In football territory

“The heart of football beats in the Ruhr area”

One year before the European Football Championship in Germany 2024, anticipation is also growing in the Ruhr area, which will be the only metropolitan area in Germany with two venues. No other region is associated with football like the Revier. Football is a deeply rooted social and cultural phenomenon here, a way of life that is reminiscent of England, the motherland of football, in terms of tradition and expression. The Ruhr and Rhine form something like a core region – or, as Franz Beckenbauer put it: “The heart of football beats in the Ruhr area.”

The federal government is funding a nationwide cultural program for UEFA EURO 2024, which will accompany the tournament. The exhibition myth and modernity. Football in the Ruhr area with its extensive accompanying program is the very first project. “With fascinating photographs, our exhibition presents the past and present of one of the most exciting football regions in Germany,” says Prof. Heinrich Theodor Grütter, museum director of the Ruhr Museum and board member of the Zollverein Foundation.

“Science, culture, technology and innovations are the major drivers and prospects for a region that – this is also impressively documented in our photo exhibition – has transformed and redefined itself over the past few decades. Football as a source of identity has become a reliable constant. It is there for the people, especially in the Ruhr metropolitan area with its diverse forms of cultural exchange, with around five million people from 170 nations,” adds Manuel Neukirchner, director of the German Football Museum.

The history of Ruhr area football

Football in the Ruhr area – what does it actually look like? Like a yellow wall, a blue-and-white sea of ​​flags, or more like soot-black buddies on red ashes? One thing is certain: the myth is a mosaic of many individual images. Exactly 443 of them have been brought together by the German Football Museum in Dortmund and the Ruhr Museum at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein in Essen over the past few months and used to create a special exhibition – as the first overall view of football in the Ruhr area.

The photos from the past and present are assigned to eleven subject areas and come from well-known and lesser-known authors who approach the myth and modernity of district football from different perspectives. Added to this is the individual perspective of the exhibition guests. Memories are awakened of the first visit to the stadium, of childhood idols, of triumphs and tragedies, of moments of special solidarity, of an attitude to life that is still fed by the rhythm of the match days.

A century of tremendous cultural developments has given the region a new self-confidence. And football plays an essential role in this, it has long since become an important part of self-image and thus an important part of everyday culture, with its tradition, with its sense of togetherness. Sport is there for people, that connects it with culture, especially in the Ruhr area with its diverse forms of cultural exchange, with its five million people from 170 nations.

The Ruhr area is home to numerous traditional clubs, the “land of 1,000 derbies”. But the myth of Ruhr area football is not only revealed on the big stage. The photos in the special exhibition show children playing table football in the backyard, in the alley of a colliery settlement or against the backdrop of smoking chimneys. The stark contrast to the football festivals in the “temples of passion” that have emerged in Schalke, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg since the 2000s. And yet everything is connected. There is no modernity without myth, no “Yellow Wall” without “Red Earth”, no VIP lounge without the club pub and no cult table football game without a career as a soccer field hero.

Football leaves traces of the art of improvisation and creativity everywhere in the area and, despite all the openness to the new, at the same time delivers a commitment to down-to-earthness and a sense of homeland.

The special exhibition myth and modernity. Football in the Ruhr area can now be seen on the 12m level in the Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein World Heritage Site in Essen.

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