By Jason Rose

A memoir-esque piece of thoughts on Adversity, Origin and Borussia Dortmund

A BVB supporter for several years, I recently joined the Dortmund USA Blog and have written a couple of articles. I’m quite happy to be on board yet have had persistent bigger thoughts gegenpressing around my head, distracting my post-match analysis and giving up late goals to bottom-of-the-table writer’s block. I’ve wanted to write a piece about my experiences of being a fan of the club but couldn’t find a good reason. Additionally, I hated to think of myself as being self-important enough to think anyone was interested in such an article. The death of my grandfather last week gave me the opportunity to, at the very minimum, exercise a modicum of catharsis regarding such a piece. I understand that a person’s genealogy and the passing of an old man that is a stranger to virtually everyone who might read the article might reach new heights of yawn-inducing minutae. I also know that those who share with me a passion for Ballspielverein Borussia aren’t your everyday people. They are passionate, a sort of family and as Mats Hummels referred to us, “loyal”.

Supporting Borussia, a club nearly 5000 miles and six time zones from me, has been a largely strange and lonely endeavor. Most matches are played at hours I’m found at work or asleep and broadcast on channels I don’t get or can’t afford. In order that the results of games aren’t spoiled for me, I have to obsessively avoid social media and, at times, my phone entirely. The soccer fan landscape in the United States isn’t ideal for a fan of any Bundesliga club. I would wager half of my paycheck that there are more Arsenal or Chelsea fans in my city than Bundesliga fans altogether. Even if I have the time or the resources to see a match live, I’ll likely have to settle for discussing it with a Schalke or Frankfurt fan.

Of course, following the club the way I do is not without its charm. Borussia Dortmund fans on social media are plenty. Better yet, they’re mostly happy to follow you back and engage in a quality of digital comradery I doubt is common in fanbases of sports teams. The club’s enthusiasm and love for its supporters is palpable. They respond to fans, share the pain of tough losses and in some cases reach out directly to them. Whether in Chicago, Kansas City or Michigan, I’ve met Borussen who seem to have known me forever. Regardless of whether they hail from Köln, Pittsburg or Singapore they don’t ponder the source of my interest in the club. It’s a kind of genuine, friendly interaction I’ve come to associate with my corner of the United States, yet black and yellow fans I meet are from everywhere.

I was introduced to the club by a group of men traveling through parts of the American Midwest, instructing young coaches and soccer minds on techniques and tactics. These men were a collection of former professionals, up-and-comers and never-weres from scattered areas around Germany. At the end of the training sessions I attended we’d end up watching BVB matches, sometimes twice, and talking deep into the night about tactics and technique. I was enthralled at their passion for the game and the club at the center of their heart. At the time, the English Premier League was king of the soccer landscape. The quality and accessibility it had was unrivaled. Growing up in a region without any interest in the sport, friends who introduced me to the game would insist I pick an English club to root for. I’d tried and tried but I couldn’t stay interested in just one for very long. Something was different about these Borussia Dortmund fans. They appreciated how good the EPL was but possessed a zeal for a sports organization to a degree I’ve only seen in the most dedicated American College Football circles.

It’s been a troubling hinrunde. On the heels of several productive seasons of Borussia Dortmund campaigns, Fall of 2015 has yielded a raincloud that can’t be shaken from above the club’s heads. The departure of yet another key member of Die Borussen’s attack to Bavaria, Marco Reus toggles on and off the injury list and a general feeling of hard luck have pushed the club to a mess of domestic form. The Black and Yellows have struggled at home and lost to struggling teams on the road. Bookending the season was this summer’s passing of my grandmother and last week’s of my grandfather. These were the grandparents I was closest to and with which I have always felt I identified most.

My grandfather’s ancestry is a quilt of Nordrhein-Westfalen fabric. His great grandfather Franz Heinrich Rose left the Brilon area in 1866. His second great grandfather Josef Jacobi left Essen around the same time. Somewhere in the tree is a group of Beckers, Dills and Schmidts from somewhere around Kamen. I had known I had some German roots, but I had no idea until many years later that the club I’d chosen to follow would be so close to the area my ancestors were from. I found it especially interesting that a surname in my family tree was Jacobi, which are surnames of two founding members of BVB. Such has been a string of interesting coincidences I’ve had with Borussia Dortmund.

Of course, my ancestors left the region long before Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund could even be an idea. The latest left the region shortly before the club’s formation and most left several decades before. I don’t know nearly enough about them, but I’ve been able to ascertain a few details of Heinrich Dill, my 4th great grandfather. Perhaps the most exciting was seeing his name, occupation and origin – “Heinr Dill, Farmer, Prussia” on a ship’s manifest departing Bremen and arriving in New York in April, 1868.

19th Century Westfalen could be a very difficult place for a farmer to live. This area was in the midst of an economic crisis and saw significant drought and potato rot. What farmland was owned was passed usually only to the oldest son, leaving other siblings in joblessness and poverty. What Heinrich almost assuredly experienced was constant struggle. Several people he knew in the region, most likely including friends and and others in my family tree, were sending letters back from the American Midwest boasting of better economic situations and soil that grew crops they knew. In what he knew as Prussia at the time, the right to marry was only granted to those who owned or rented a home. The 1848 Revolutions saw political strife spread across the farmlands and villages around him. Monarchs in faraway lands enacted law that dictated his life. Ultimately he had to leave. Considering the likelihood that he was poor and left in his late 50’s, Hanseatic Bremen was almost assuredly the last German soil he ever saw. He couldn’t guarantee things would ultimately be better, but the adversity he’d faced was behind him.

Despite leaving their homeland, Germans in the United States were known to celebrate their heritage. Most were very happy to be American but felt pride in staying proficient with the German language. My grandfather mentioned that his father still spoke the language very well and would speak to others on party-line phones. They’d take the receiver off the hook and hear locals in their county discussing the growth of the weizen and the abundance of kaninchen that had been passing through their fields. Many still home brewed beer in the fashion they’d learned in Germany. Towns all over the American midwest still had large groups of German speakers with German traditions.

Last week, I felt that my final link to Westfalen departed. Although the man had no familiarity with the sport or Borussia Dortmund, I saw in him and learned from him a passion for the outdoors and our heritage. I’m sad that I can’t share those things with him anymore. I’m sad that I can’t hear him talk about my ancestors anymore. I’m mostly sad that I couldn’t tell him this week that he was about to be a great-grandfather for the first time. I am, however, excited to raise a child and pass along all of the wisdom and passion he imbued in me.

I share with all of you a passion for supporting Borussia Dortmund. It struck me several times during working on this text how strange is the need to write it and assume that anyone else would care to read it. As I stated before, however, you’re different. And I think you understand. At the end of the match, regardless of the result, we’re still enjoying each other’s company. At the end of the hinrunde, it’s starting to feel like it’s all we have. But we remain loyal.

The last few years have seen BVB’s popularity reach new heights, making this year’s astonishingly poor start complicated. Deep runs in the Champions League with Dortmund’s fast, pressing game have earned them the odd moniker “the hipster favorite” among the press. After the matchup with Bayern in the Champions League final I get far fewer quizzical looks upon identifying as a Borussia fan. I have actually had complete strangers console me upon seeing BVB near the bottom of the table. Newer fans and converts surely don’t know what to make of this recent trend.

Bloggers, analysts and message board geeks post their thoughts as to the source of Dortmund’s woes. Some cite the lack of a summer break or a host of injuries. Others post thousand-word tactical breakdowns showing how other Bundesliga clubs have figured Jurgen Klopp’s system out. Theories abound about rifts in the locker room or a string of poor transfers. Most of what I read seems logical and valid, but none of the arguments account for a squad of the caliber we’ve seen in past years slip to a relegation spot this deep in the season. The simplest answer is that it’s a lot of things.

Borussia are facing a drought, of sorts, the likes of which the current staff haven’t seen. They’ve faced economic adversity in the form of an ever changing world soccer financial boom. A mere decade ago they teetered on the brink of extinction. Borussia Dortmund, too, depart Bremen with adversity behind them. We cannot guarantee that we’re out of it yet, but a change is coming. The club have seen darker times. Chelsea can’t activate a transfer clause for your heart. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge can’t contact your passion’s agent and suggest you’ll win more titles with him. BVB’s players need you now. Loyalty and support breed confidence. Let’s will them on and win, lose or draw we’ll sing together. Borussia spielt heute ganz gross, bis zum letzten Mann.

Follow Jason on Twitter at @FernSchuss