Bayern Munich is without doubt Germany’s most successful football club – and one that fans of all other teams love to hate! A German rock band even wrote a song called “I’d never be a Bayern fan!”.

Early days
The club began life at the turn of the last century, as in 1900 eleven players broke away from an earlier Munich club formed in 1879 to create FC Bayern München. Not being particularly sound financially, this new club then merged in turn with Munich SC in 1906.

The 1920s
After the First World War, Munich SC was no longer running, so FC Bayern joined up with TV Jahn Munich in the immediate post-war years, going their separate ways again from 1923, from which date Bayern Munich has continued to exist in its own right.

Bayern miss Bundesliga start
When West Germany’s regional football leagues were finally organised into a national league, the Bundesliga, for the 1963/64 season, Bayern missed out.

With admission to the league based on performances over the previous 12 years, plus financial considerations and a ruling that there could not be more than one founding club from any one city, Bayern lost out, with 1860 Munich representing the Bavarian capital when the new national league kicked off its first season.

18 championships since 1965
However, the club gained promotion to the Bundesliga in 1965 and immediately took third place the following season. Since then, Bayern has gone on to win the title no less than 18 times (up to the 2004/05 season) and has become by a long way the most successful club in Germany.

From 1965 to 1972 the club played at the Grünwalder Stadion, from 1972 to 2005 at the Olympic Stadium and from the start of the 2005/06 season has been at the newly built Allianz Arena.

Ex-players on the board
The club hierarchy is full of famous players from Bayern’s past. Their president is Franz Beckenbauer (who played 396 times for the club from 1965-76), the chairman is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (162 goals in 310 games from 1974-84), and Uli Hoeness (3 times league title winner with Bayern between 1970-78) is deputy chairman. All of which not infrequently leads to less than helpful comments from on high for the incumbent head coach, at the time of writing Felix Magath.

Official Bayern Munich website (in English)

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