Hjulmand spoke ahead of the game about the importance of this fixture and an unusual but welcome week of training. The Dane also provided a squad update.
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The German Football League (DFL) has scheduled matchdays 20 to 24 in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The dates at a glance.
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This year - for the third time - the parents of the Bayer 04 youth players from the U8 to U15 age groups once again took part in the WDR Christmas Miracle. Under the motto "Goals against hunger in the world - parents in goal!", they organised their own fundraising campaign to once again actively support the important WDR campaign. The sum of €3,420 was handed over at the Glashaus in Essen in the middle of the week during the live programme.
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