Football is an important part of life for many in the Ruhr region

FC Shalke 04, Dortmund, great football teams from the Ruhr area, some compare it to Lancashire, Yorkshire on even cities in Northern Italy. industrial area, coal mines, steel works - where people worked hard and played hard.

Shalke and Dortmund may be the top teams in the area now but once it was Rot-Weiss Essen who were the 'top dogs'.

I saw Essen in a game last week, and they may now be playing in a Regional league, but they still get crowds of over 6,000. This shows how important football is in this area, but another great thing about watching football in Essen is that they are proud of their history - not just the football club but the links with heavy industry.

 

Essen team in 1950 - buildings still damaged from the war.

The next day I was in an art gallery in Cologne, the Ludwig- Modern art, and then in the museum shop I found this set of 4 postcards from the Ruhr Museum - the subject is football and two of the pictures show football being played with heavy industry in the background.

Duisburg 1939

 

1950's football in Essen

 



 

 

 



Helmut Rahn - Essen 1954