Head of the official BVB fan club: I was glad Haaland left. The Fan Club Tournament will still be held next year

The Schwarz-Gelbe Bienen Fan Club has been run as an official Czechoslovakian fan club since 2019. Its boss, Ondřej Vašek, spoke about its beginnings, plans and activities in an exclusive interview with Ruik. He also talked about why Dortmund are not enough for the Bayern Munich stars, but also about the departure of Erling Haaland.

The fan club started its activities in 2019, back then you wanted to stand next to a rival, Bayern Munich. But where was your love for BVB born?

I think it was simple. It’s probably with most fans, you research the internet as a youngster, you watch the games, you’re approached by the fans, the atmosphere at the club, the players. For me, I think Marco Reus made a big impact. But I would say I just randomly stumbled upon the fans, that’s where it kind of started and gradually it turned into a big love.

What year did you first join Borussia?

I would say it was the 2011/12 season, when I was nine or ten years old. So now it will be about ten years that I’ve been a Dortmund fan.

Compared to the Bavarian team’s Facebook page, though, there’s still a lack of followers. How do you attract new followers? And could the interest in Bayern be due to their ten-year domination of the German league?

Let’s not kid ourselves, Bayern is somewhere else as far as any brand in the world is concerned. We just have to accept that it’s one of, I would say, the top three clubs, not just on the pitch but in terms of the whole operation of the club.

We have to accept the fact that at the moment we are miles and miles second in Germany. I wouldn’t even say Bayern have that many fans of success, I think that’s what I think of other teams, in England and stuff. They are doing well and getting fans, we are trying to do that somehow too.

So how is it with the fans?

The fans, let’s not kid ourselves, we’ve got a bit less of them again. You said we have less followers on Facebook. I wouldn’t take that as a factor because there’s no such thing as a like. We have, I think, 690 likes, but of that we have about 60 people in our fan club who are actively paying for membership. I know that the Red Dogs (Bayern Munich fan club – ed.) don’t have that (paid) membership and they have about 150 members.

Did you talk at the time about your interest in starting an official fan club with your friends? Or did the decision stay in your head until it was made?

I did start a Facebook page and I had a plan to get it going in maybe a year. But it caught on quickly. In the beginning I was the one to start the page, but my brother is a Dortmund fan too, my uncle actually, so it runs in the family.

My uncle is the vice-president of the fan club, and I actually put the whole thing together with him. Emails, phone calls in German, he helped a lot. Then I signed people up, and now we have seven active people on the fan club board who run the fan club and give it some guidelines that we follow.

How was the communication with Borussia directly back then? I guess you can’t just set up an official Czechoslovak fan club..

It was easier than I expected. It was enough to have I think 25 members that we had to have data that they were serious, then fill in some emails about the headquarters and the leader, it wasn’t that hard.

What are the main advantages of an official fan club over other fan-only sites?

We have the advantage of being an official fan club and with that comes a lot of positives. The biggest one is tickets for home games, you can also get tickets for away games, but that’s a bit harder. We can get ten tickets for every home game, that’s very popular with the members.

Of course, sometimes we get more tickets. We even got fifty for the home game against Wolfsburg when we organised a tour in April. Sometimes it happens that we don’t get any.

Let’s move on to BVB for a moment. Czech fans know him very well from the days of Jan Koller and Tomas Rosicky, who won the championship with Dortmund. Do you believe a lot of fans came to Borussia through those two players back then?

Personally, I can’t tell you much because I’m a 2002. But in short, of the older ones, I don’t think it played that much of a role. We often talk at reunions and tournaments about how we came to do it (cheering for Dortmund), we tell each other these different stories. But to be honest, I haven’t noticed anyone saying “because of Tomas or Honz Koller I started cheering”.

In recent years Borussia have regularly been in positions to guarantee the Champions League, but they’ve been waiting for the title for 10 years. What do you think the team is missing?

It lacks some consistency of performance. I feel that we have unnecessary respect for the first place. I think we finished the 2018/19 season a point behind Bayern, we were nine points ahead at the winter break and looked like we had it in the bag. And then came the swing performances again.

As I said, Bayern are doing well and it’s awfully hard to compete with them. We have to be able to put together a good team. Now a lot of fans are saying it could work. But I don’t want to be any kind of a hater because we’ve had many big eyes on us in pre-season, so I stay away from those statements. It has to come down to a good team, a bit of luck, a good coach and that kind of comfort at the club. That’s what I’m missing a little bit there right now.

In addition, Erling Haaland left the team before the season and his replacement Sebastian Haller has cancer. Is this some kind of nightmare for BVB fans?

The second part of this question really is a nightmare. The first one, the departure of Erling Haaland, is perfectly fine by me. I would say that a lot of fans got under his skin, like they really liked him, even more than the club itself I would say. We read that Haaland was more than the club, that the other players were so and so against him.

I would kill for that. I’ll be honest – I was glad Haaland left because Haller was bought for him, investment was made in defence where it was needed more. Haller, it’s a great shame as far as the club is concerned, but I believe it’s even worse for him and the family. I believe he could be back in the spring and running rampant in a black and yellow jersey.

The team has acquired Anthony Modeste as a second replacement. Will he be able to replace the 20 goals of Erling Haaland?

I don’t think he can give them himself. But as I said, Haaland left and that created more space for other offensive players. I’m very curious about Donyel Malen. His first season was kind of all over the place, rather below average.

But I think this season will be his season. And Anthony Modeste – I personally don’t want to say if he’s a good player or a bad player. Let’s let him play and see after a few games.

Still, the team made it through the first round and won 1: 0 against a tough opponent from Leverkusen. Could this be a sign of the team’s strength?

We organized such a tour, we went by van, so we were right at the stadium. I liked the football, we were the better team in the first half and if it was 2: 0 or 3: 0, no one would be surprised. Second half Leverkusen pushed us, Schick had two goals there.

If they had scored three goals, nobody would be surprised either. I’d say it was a draw, but history won’t ask that. I’m a bit sorry to hear the comments about our team from within our own ranks.

Why is that?

We, when we win a game like that because of the saves of goalie Kobel, I read comments again about how Kobel can’t keep us in it all season, that the defense was a disaster and stuff like that. On the other hand, the same people, when this situation happens at Bayern, that Neuer picks up three goals for them, they are amazed, they praise Neuer. I would say that’s also the reason why we can’t beat Bayern.

Are there any more tours planned like the one to Wolfsburg? And who can possibly take part in them?

The members have the opportunity to attend every game themselves, anyone can take part in that trip. Because it’s probably unrealistic to fill a 50-person bus with just members. I can say that there will be a bus tour again in the spring and everyone is welcome, even those who want to get a taste of the atmosphere. We will be happy if the bus is filled with mostly fans, but anyone can go.

You have brought a very interesting novelty to the Czech turf in the form of a fan club tournament. How did this idea come about?

I don’t even know how it came about. I remember I was on the bus to school and it flashed into my head that it might actually be nice, such an event. So I started signing up fan clubs and we just went for it. So the idea just popped into my head and I’m glad it caught on like that.

We wanted to do it in 2020, it couldn’t happen, so we did it in FIFA. Last year was already the first year. We were thinking of calling it kind of a zero year because it was like, we arrived, we played and we left.

What was different this year?

This year we held it in Moravia, at our place in Buchlovice. We provided accommodation, refreshments, music and some other activities. So the event was a success, we didn’t hear any negative feedback, rather only positive feedback, so we can look forward to next year again.

You are currently starting your fourth season, what new things are you planning?

There is not much news planned for this season to be honest. Again, we want to offer as many tickets as possible to members so that anyone who wants to go to Dortmund can do so. We’ll be holding a reunion for the fan club members in November and we’ll be hosting a tournament again in June. And then there’s that trip we were talking about.