Dortmund, Liverpool and their shared affinity for "You'll Never Walk Alone"

Liverpool were hosting Celtic in the second leg of the Cup Winners' Cup semifinals. It was an epic meeting: a Celtic website says "the game was played in monsoon conditions which turned the pitch, which had already been covered in snow and lashed by rain in the past week, into a mud bath." The Reds won 2-0 and went through to the final though the Scottish fans didn't return home empty-handed. They had lost the game but they had gained a song.

The 2014 documentary "Walk On," a film that premiered on British television one day before the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, traces Celtic's obsession with "You'll Never Walk Alone" back to this night at Anfield. Ever since, the tune is linked almost as closely with Celtic as with Liverpool. This would become important a quarter of a century later but first, let's get back to 1966. Having squeezed past Celtic, 2-1 on aggregate, who would Liverpool meet in the final but Dortmund? And where would they meet Dortmund but in Glasgow?

As detailed last month, Dortmund won that final 2-1 in extra time, becoming the first German team to lift a European trophy. It was an important moment not just for the club. When the final whistle rang, the German radio commentator Kurt Brumme stated that "German football is now established in Europe. It has earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath with Real Madrid, Benfica, Inter."

Although Borussia have won bigger trophies since, the 1966 team that overcame Liverpool is still revered in Dortmund. In early May, four weeks after the Reds come to town and 50 years after the final, a book about the side called "Die Helden von 66" will be published: "The Heroes of '66." During his research, author Gregor Schnittker learned that Otmar Rhein, an influential Dortmund club official, had excellent relations to Celtic as early as the mid-1960s.

"His son told me that he and his mum travelled to Glasgow for the final on an invitation from Celtic," says Schnittker. "He also said his father later became an honorary member of Celtic."

"Normal" Dortmund fans felt welcome in Glasgow, too. Many locals (particularly Celtic fans, of course) wished them all the best against Liverpool and treated the German visitors to rounds of drinks in the pubs. That despite the fact few Dortmund fans at the time spoke English well enough to hold down a conversation, especially in Glasgow. It may also explain why they didn't pick up on "You'll Never Walk Alone" when it reverberated around Hampden Park that night.

During the years that followed, there were few occasions for Dortmund fans to renew their acquaintance with the song through either Liverpool or Celtic. Borussia played two friendlies against the Reds -- in 1975, when Dortmund were in the second division, and in 1984 -- losing both. In 1983, they were defeated by Celtic during a tournament in Kassel. But these scattered low-profile games didn't popularise "You'll Never Walk Alone" in Germany. After all, not even the legendary clashes between Mönchengladbach and Liverpool during the 1970s had done that.

Paradoxically, it was left to a club with only the most tenuous of historical links to either Liverpool or Celtic to trigger the Teutonic YNWA craze.

Malte Oberschelp, a German who's written a book about the history of the song and its impact on football, says St. Pauli fans imported the tune into the Bundesliga. We can even narrow down when and how it happened: In early 1991, three contributors to the St. Pauli fanzine "Millerntor Roar" trekked across Britain to meet like-minded souls. They ventured as far north as Glasgow, where they struck up a friendship with the Celtic fans behind "Not the View" magazine.

Later that year, the St. Pauli fans produced a season-review video. Inspired by their new Celtic friends, they used a punk version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" by a band from Ipswich called The Adicts for the soundtrack. It struck a nerve with the club's supporters and they took up singing the song at the games. Since the Adicts version was hard to get hold of in those pre-internet days, the Hamburg band Rubbermaids recorded their own take on the tune. It came out in January, 1994 and would be played before St. Pauli home games for years.

Hamburg was a fitting birthplace for the German obsession with "You'll Never Walk Alone." Scousers had fallen in love with the tune when it became a hit in late 1963 for the Merseybeat band Gerry and the Pacemakers. However, the group first performed the song two years earlier, in 1961. Where? According to Oberschelp, it was in Hamburg's Top Ten, a music club barely a mile south of St. Pauli's ground.

From St. Pauli, the song spread through the Bundesliga like wildfire in the early 1990s. The Kaiserslautern version, sung with religious fervour, became particularly famous and by August of 1996, a Kaiserslautern fanzine matter-of-factly listed the tune under "terrace chants" alongside domestic classics such as "Zieht den Bayern die Lederhosen aus" ("Pull down Bayern's Lederhosen," sung to the tune of "Yellow Submarine").

Around the same time, German fans also grew fond of singing "Three Lions" (due to the "football's coming home" chorus) but while this fad soon petered out, YNWA's popularity proved more lasting. When Bayer Leverkusen played at Old Trafford in April, 2002, the visiting fans struck up the song, only to receive angry boos from the home crowd. Some Leverkusen fans later claimed they wanted to needle their hosts, but I still suspect they simply didn't know they were belting out the club anthem of United's biggest rivals. After all, it had become a commonplace tune sung nearly everywhere in Germany.

In fact, so many German fans were singing YNWA that the St. Pauli supporters grew tired of it. Barely six months after Leverkusen's televised rendition in Manchester, the tune was replaced as St. Pauli's pre-match anthem by the theme song of a 1957 film set in Hamburg.

So where does Dortmund fit in this tale? In all likelihood, Borussia's fans were inspired by St. Pauli to adopt the song, like everyone else in the Bundesliga. But maybe, just maybe, there was another impulse. In 1987, Dortmund met Celtic in the UEFA Cup. It was the height of the hooligan era and the Germans came up with a novel idea how to prevent trouble: a big party for both groups of supporters before the game. This original fan fest was a success and established a tradition. It also led to isolated friendships between Dortmund and Celtic fans.

Five years later -- in 1992, just when "You'll Never Walk Alone" was becoming hugely popular in St. Pauli -- Borussia played Celtic again. For my book about Dortmund's support, a Celtic fan called George Docherty told me: "I still recall this second party. It was many times better than the one in 1987. The city of Dortmund and the fans made us all feel so welcome."

Paul Larkin, the author of numerous Celtic books, told me: "When I was there in 1992, there was a fan fest in a big square in the city centre. Fans mingled freely and there were both Irish and German bands playing. I distinctly remember a really good, friendly atmosphere at the ground and a full all-fan version of 'You'll Never Walk Alone.'"

So it's not totally clear whether the song gained currency in Dortmund via St. Pauli, or if it was due to those peaceful parties. Either way, it happened because of Celtic, not Liverpool though the Reds still play a role in this story.

In May of 2001, half of Merseyside (or so it seemed) descended upon Dortmund for the UEFA Cup final between the Reds and Alavés, one of the most memorable matches in Liverpool history. The marvellous version of YNWA that rang around the ground that night put Dortmund's best efforts to shame; it reinforced the opinion of those Borussia fans who felt the tune was someone else's property and should be dropped from the repertoire.

But as fate would have it, only four months after the Alavés final Liverpool travelled to Dortmund yet again, for a Champions League match against Borussia. Before the game, a local singer walked onto the pitch. He had first cashed in on the popularity of "You'll Never Walk Alone" among Borussia's fans in late 1996, when he recorded a version with his mainstream pop band. Now he presented his solo version.

It was no match for Gerry Marsden (or the Rubbermaids) but the visiting Reds, perhaps in a lenient mood given the memories of that magical night in May, were courteous enough to not boo him down. Communal singing ensued that was more entertaining than the 90 scoreless minutes of football.

It's possible that the moment sealed YNWA's fate in Dortmund: the tune was here to stay. Actually, it's been here for so long now that even some of the song's detractors have made their peace with it and raise their scarves along with everyone else when it's played over the tannoy. The black-and-yellow version of YNWA is at the very least an impressive sight, but it also sounds good these days. With practice, the sweet silver song of a lark has become second nature to the Germans.

Two years ago, they even passed the acid test. In August 2014, Dortmund travelled to Liverpool for a pre-season friendly that the hosts went on to win 4-0. It was the first game between the two clubs since the 2001 encounters. Before kick-off, both sets of fans sang YNWA together to produce what Liverpool's official YouTube channel called an "amazing rendition."

The next one is just around the corner.